An Artist’s Journey and How MapifyPro Helped

Into The Arctic

A little over a decade ago I started my career pursuing the idea of becoming a professional illustrator. I had a small amount of luck, landing a few book covers with Random House, and even got to draw some pop-tarts for Kellogg’s Cereal. Go me. Eventually however, I found my niche in web design, and then of course, plugin design and so forth. Along the way, and in part due to my own path taken, I’ve always been amazed by artists who stay the course and follow their original passions. Living as an artist is tough, but it’s so thoroughly rewarding.

Cory Trepanier is one of those artists that I’m in awe of, and I’m equally enamored not only by mastery of oils, but by the fact that he creates these amazing images on location. Yes, that means that when he chose the title “Into the Arctic” for his site, he literally meant that he hiked his way to these amazing locations, plopped down with his supplies, and got to work on tapping into a deep connection with nature. And the results speak for themselves:

“Where The Rivers Run Wild”, 38″ x 24″, oil on linen The Firth River, Ivvavik National Park, Yukon, Western Canadian Arctic STATUS: Private collection. © Copyright Cory Trepanier.

The stunning details seriously makes me want to break out my old art supplies. You should do yourself a favor and head to Cory’s Website to see more, and to listen to his inspiring story. Here’s a snippet of what to expect:

Cory Trepanier is a Canadian artist whose passion is exploring, painting and filming in raw wilderness landscapes. He has directed, edited, written, hosted, and even shot much of  his films, which include A Painter’s Odyssey, Into The Arctic, and Canadian Screen Award-nominated Into The Arctic II.

His marriage of landscape painting, film, and wild places has led him to tackle challenges few encounter, including: a knee-punishing trek on Ellesmere Island with a 120lb backpack filled with painting, filming, and camping gear; ravaging hoards of mosquitoes eating him while painting at the edge of the highest waterfall in the world above the Arctic Circle;being surrounded by Arctic wolves considering him as their next prey; canoeing up to an immense iceberg to paint it from the unique floating point of view; and painting Mount Logan, Canada’s highest mountain, from the Kluane ice fields 10,000 feet from the largest non-polar ice fields on earth—all for the sake of his art.

Trépanier has appeared on Canada AM, Global’s The Morning Show, CBC Radio, as a feature story in Global’s 16×9:The Bigger Picture, and in the Toronto Star, among others. To find out more about Cory and his endeavors, read up on him here for the full story.

How MapifyPro Helped

Cory’s passion is very much rooted in connecting art with nature. In that respect, when creating his website, he wanted visitors to join him on his Journey Into the Arctic as if they too were sojourning along into those icy landscapes. To show the depth of his journey, Cory chose to use MapifyPro in combination with PrettyRoutesPro to document his numerous milestones, painting locations, video journals, and the paths he took along the way. Using a series of color-coded icons to keep things organized by the year in which they took place, and what format—video or photos— Cory plotted each location of his expedition, allowing him to capture not only some beautiful photos, but to showcase the paintings he create on the EXACT location where he created them. This is easily one of our favorite uses of MapifyPro, and one we were especially excited seeing put to use: To capture art from and within nature. It gives me chills and sort of brings my own work, now in software instead of the arts, full circle. As shown in the image to the left, you’ll see that Cory was creative-yet-concise in his use of icons to make it easier to group each episode and video journal, as well as showcasing the exact year in which they occurred via a simple color system. All things very easy to achieve with MapifyPro, and again a creative use of the plugin that also enhances the user experience is always something I love to see.

Ideally, you’ll want to visit the map yourself and dig into the fulexperience. You’ll find wonderful gems of insight into Cory’s process, and the challenges therein, within each Into the Arctic episode, like this one that shows how nature can be a bit uncooperative at times:

Cory also implemented PrettyRoutesPro, the MapifyPro add-on that let’s you plot routes in addition to locations. In doing so, he created a virtual road-trip to showcase a vast, cross-country adventure into the Canadian north. Again documenting his travels and challenges, Cory highlighted each moment with journal-style mini-documentaries.

Cory sets off on his journey to the north.

With PrettyRoutesPro, Cory can continue to add more routes, each with their own colors, locations, and so on, and he can combine the features of MapifyPro alongside PrettyRoutesPro to craft self-guided tours, much like we’ve done on the home page for my trip to Maui. In closing, looking back at how we helped Cory has brought up a long-lost drive to get back to creating. I don’t mean software (though don’t worry, we’ll continue to troubleshoot and update MapifyPro and all of our software), but as someone who was once so connected to nature, it inspires me to dig back into a life of adventure.

We’re hoping that Cory’s work on Into The Arctic does the same for all of you too.

Until then, you seriously need to visit his site, visit his online store, and share his work across the webs. This guy’s work needs to be seen. Enjoy more of his work below and join my marveling at how he’s most definitely achieved his intent of capturing nature in its rawest form, as vast and as epically beautiful as the world itself.

 

 

More of Cory’s Work

 

“Sundown at Wilberforce”, 45″ x 19″, oil on linen Wilberforce Falls,West of Bathurst Inlet, Nunavut, South Central Canadian Arctic STATUS: Private collection. © Copyright Cory Trepanier.

“Great Glacier (study)”, 16″ x 6″, oil on linen Coronation Fiord, Auyuittuq National Park, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Eastern Canadian Arctic STATUS: Private collection. © Copyright Cory Trepanier.

Start Your Own Adventure

Visit Into The Arctic here, or to start creating your own adventures, get yourself a copy of the MapifyPro or go big with our bundles to tell your story.

FAQ

What is PrettyRoutesPro for?

PrettyRoutesPro, a MapifyPro add-on, lets you plan routes other than locations. You can also take virtual journeys to showcase extensive cross-country adventures

What are some other functions of PrettyRoutesPro?

By combining MapifyPro features with PrettyRoutesPro, you can create self-contained tours..

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