Award Winning Artist Specializing in Contemporary Wildlife Art

That Dawg, available in framed, canvas, as well as under $100 paper print.  

For several weeks now, I have been rebuilding my website in order to have it align more with the art I now create.  I've been quietly rebuilding my little corner of the internet and also slowly been constructing a fine art print store. 

Why now?

I wanted the print store to reflect where my art is today, so I needed to build up new collections.  I have had several changes these past years with what I create, how I create, as well as vision challenges which are now greatly improved.  This print store is part of a larger vision I have, and not a rushed project.

Original works will always remain my focus and not every painting will become a print.  Prints are another way people who enjoy my work can enjoy my art in their homes for a price that makes them accessible.  Prices vary depending on whether these are framed, or canvas prints, and size.  I also have a collection for prints under $100 CAD so that anyone can have access to a wonderful collection. These are open edition, and eventually I'll have signed limited editions available. 

I need to also point out that I searched for a very long time for a service that offered high quality printing on archival quality materials.  These ship print on demand from a renown printing partner, and they ship to many places worldwide.  

As stated, not every piece will become a print.  Each piece is chosen intentionally.  They are designed with collectors in mind, in various sizes and formats to allow people to chose what best suits their needs.  I do not have giant prints at this time though.  Very large prints require a whole new level of photography, which is challenging, and small pieces do not make good large prints.  You just should not turn an 11 x 14 into a giant print.  It won't work well and quality is lost.

These prints are offered via a Shopify store front too.  While my FASO website is the best for selling my originals and having a gallery wesbsite created especially for artists, the print service didn't meet my needs. By building a separate Shopify store, I'm able to offer prints worldwide and in different formats and platforms.  It's just a more convenient service for me as well as clients.  

Prints also make wonderful gifts for art lovers.  The framed prints come ready to hang, and so do the canvas prints.  Prints under $100 require framing.  

This is a new chapter in my art career and my website nw reflects my artistic direction more clearly.  This print store is one more step in that evolution and I am so excited to continue adding new paintings and stories to my blog.  I had to step back from a lot these past years because of my vision, but am so very happy to be able to return to my art.  It's also why my art is changing and I am now focusing on my originals, especially with a focus on northern wildlife since being from the north is a huge part of who I am.  Time is short! We're all gifted with something, and having faced the threat last year of giving up painting, I am grateful for this second sight, so to speak, and plan on creating meaningful art, art that I need to create.  There are stories and things I need to express in my work, and I've got no time to waste. 

I've always believed that art should find the people it's meant for, and it has.  Oh boy, it sure has! And in pretty wild ways too, pardon the pun.  Originals will remain at the heart of what I do, but I'm so happy to finally offer another way to bring these stories into your home.  Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me and I hope you keep enjoying art.  

Carole xo 

Not Ours
30 x 30 oil, Carole Rodrigue ,Copyright 2026

 I’ve been incredibly inspired to paint more black bears lately.  Having lived in the North most of my life, they are often around, even in the city.  They come looking for food.  As urban areas expand, they lose more of their habitat and feeding areas.  

Black bears are a reminder that they have always been here. The first people to walk these forests are gone. The trappers are gone too. The loggers, the miners, the farmers who cleared fields by hand and built homes from trees cut nearby. Most have become names on weathered stones, their stories carried away by time.

Yet the bear remains. He is strong, he is resilient. Long before roads crossed the North and long after they crack and disappear beneath the forest floor, bears will continue to follow ancient paths through cedar swamps, blueberry barrens, and rocky ridges.

We often speak of nature as though it belongs to us. We draw lines on maps, build fences, and mark property boundaries. But the bear knows nothing of deeds or ownership. It moves through the landscape as it always has, answering only to the seasons. Perhaps that is the lesson.

The land is our home, but it is not ours alone. For a brief moment, we share it with those who came before us and those who will remain after we’re gone. This bear is a reminder of that quiet truth. We all belong here, we all share these spaces, but they’re not ours.  We are stewards, not owners. The forests will forget us after we’re gone, so will the cities.  In the end, none of it really belongs to us. Not Ours.  

And being French, you know I just had to put a twist on that title.  I kinda like it.  I hope you do too, as well as the painting.  

This is now available at the Backstreet Gallery in the French River area in Ontario.  

Furley, a now 31 year old bear I painted. Furley lives east the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary.  

I've been an artist my whole life.  Since I was a child, I've had a love for dropping colours on surfaces, papers, canvases.  I've always enjoyed painting animals too, and I think it was inevitable that I would end up painting wildlife also. The North was writing my story long before I ever picked up a paint brush.

My ancestors came from Quebec around the turn of the century, some before, and some around the 1900s.  They came from places such as La Prairie and area, as well as St Clet, Vaudreuil-Soulanges, and other areas.  Most of my ancestors decended from fur traders, going back as far as the 1600s.  

