FULL STREAM AHEAD

Canadian watercolorist and former rafting guide Don Barnes ( donbarnesart.com) has always loved painting subjects with flowing water, be it a river, a stream, or in this case, the world’s largest waterfall. “Seeing Victoria Falls for the first time was awe-inspiring,” the artist recalls of his visit to the one-and-a-half-kilometer-long cascade on the Zambia–Zimbabwe border in August 2013. “As my wife Lyn and I walked along the footpaths that afternoon, the power of the Zambezi River roaring over the cliffs of the gorge brought out everything I love about water.” Though named by the 19th-century Scottish explorer David Livingstone as a tribute to his queen, the waterfall is locally known as Mosi-oa-Tunya, or “the smoke that thunders,” which is a much better description of the mist-enshrouded spectacle. Barnes was especially drawn to a section called Rainbow Falls, shown here, where layers of ancient rock are exposed below the cascades whenever the Zambezi isn’t at its highest flow. For Barnes, working in watercolor gives him the chance to relive the excitement he once felt while rafting all over Western Canada. “A river is full of twists and turns filled with beauty and danger. Though I am no longer guiding, I experience the feeling every time I paint flowing water. I imagine myself out on the river trying to negotiate the path downstream.”