u/MartinPryceArtist

I painted this one square on purpose. Lake Louise is the most painted place in the country and I didn't want to make the postcard again — a square won't let your eye run off sideways the way a wide canvas does, so it holds you in one spot.

What actually caught me there wasn't the glacier at the head of the valley. It was the birds, a whole scatter of them sitting out on the open water.

The water took the most work. I laid the turquoise down in horizontal bands with a straight brush, let each band set, then dragged a nearly dry white across the middle so the light breaks instead of streaking. That broken line is what makes still water read as moving.

20" x 20", latex-acrylic on canvas, satin varnish. 2026.

Rundle runs for kilometres down the Bow Valley and every slope on it was cut to the same tilt — ice and water working the rock at one steady angle for a very long time. I work in latex-acrylic with straight and angled brushes rather than a knife, so it goes down as flat decisive shapes. The autumn scrub at the water is there to give away the scale.

A stand of white birch with the whole understory going up behind them. I work in latex-acrylic with straight and angled brushes rather than a knife, so it goes down as flat decisive shapes — up close it's marks, step back and it's woods. Autumn in the Alberta foothills lasts about two weeks, which is why I wanted one at this size.

I wanted to see what happened if I took the breathing room out of a floral. No vase, no table, no space around the stems, just blooms pressed edge to edge until the only background left was the turquoise showing through the gaps.

It is latex, worked with straight and angled brushes. No blending. Each petal takes its shape from the one beside it rather than from shadow, which is why it stays bright even where the colours go dark.

Happy to answer anything about the process. More of my work is at martinpryceartist.com if you want to see where this one sits alongside the rest.

I'm a painter in Calgary and this is one of my florals. I wanted the flowers to crowd right up to the edges with no horizon and no vase, just coral, cream, mint and chartreuse against lavender and deep shadow, with one red bloom holding the middle. It is all brushwork, straight and angled brushes in latex paint, so up close it reads as loose marks and from across the room the garden comes back. More of my work is at martinpryceartist.com if anyone is curious.