These men ran the woods all over what is now Canada and the US, following the waterways and corridors that facilitated travel to areas such as Illinois, Michillimackinac, and even further west where they hunted and traded. They were also known in French as voyageurs and coureurs de bois, wood runners. It's fair to say that for generations, they knew the bush and they knew wildlife, and eventually in the 1800s, my ancestors settled into agriculture and other trades before making their way up north to Chelmsford, Ontario, aka part of Rayside Balfour,  just outside Sudbury when the railroads opened up opportunity at a time when hardships struck some areas of Quebec.  Rayside-Balfour are comprised of two towns, Azilda and Chelmsford. Azilda was also named after my 2nd great-grandmother, Azilda Brisebois Belanger, married to Joseph Belanger.   I could expand on other family related stories about the area as well as Joe and Azilda, but this is an art story.  

Some of my early memories growing up were of being around age 5 or 6 and running out to the woods behind where we lived, and picking blueberries every morning, rain or shine, to eat with my breakfast.  This was the early 70s and times were different then. I was really one of those feral Gen X kids, as we all were where I lived, running wild and free. There wasn't much to fear back then, except for maybe some bears, but luckily I avoided those.

The hill where we lived, inhabited by relatives, my dad's cousins and their families, was called Blueberry Hill, and the rocks back there were abundant with wild blueberries.  Sudbury and the north is known for having wild blueberries growing everywhere in the woods and on our black mountains. I have early memories of sitting on a rock surrounded by tall ferns on rainy days, -remember, I was small, so ferns were tall- gazing at the rain drops dangling from the leaves, smelling the damp pines and forest floor,  just being still, observing. Sometimes I'd hear something crack, like twigs, and thought maybe a bear was nearby.  I was very creative, even as a child, and would fabricate stories about talking bears which I told my mother, grandmother, and aunt, and had them laughing at my wild tales and bear adventures. 

Many of us picked blueberries, and all the kids played unsupervised outside back then.  It was safe, and everyone knew each other. As a young girl, I spent most of my time running and playing in the woods in the summer, sometimes with friends, other times alone, and in the winter we kids would go sliding down those black rocks on toboggans or crazy carpets, and we were always black and blue with bruises The cold didn't bother us.  We'd spend hours outside playing, building forts, making snow angels, the boys playing street hockey.  In the winter, our cheeks were red from cold, in the summer, our skin bitten by mosquitoes and black flies, a Northern Ontario reality. Summer here can get brutally hot and muggy, and the winters deadly cold, with temps dropping as low as -40 Celsius. Those were the days when I'd be indoors colouring.

I don't even remember where I took this photo, but it's a typical Northern Ontario winter scene, with the wind bent tree, which is seen at any northern lake.

When I was little, next door to where we lived,  my dad's Aunt Edna had a giant crab apple tree where we enjoyed scavenging the small sour-sweet fruit, and we were warned in the fall to be careful and watch out for bears, which would often venture to the tree to snack on the apples that carpeted the ground.  Bears were just something you were always aware of in the summer and fall.

As an adult, I moved to the St Charles area, and then the West Arm of Lake Nipissing, where we were surrounded by farms and forest.  The first week after we'd moved there, I was awakened one night by a pack of yipping coyotes in the trail out back. Once in a while you'd wake up in the morning to see a deer or two in the front yard, or across the road in the neighbour's field. There were a couple of times when you'd hear the wolves howling in the distance, and these were goosebump inducing moments you never tired of. We also had a fox that would come to my window after dinner and wait for scraps. One time, he walked along with me down the road for a bit, probably thinking I had food, and left when it realized I didn't. This is not one of my childhood tales either.

Our house was sandwiched between two neighbours who were brothers, Ti-Pouce and Ti-Noir. These nicknames are as French as it gets, and these men were used to the bush and bears.  They were small and feared nothing and if they did, they didn't let you see it.  I fully admit to doing pretty red-neck things like going to the dump on summer evenings with Ti-Noir, who was like a father to us, and my ex-husband, and we'd watch bears enjoying a meal.  Then Ti-Noir had been confronted by the biggest bear a time or two as he'd had the nerve to walk close enough to them as it ate, but he wasn't afraid.  He was a tiny man, but he'd raise his arms up high and just yell at the bear, and it would back down.  I'd call him the bear whisperer. Ti-Noir had also taught us how to survive a night in the woods if you got lost, how to make a bed, and how to stay warm without fire.  Men like him are not the norm, but in the smaller towns, there are still a lot of guys like him who understand nature and kept the lessons taught to them by their ancestors. They are living treasures of the past. It has also dawned on me recently, that many of my ancestors were probably very much like Ti-Noir and his brother in character and spirit.

