1470 Whitefish River Cottages

The sun was starting to emerge from behind the turbulent stratocumulus streets. It felt good on my hands so I decided to paint from the Charlton Lake Camp waterfront. This is the view looking just a bit south toward the boat launch. The cottage is tucked onto a narrow slice of land at the base of a steep quartzite cliff. The green metal roof of the cottage sparkled when the sun was out.
Oils on medium burnt sienna oil tinted foundation.

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1457 Lily Pads and Lilacs

I was accosted by juvenile mallard ducks as soon as I got out of my Subaru-Paint-Mobile to paint from Douglas Fluhrer Park. They had obviously had great success mooching in the past. They were not so lucky today. I didn't have any suitable food even if I had been so inclined.
The rain held off for a while as I laid the sketch in. The tower of St Mark's Church us kept near the intersection of the top-left thirds. The southerly winds where shaping the cumulus clouds that were embedded in the streets. It gradually started to rain harder and harder, I had to grind the paint into the weave of the canvas. I had the colours laid in by noon at which time I was drenched. I called it a day.
The ducks and a few Canada geese were dabbling in the lily pads and duckweed along the shoreline. The distant shore of Barriefield was covered in lilac bushes along with trees and houses. This explains the title which came to me as I scratched my name in the paint. The canvas was wet too.

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1493 Rockport Roofs

I was painting with Bob Heddens art group in Rockport. Bob formed the Plein Air Painters Thousand Islands Region (PAPTIR) group in April 2009 to promote Plein Air Painting in the region. From May through October Bob organizes an event every second Wednesday and generally have four to seven artists. Events were sponsored by the Thousand Island Bridge Authourity-Boldt Castle (Alexandria Bay NY) in 2009 and 2011. On this particular Wednesday a band of heavy rain was approaching along a cold front so I figured that we would get soaked by 11 am.

I painted on the wharf with Bob and Cheryl. I selected a rather complex view of roofs and wharfs/ The gray sky gradually darkened over the following two hours. The Canadian flag stood out against the darkening skies - as did the brilliant fall colours. Bands of light showers swung across Rockport with a few spits of liquid but the heavier rain arrived by 11:15 am. I bailed in order to buy groceries in Brockville.
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1491 Franklin at Church

There was a beautiful garden of sunflowers on the southeast corner of this intersection. This has nothing to do with the Franklin Expedition ... although Franklin probably did go to church.
Oils on burnt sienna oil tinted foundation on commercial canvas - 11 x 14 (inches) Started 3:00 pm Sunday September 28th, 2014.

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1490 George Street

This is the first demo for the “Special Workshop- Classes with Phil Chadwick”. I wanted to keep it simple to illustrate that one does not have to include every detail to do an acceptable interpretation of even a complex looking subject matter. This is George Street looking southwesterly.Art is all about having fun in the moment. Everyday is a fresh chance to experiment and learn something.

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1489 Wilson Street Dawn

I stood outside the Wilson Street Studio in Markham waiting for the participants to arrive for the “Special Workshop- Master Classes with Phil Chadwick”. It was a beautiful sunrise and I figured that I had time to at least get a sketch laid in and warm up for the busy day ahead. The light was streaming over the buildings of Main Street at 7:30 am. The light and shadows were changing quickly so I had to work fast. I pretty much had it completed by the time participants arrived after 9:30 am. I was actually happier with this sketch about 30 or 40 strokes before the participants arrived. I wish they had arrived a bit sooner and stopped me from overworking this.

The following is what Keith Thirgood wrote in support of this Special Workshop which he organized. “September 28, Phil Chadwick is coming to Toronto to do a master class on his approach to landscape painting. Phil's style is much like a mature Tom Thomson. In this seven hour workshop, Phil will show you how to get the effects he achieves. How to deal with brushes. Why to choose certain colors. How he makes the decisions he makes. As this is a master class, it's assumed you understand about lights and shadows, values, color mixing, finding the big shapes in a scene, etc.. This session is entirely on Phil's technique.”

I actually kept painting until the last people got tired at 6:30 pm. It was a fun day and the weather was great.

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1488 Charlton Lake Camp Sunrise

The fog was nearly as thick this morning. I did not have much time to paint and the sun was rising fast! I set up on the north side of the Charlton Lake Camp dock and painted looking north. Lori Murton saw the painting and referred to the obvious red maple as Laura's tree.
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1487 Afternoon at Frood Lake Outlet

I spent some time investigating the area by car over the lunch hour. The high sun angles are not conducive to painting. There was no place better than where I had spent the morning. So I returned to the Outlet of Frood Lake and spent a wonderful afternoon painting the rocks and the way the wind played with the colours of the lake. There were no biting insects and the weather was almost too perfect - if that is possible.

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1486 Proud Home

This has to be the home of someone important. The view would have been overlooking the turbulent pool beneath the first rapids of the outlet from Frood Lake. The two storey home had a basement and was made of the finest materials for the day. The exterior was red brick but I did not paint in all of the grout lines... I am not a mason. Without proper maintenance, the home was returning to nature. A downburst nearly pushed some tall trees down on its bones. Someone had chain-sawed the debris of the trees away. The roof still had better shingles than many homes that I have seen in the area. It would have been a great place to raise a family.

I was told later by a local resident that the downburst had been the Thursday August 2nd, 2006 event - the record outbreak that I had worked. Power was out at this home for eight days and the wife of the home was getting very irritable. They were on a different hydro service in Willisville and was only out of power for two days.

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