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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Playful painter Bonnie Fournier uses her art to document the beauty of the North.

This is part of a series of local fish painted by artist Bonnie Fournier. - photo courtesy of Bonnie Fournier

She paints in series, depicting dozens of varieties of Subarctic and Arctic flora, butterflies, fish and examples of local architecture, including the Wildcat Cafe and the shacks along Ragged Ass Road.

"I started painting heritage buildings about 15 years ago," she said. "I grew up here and I saw a lot of the heritage buildings were disappearing."

This month Fournier is working on an acrylic painting of a houseboat and a portrait of the abandoned "house of horrors" near the base of Pilot's Monument. That painting contrasts new development in Old Town with the crooked, cracked and decaying shack.

"Old Town is very colourful and historical and it's a really interesting part of town," she said.

Fournier has accumulated about 60 paintings of Northern flower species she plans to showcase in a book in the near future.

In the meantime, her work is displayed at Down To Earth Gallery in Old Town, the Northern Frontiers Visitors Centre and tomorrow at the fourth annual Christmas Art and Craft Sale at Northern United Place from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.