I’ve always loved extraverted colours and strong, simple, masculine shapes. But I also like the brooding qualities of greys, velvets and things that obscure and veil. These images and feelings hover in the background when I design, and I find, the more I design, the more these elements are pushing their way into the foreground. I’ve been thinking about these influences, which seem to be deep-rooted, and it dawned on me the other day, when I was asked what my favourite art is, that I knew exactly where these afinities came from. And this does have a great deal to do with being a Canadian, and having spent my early years in the wild areas of wind-blown Newfoundland, and in the countryside and by the lakes of Quebec and Ontario. So, in case you haven’t had the experience of the art of the great Canadian painters known as the Group of Seven, as well as Tom Thompson and Emily Carr, let me introduce you to the people who’ve coloured my design perspective.
Tom Thompson “Autumn Birches”
Tom Thompson “Jack Pine”
Tom Thompson “West Wind”
Tom Thompson “Red Maple”
Lawren Harris “Algoma”
Lawren Harris “Emarald Lake”
Lawren Harris “Red Maples”
Franklin Carmichael “Mirror Lake”
J.E.H. MacDonald “Mist Fantasy”
A.Y. Jackson “Nellie Lake”
A.J. Casson “White Pine”
Emily Carr “Blue Sky”
Emily Carr “Tree in Autumn”
Emily Carr “Indian Hut”
Emily Carr “Indian Church”
Emily Carr “Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky”
Whatever you do, celebrate your unique point of view.
Adrienne At Home 
Wow, this collection of work is stunningly beautiful..I had not heard of them, and then as coincidences run in life, I have just seen there is an exhibition featuring Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven at the Dulwich Picture Gallery from Oct…so inspired by your post, I will go, and sure you will too!
Hi Sue
Thanks for letting me know about the exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in October. Shall we go together?
All of the Group of Seven, as well as Emily, painted with a ferocity that evokes the natural landscapes they depict. You feel the sharpness of the brisk, cold wind in Casson’s; the moist, heavy, humid forest air in Carr’s ‘Blue Sky’; and the clarity of the sound of a running brook on a bright, Indian Summer day in October in Thompson’s ‘Red Maple’. I vacation every year just north of Algonquin Park in the ‘Voyageur Country’ that marks a large part of his work, and I live in the type of home (not far from where Thomspon was born) that complements and encompasses some of those Arts and Crafts philosophies in design that are so evident in their work.