The work of a Bragg Creek nature artist has been selected for Ducks Unlimited Canada’s (DUC) National Art Portfolio.
John Zacharias’ watercolour painting “Morning Mist” is one of just four pieces DUC selected for its 2020 portfolio, from hundreds of submissions.
“It’s always an honour to be recognized for something you do,” the 75-year-old painter said. “Having been with Ducks Unlimited for a few years, I really appreciate it, considering the competition that’s out there.”
DUC’s National Art Portfolio was established in 1986, according to the wetland conservation association’s website. The portfolio gives Canadian artists a highly visible platform to share conservation-inspired artwork, while raising funds for some of the most important and fragile ecosystems on the planet.
“To be selected by those guys – it’s a good thing to know they appreciate what I create,” Zacharias said. “To put it out on such a national theatre, it’s an honour for me and I appreciate it.”
According to Zacharias, “Morning Mist” depicts a serene setting, with a red canoe sitting near the shore of a lake near Jasper, Alta., early on a hazy morning. He said he painted it based on a series of photographs he had taken of the area, as well as from memory.
“The marshy part [on the left] was kind of unique when I shot it, with the rivulets coming down,” he said. “It was kind of an unusual reaction to a bit of a breeze, so I caught that, which was a little different.”
Zacharias, who has been painting since the early 1970s, said his style balances elements of higher realism with a slight touch of impressionism – some aspects of his paintings have more detail than others.
“Generally, watercolour is seen as a difficult medium,” he said. “Some artists will paint full detail for every aspect of it, but I sort of blend it.”
He added he tends to shy away from projects that don’t offer him a significant and time-consuming challenge.
“At the end of the painting, it’s nice to stand back and say I mastered – or at least mastered what I wanted to achieve – a difficult subject, like chrome, glass, water and highly textured items,” he said.
Such textures are apparent in “Morning Mist,” he noted, in the pebbles that lie under the shallow water’s surface in the bottom of the painting.
“It’s a lot of study, research and practice,” he said. “It’s trial and error to make [the pebbles] look like they’re under water like that. And it’s a glazing technique as well, to choose the right glaze to make them appear like they’re not on the surface.”
Though born in Saskatoon, Sask., Zacharias has spent most of his life in Alberta, living in Taber and Sherwood Park before moving to Bragg Creek three years ago. He said he relocated to be closer to the mountains, as well as his roots in Taber.
As a lifelong resident of the prairies, he said the importance of environmental conservation and land preservation is a common theme of his artwork.
“We’ve watched some of the prairies be taken over by mining or whatever else,” he said. “And water, of course, is very essential to the essence of the land itself. I know Ducks Unlimited really promotes water and how important it is to the environment.
“More and more, you see it disappearing. It’s very hard to see that. So I, like a lot of artists, try to preserve it – if not through actually doing it, then by bringing it into people’s homes and reminding them that it’s out there and it shouldn’t be taken away.”
