- Did you use a source for inspiration, then combine it with your own ideas to make it original?

I used several sources of inspiration in this study. One source was many of Bob Ross's paintings and tutorials on his Joy of Painting series. I also scoured Pinterest and Google looking for images, both photographs and paintings, that related to the scene I had developed in my head. However, to develop said scene, I got inspiration from the many times I have gone camping around Ontario's lakes and bays as well as detailed descriptions of Ontarian wilderness from the novel I am currently reading called "Paddy" by R. D. Lawrence.

- Did you learn new techniques or processes as part of the work for this project?

I learned many new techniques through this study. I learned how to use a pallet knife to create rocky mountains. I learned how to paint clouds in acrylic. I learned how to paint evergreens, bushes, and reflections. I learned how to mix the colours I had in order to create the colours I wanted. But I think the most important thing I learned was about light. How light hits snow, leaves, and especially water.

- How is this artwork about who you are or what you like?

Fall has always been one of my least favorite seasons. I mean it's the end of summer, the warning of coming winter, and the beginning of school. However, in this study, I wanted to explore another perspective. I had to think back to my camping trips in fall. I had to think back to the milder temperatures, the radiant beauty that the fall colours brought, the relieving lack of mosquitoes. In this study I tried to take all of the exciting and mesmerizing aspects of fall, especially in the wilderness, and put them onto canvas.

- How did you respond to challenges that occurred as you worked?

Out of all the studies I have embarked on this year, and I dare say in most other years as well, this has been by far the one with the most trial and error. Especially the error part. I was relatively new to acrylic going into this, and so, with my ambitious goal in sight, I was bound to make many mistakes. I will not list all of the challenges I encountered in this journey since that would take far too long, but I will name a few examples. I found the clouds in my first trial to be unrealistic, I found the trees to be too uniform, and I found the reflections of light on the water to be exceedingly challenging to master. In all of these examples, and many more unmentioned ones, I had a fairly simple response when faced with them; to try again. I was lucky enough to have access to a wealth of canvases and so, taking advantage of them, I made in total about four renditions of my scene, all focusing on changing or bettering a certain aspect.

- Did you consider how ideas would work before you tried them?

Absolutely! I chose a scene with several different components, namely the sky, the mountains, the trees, and the lake, and so I had to be very conscious of how I put them together. I ended up doing something of a layering system, where I split up the different components and painted them on one at a time in order of distance from the viewer, going from farthest to closest. I also made sure to analyse each component after I painted it and to ask for another person's opinion (namely my wonderful mother) before moving on.