1751 Dam Beavers

I am sure that some property owners think the word in the title should be "damn". It fits according to both the dictionary and the landowners wanting the industrious beaver condemned by God to suffer eternal punishment in hell.

I like beavers. We all need a place to live. I used the word to mean a barrier constructed to hold back water and raise its level. The resulting reservoir is used in the generation of of a beaver's family and not electricity. The beaver lodge is clearly evident in the Google Earth image. I painted the beaver lodge in #1734 "Long Lake Outlet" a month previously.

There were indications that someone was trapping the beavers. I am no trapper but I could read the signs. Someone had breached the dam and the spring flood was pouring over the top. There were also some steel posts embedded nearby probably securing underwater traps. I do know that this particular dam had let go in the past and flooded out Black Rapids Road at its lowest point.

The reflected colours of the spring forest in the beaver reservoir attracted me to this scene. The colours of the overflow were also distinctly different. This is were the Prussian and phthalo blues really come into play to achieve those special blends of pigment. I remember the drumming of ruffed grouse and the gobbling of a harem of turkeys bit I did not see any sign of beavers.

I would visit the same location twenty-three days later in #1761 "Long Outlet".

http://pixels.com/featured/dam-beavers-phil-chadwick.html

1749 Long Lake Marsh

The morning radar showed that I had a couple of hours to paint en plein air before the snow started. I headed to the outlet of Long Lake. Overcast altostratus certainly limited the warming effects of the April sun but it was still pleasant enough when the wind died down. Conditions were rather chilly when the easterly cold conveyor belt feeding the approaching storm, frequently interrupted the calm. The temperature may have been zero Celsius (Canada started Celsius roughly forty years before on April 1st, 1976) but the wind chill on my bare hands was brutal. The weather certainly does not encourage the over-working of a plein air painting and that may be one of the strengths of the open air approach to art.

The sound of the spring melt running over the brim of the beaver dam provided the backdrop of sound. There was a thin skin of ice along the shore and this affected the colour of the surface and the reflections. I painted imagining that I was a bit elevated for a better look at Long Lake past the beaver dam.

A pair of Canada geese kept a close eye on me. Some turkey vultures also swooped by but I kept moving and they decided I was not quite ready to eat yet.

http://pixels.com/featured/long-lake-marsh-phil-chadwick.html

1714 White Pine Island

I paint a lot of sunrises and sunset. The light is best then. The shadows are long and the lighting unusual. It is the time to paint. But I needed to have a unique title for this painting and ol' Neil Diamond was playing at the time. September Morn was easily adjusted to December Morn which is only appropriate given climate change.

It was a rare December day to be kayaking but that is what I was doing. The cloud was spilling over the upper ridge in heavy sheets of cirrostratus. A system was on the way and the kayaking weather could not last. The cliffs of the south shore of Singleton Lake were impressive, even at this distance. The white pines on the point were very exposed to the winds which kept the gaps in the branches large enough to paint through.

I turned the 8x10 inch #1713 "December Morn" into the 3x4 foot #1714 "White Pine Island".

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/december-morn-phil-chadwick.html http://fineartamerica.com/featured/white-pine-island-phil-chadwick.html http://fineartamerica.com/blogs/1714-white-pine-island.html

1719 White Pine Reflections

This is new work from a period of high wind chills this past winter. It is a loose re-interpretation of #1683 "Autumn Shore". I like white pines and paint them a lot as they reach above the forest canopy. White pines are almost always silhouetted against the sky.

There are lots of hidden creatures in this painting - almost all were unintentional. Making a large painting out of a smaller plein air work is not always easy. You can kill the life out of any painting with a thousand strokes.  Every artist needs someone with a sledge hammer behind them, to let them know when it is done...

http://pixels.com/featured/autumn-shore-phil-chadwick.html

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/white-pine-reflections-phil-chadwick.html

818 Making Waves in Oil

From Friday, June 9th, 2006 - This is the fourth demonstration piece for the second week of teaching at the Southampton Art School. I asked the group what they wanted to have demonstrated. They all said waves. It was most appropriate given the title of the course. As a result I headed down the road to overlook Lake Huron to the northwest. This put me and the group right in the blast of the cold air advection. One girl darn near froze. The twelve participants were huddled up behind me. I let all of the enthusiasm for plein painting out and this is what resulted. It was an experience that I won't forget.

Unconsciously I painted the surface of the lake curved as though the earth was a smaller sphere. You can see the curvature on the horizon. That is what I saw. The streets of stratocumulus were aligned with the wind direction in the unstable boundary layer. There is a lot of meteorology in this painting. It is interesting how the combination of wind and current even shapes the shoreline.

