These pictures were the first a Six Mile Lake that greatly interested me and that are still clear in my mind. Passing among the big trees and the saplings on sunny mornings I sometimes stopped to consider what was before me, trying to translate the exciting mystery of the bare trees and branches into painting language. At first I used the photographer’s method when making sketches, moving about until I got an uninterrupted view of whatever seemed important in the mass of detail in front of me. This didn’t seem to work, the mystery and thrill was gone. Then I noticed that usually, when I was moved by a scene, before I changed my position to get a clearer view there was often a branch or sapling right in front of my eyes, vague and out of focus and hiding a part of the material beyond. I tried using these almost formless shapes, not of interest in themselves, but merely distracting the attention from what was beyond. It worked. The effect of these obstructions to a clear view was as exciting in the picture as in nature. There was not only the obscuring of shapes, the interrupted vision that stirred the picture maker as well as the syrup maker to effort, there was also a change in texture from the scarcely defined very near shapes to the clear-cut farther ones.

David B. Milne, Autobiography, National Archives of Canada