On November 3, Tony Cooper, Edward Walker, and I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see the J.M.W. Turner exhibition subtitled, Painting Set Free.

I was not impressed by his oil paintings but, he was a first and firsts make most of the mistakes. They were too... grand manor and allegorical.

I was inspired by his proto-impressionist watercolours which aside from being the first of the firsts where also the best.

By the available reproductions online; the academic, curatorial, photographic preference are for his oil paintings.

There are one or two online reproductions that almost depict the watercolour masterpieces but, they are much better in the show, even though, behind glass.

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Tony and I were planning a winterizing and sketching trip to his cabin in central Ontario for the next day. I packed a watercolour/ink/drawing sketch kit and a 23 megapixel camera kit with two lenses, 4 batteries, and 64 gigs of memory...