Getting back to Business





As the settling in continued, Fritz not only scouted out new motifs - an easy enough task, with the wide open prairie all around - but also got back to taking commissions for much needed income. Landscapes were certainly his passion, but he was also an excellent portrait artist. Fritz was incredibly skilled at capturing a person's character, and he also didn't mind when people watched him as he painted. Or created. Anyone who has watched him can attest to this fascinating way of creating his works. Paintings were never done from one corner to the next, but came into focus as a whole, for lack of better wording. And he used his whole self and often various tools and media to bring the subject into focus, and finally, into a finished painting. Although, as per quote from his booklet: a painting is never really finished, it only stops at good places.











Finding Motifs



Scan of Photo of Watercolor painting -
still retaining the mood?

Looking back, it's intriguing to think where and how the many works over the years were stored and transported. It's fantastic to discover the many early works, especially before there was the permanent home and studio in this 'new' country.


Watercolor of the neighboring Town of Battleford, Main Street



Gaining Perspective

With the many drives to Saskatoon for house hunting, and the daily walks to explore the town and area, the family was learning to love the many differences in not only lifestyle, but most certainly, in the large landscape. The open prairie was at times difficult to comprehend, coming from what seems like a very crowded Europe by comparison. The highway stretched for miles of 'nothing', the skies were huge and seemingly alive, with new interplays of clouds and sunlight every day, and civilization nearly absent, when reflecting back. Vast is a good descriptor of this new home.





First impressions sketched by Waltraude Stehwien



Also very memorable, was the perspective gained while driving through these vast prairie landscapes. A broad new perspective, as it applies symbolically, to starting a new life in a different world was part of nearly every day. And lessons in perspective, as they apply to the laws of drawing, were incredibly apparent with every roadtrip taken - lessons that Fritz taught often, how all lines eventually meet at the vanishing point.