The view is northwesterly with streets of turbulent stratocumulus and lots of waves. A huge cedar log was up on the beach in 2006. That very same log was still there in 2014.

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/making-waves-in-oil-phil-chadwick.html http://fineartamerica.com/blogs/818-making-waves-in-oil.html

806 Saugeen Sailboats

From Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 - This is day three of the three "W's" - "Wind Waves and Weather". The group set up on the north shore of the Saugeen River in Southampton. Everyone picked a different subject matter. My view is slightly upstream at a group of sail boats tied to a floating dock. This was going to be a "waves" demonstration! It is difficult to talk as you paint, explaining what you are doing and why you are doing it. The exercise forces one to be very deliberate on your actions and words and sometimes what you do doesn't match what you are saying and vice versa.

The upper cold front had gone through but the surface cold front was still to the west when we started to paint. This was a classic example of a split front. A few of the elevated altocumulus castellanus dropped some small evaporating drops but not enough to spoil our plein air painting. The surface cold front arrived at 11:45 am and we had to bail then. It was quitting time in any event so some went home and some retreated with me to the classroom. Among the many weather features to discuss, I explained how to observe a precipitating cloud from one that is not - from a distance.

Note that the Ojibway term for confluence of the waters is "Saugeen".

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/saugeen-sailboats-phil-chadwick.html

804 Short Dock

This is the second demo that I ever did in front of a class from Tuesday, May 30th, 2006  ... it was fun although I was always bouncing in and out of the zone. Verbal explanation takes over the left side of your brain while the visual creating half of your brain hangs out in the right side of your brain. I think I was able to connect though. There were some exceptional artists in this class.

This is looking west from the "Long Dock" Beach which is also the home of Gerry's Fries which is a local landmark. It was another sunny and hazy day. I discussed the land breeze transition to the lake breeze and how we could confirm that by watching for a line of cumulus forming near noon, parallel to but inland from the coast. I also described what I was doing and why during this demonstration painting. It was even a better day than the first one. They all seemed to have fun.

The "Short Dock" is parallel to but south of the "Long Dock". It was also shorter. Trains used to drive out on it to load and off load cargo. Today, the remaining structure of both the "Short Dock" and "Long Dock" are about a foot under the water.

The cold frontal cloud was not even visible on the western horizon. It was really quite hot and muggy and we were all sweating.

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/short-dock-phil-chadwick.html http://fineartamerica.com/blogs/804-short-dock.html

803 Miramachi Contrails

From Monday, May 29th, 2006... this was my first ever demo piece in front of students. They didn't know that and my friend Jane told me not to tell... I had done a lot of teaching before but never art. It went well. I have been posting older art in the order it was created. My goal is to eventually get it all on Pixels.com. It will take years, one image at a time.

This is looking west from the south end of Miramachi Bay. This is the first day of classes at the Southampton Art School. I talked about the weather and the sky as I did this presentation piece. I also talked about what I was doing and why. I think it went very well indeed. There were eight "students" and some of them were already very accomplished. They all seemed to have fun and told the directors that they certainly did. It was an excellent beginning to the week of art and teaching.

The warm front was already well to the north and another strong westerly flow was rippling gravity waves into the jet contrails. There is quite a bit of jet traffic over Southampton on the great circle route. It was really quite hot and muggy and we were all sweating.

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/miramachi-contrails-phil-chadwick.html

975 Spring Stratocumulus

From 1:30 pm April 29, 2008... Standing on the deck of the Tolton's Boathouse... looking east toward the American shore. It was about 1:30 pm and I had just returned from a paddle to Jones Creek. The temperature had warmed up to plus 11 Celsius but the brisk northwesterly winds were still chilly.

The layers of nimbostratus were still visible on the eastern horizon as warm, creamy white cloud illuminated by the sun in the western sky. A couple of bands of cirrus were also apparent along the jet stream that wrapped around the large upper low. The streets of stratocumulus were wider apart as the boundary layer had risen with the surface temperature. These streets of spring stratocumulus were on the relative warm side of the upper jet stream. Daytime heating was contributing a cumulus component to the cloud. The individual stratocumulus streets cannot be discerned due to my oblique viewing angle.

The large and relatively old cloud droplets were not efficient Mie scatterers of sunlight back to my eye in the direction that the light came from. The stratocumulus was thus rather dark compared to the smaller and more numerous cloud droplets associated with the departing nimbostratus.

The far American shore was mainly in shadow when I started to paint. There was a lot more sun by the time I was done.

The point behind this entire painting was the colours of the various elements. It was fun!

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/spring-stratocumulus-phil-chadwick.html http://fineartamerica.com/blogs/975-spring-stratocumulus.html