Silence 30 50x50" oil/cold wax on panel © 2013 Janice Mason Steeves When I return from a journey, I let the experience wash through me, not knowing what effect it will have on my work. I just begin to work, and after I have a few paintings under my belt, I stand back to see what's happening. Then I realize that it could be a colour I saw that influenced me or the lines on the standing stones, or even something someone said to me. I always find that I am slow to really settle into a trip, especially when it requires that I paint. For me, painting is about place; my relationship with the place I am in. In his new book: The Old Ways, A Journey on Foot , Robert MacFarlane says that "the two questions we should ask of any strong landscape are these: firstly, what do I know when I am in this place that I can know nowhere else? And then, vainly, what does this place know of me that I cannot know of myself?" I painted in the beautif...