About Us

As a writer, illustrator and fine artist, I began my painting journey in 1994 in Vancouver, British Columbia and have worked tenaciously at my art practice ever since. I have had several shows and participated in a studio crawl on the Sunshine Coast in B.C. In 2015 I moved to Toronto, Ontario and in 2021 to London, Ontario where I completed writing and illustrating the first in a series of three Early Reader children's books - fictional accounts of the Holy Family's sojourn to Egypt.

As a former West Coast person, I have become a student of Eastern Canadian trees in this "Forest City."  I have focussed my art practice on trees to draw attention to their importance in our lives. Not only do trees sequester carbon but on a hot day the temperature in the shade of a tree can be as much as 10 degrees less than in the sun. Gazing upon a treed landscape lowers blood pressure. Walking in a forest balances our immune systems and elevates our mood. My paintings depict the Canadian landscape in all its seasons - the lush greens of Summer, the burnished hues of Fall, the understated quiet of winter limbs reaching toward the sky, and the intense bursts of Spring flowers awakening.  

I am a Mother of one adult son and Grandma to two Grandsons, 5 and 1.5 years. I live in a rental apartment in an over 100-year-old yellow brick house in London, Ontario, which I share with 2 rotating international university students. I nurture a cutting garden perennial flower border. The rear of the property is wild - an invitation for the creatures who frequent the garden: groundhogs, skunks, raccoons, wild turkey, squirrels, cottontail rabbits, chipmunks and a host of birds. The garden includes White Mulberry trees, a Sugar Maple, an old Ash tree, two ancient Weeping Willows, Common Thorn trees, Hackberry and Red Maple trees and a stately old Black Walnut tree. In Spring, Summer and Fall I paint plein aire in the garden or in nearby Springbank Park. Now that Winter is upon us, I have moved indoors to work from reference photographs. My website will continue to be tweaked into the early New Year. If you are interested in my work and have any questions, please reach out to me by email at: thisway2hope@gmail.com

Celia Muncaster