While many in the city here aren't as aware of these things, when you live on the outskirts, you quickly learn that driving at night around these parts can be dangerous.  I narrowly missed hitting moose a few times, which are the same colour as the asphalt at night, as well as bears and deer.  Living in the country, one learned to scan the road sides for green eyes or anything that reflected.  Hitting a moose can be deadly, so quick driving reflexes are a good skill to have living in the north. 

Me on Lake Nipissing.

Every spring living out there, I would always get excited at my first bear sightings.  I would always see one in a field, as well as the geese as they arrived.  This was when you knew spring was arriving. One watched nature more than the weather channel.

When I moved to the West Arm, it was to a place I camped at when I was young. My relatives had land and several cottages around were owned by relatives, and their relatives.  It was heaven, and a place I'd always loved and now miss very much and regret leaving.  The first week after we'd moved there, I was greeted by a congregation of loons on the water in front of my house one late afternoon as they were gathering for the southern fall migration.  I'm not exaggerating if I say there must've been between seventy-five to a hundred of them, and what a rare and special sight that was! It was the only time I'd witnessed such an event and the following years we lived there, they never did this again on the waters in front of our house.  And to hear them on hot summer nights when the windows were open, with a cool breeze coming in off the lake, and the haunting loon calls would begin across the lake is a sound that is so beautiful and I was always overjoyed to hear each time. It's a very northern sound.

Canada has so many beautiful areas.  I'm fortunate to have been born in one of them. The changing seasons, hot summers, cold winters with beautiful landscapes, colourful autumns, the wildlife literally coming in your yard.  Yes, black bears even roam the city here, as do foxes and coyotes.  We know to not leave out bird feeders or any food source, unless you want to attract bears.  But these are the things that shaped me.

The infamous soon to be gone Sudbury smoke stack from the mine which has helped feed many local families, was a beacon as you arrived to town, and also seemed to play the role of sentinel, watching over the city.

The Sudbury area has so many amazing artists, probably created by our long winters. We get about two real summer months before you feel the cool nights arriving in late August. Summer is brief, the winters long.  It's not for the faint of heart or weak spririted people, but it is an inspiring place.

We are fortunate to be surrounded with areas like Lake Nipissing, the French River, Killarney, Manitoulin Island, the La Cloche Mountains, Onaping Falls.  This is an area where due to so much time spent indoors as well as the magical landscape and wildlife, creatives are bred.  Kids draw and paint, learn to write, build things, learn music.  Many future artists began here. Some played sports, others created. Long winters gave us time to create.

A photo I took in 2025 of the Onaping River High Falls from the AY Jackson Lookout.

Greater Sudbury and area is also the landscape of artists.  The areas mentioned above attracted Group of Seven members who came and painted some of our unique landscapes. A.Y. Jackson was here.  That's something that should be graffitied or carved on some log somewhere here. (FYI, I am not condoning vandalism)

The famous "Spring on the Onaping River" by AY Jackson of the Group of Seven. A closely similar view of the photo I took, seen above.

To summarize, this is the landscape I grew up in, the world that surrounded me growing up, and to this day.  It's this area that helped make me an artist, as well as many others.  Most paint landscapes, I paint animals.  Looking back, I don't think I had a choice.  I've been influenced and shaped by the forests, the widlife, the winters, the solitude and isolation, the northern lights, the people, the stories, and the people that came before, the ancestors who had the woods and wildlife run through their blood.  I think that runs through my blood too.

Scene from my front door this past March when we had the storm of the century.  When we woke up the next morning, the snow was waist high. It took well over a week for many side streets to be cleared.  These are times when you have no choice but to accept, go with the flow, help neighbours, stay calm, make art or read a book.

Throughout the years, I've painted many subjects, still life, pets, the odd landscape, but I always come back to animals and especially wildlife.  The black bears have a special spot in my heart.  They've been with me since childhood, and before, when considering my ancestors. My art has evolved over the years, I'm now incorporating more abstraction in some pieces, some symbolism at times, more personal meaning. I have such exciting deeply personal work planned.  The North remains underneath it all, the bears, moose, wolves, other creatures, as well as resilience and the love of solitude and being in nature whenever I can, just being silent, observing, just like the little girl I once was used to do. 

The North gave me my subject matter, but more importantly, it gave me the way I see the world. Every painting I create began here, it began a long time ago, before I was born, and it began with that little girl that sat by the ferns under the pines on rainy days, quietly taking everything in.  This is where this artist was born.  

Me, painting at Micheal's Bay on Manitoulin Island in 2019.

Missed Me, one of my original oil and mixed media pieces, inspired by the hunting stories I've heard throughout my life sitting in small town restaurants and taverns.  Stories of the one that got away are pretty common in small northern towns.

One of my many photos of northern lights, this one taken in 2024.

To bring a piece of this resilient Northern spirit into your own home, explore a collection of original pieces here in my gallery.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions regarding available works.