Creating Paintings About my Canadian Travels – Alberta Inspires

Travelling Canada coast to coast to coast is something that I have been obsessed with for nearly two decades now. My paintings of Alberta are varied and show the provinces dramatically picturesque landscapes as stories. From the snowy Rocky Mountains to the canyons, lakes, fields and flowers of the prairie, these paintings offer a glimpse into the story of Alberta.

From Waterton Lakes, to Banff, Jasper, and the icefields parkway – Alberta is a wonderland no matter the time of year. These momentous landscapes have inspired countless Canadian artists over the years including the legendary Lawren Harris, whose spiritual, sculpted mountains helped define how we see the Canadian wilderness, and A.Y. Jackson, who translated rugged terrain into rhythm and movement. Their work lingers in the air out there, not as something to imitate, but as a kind of visual echo – reminding me that these landscapes have always been storytellers.

When I travel through Alberta, I am not just observing the land – I am collecting it. In quick sketches made roadside, in photographs snapped between stretches of highway, in notes scribbled in the margins of a day, I begin to gather the fragments that will later become paintings. Back in my studio on Vancouver Island, these fragments resurface, rearranged and reimagined into compositions that balance memory with imagination.

There is something cinematic about Alberta. The scale of it. The way the light cuts across a field at the edge of a storm, or how a mountain face can feel both immovable and fleeting depending on the hour. I am drawn to these contrasts – the quiet and the dramatic, the vastness and the intimate detail. My work leans into this tension, often simplifying forms and heightening colour to create a sense of place that feels both familiar and slightly dreamlike.

These 10 paintings are not just landscape paintings, they are portraits of experience. They hold the feeling of standing small against something immense, of driving for hours with nothing but sky and possibility ahead, of discovering moments that feel both deeply personal and universally Canadian. For collectors, these Alberta works offer more than a view, they offer a connection. Whether you have travelled these roads yourself or simply feel drawn to the idea of them, each painting becomes a way to hold a piece of that experience. A memory, a place, a story translated through paint and carried forward into your own space.

10 Paintings of Alberta

A low angle perspective painting of a lake in the Rocky Mountains of Canada. Glacial lake and mountains in the distance.

The road to Red Rock in Waterton Lakes affords the road tripper wondrous views from roadside wildflowers to rocky mountains

The Three Sisters range is are peaks you can view from the town of Canmore, Alberta. Like many of the rocky mountains peaks, they are distinctive and cast a human-like presence over the town below. Giants of the Canadian Rockies.

Lake Minnewanka or ‘Water of the Spirits’ (Nakoda) is a stunning glacial lake in Banff National Park. You can definitely feel the spirits when you are in this majestic location with bleach roots of expired trees on the shoreline.

There is a place in Jasper, Canada called Spirit Island where you may find a red canoe and an elusive moose or two. This painting is a vivid Canadian pop art rendering expressing the effervescent wilderness of the National Parks in Alberta, Canada

A moment in time frozen seen on the drive into Jasper National Park. It is fall and colours and light create imagery inside the curves and outlines of the mountain. A red car flies towards us, no sound, just speed, the future of road tripping through Alberta.

The tale of a polar bear king exploring Canada, looking for a new place to call home. In this painting the polar bear king is atop a peak in the Rockies, turquoise lake below. He balances his crown on his nose as he stretches’ high into the sky, what a show-off!.

A pop art style painting of a great peak in Alberta, this is Mt. Temple. Supersaturated blues and greens with peach undertones in the sky. Highlights abstract forms within the mountain itself.

A spiritual landscape at Lake Louise. A Blackfoot tribal chief in regalia and headdress stands at the head vantage point of Lake Louise, towards the glacier. A canoe of red with name inscribed ‘Imagine’. A stack of rocks that resembles a person in the foreground, another red canoe in the distance. Two eagles fly high in the sky above the vortex point of the glacier. The lake is depicted in summer, with tropical turquoise colours and uncovered mountains and trees. Imagine Lake Louise, imagine Peace.

Two scarlet red canoes meet at sunset, on a lake in Canada. In the distance two snow peaked mountain ranges, and a swoosh of clouds. The tree line bordering the lake sparkles with shades of emerald and lime green. Reflections on a perfect moment shared in nature. Perhaps a skinny dip? where are those canoe lovers.

As I continue my journey across Canada, Alberta remains a place I return to often, both on the map and on the canvas.