Clayton vernal pool
11:00 Fred and I are booked as Invertebrate (non-insect) experts at the Bell Property Bio Blitz on Clayton Road. This is the last Bio Blitz of the season – a very late one, at the end of a summer of more Bio Blitzes than any before. Taking one look at the Headquarters, several tables arrayed with books, microscopes, jars of insects and rainbows of mushrooms, and computers, all set out under a series of canopies in the woods behind a banner for the Mississippi Valley Field Naturalists, gives the impression that this is perhaps the best organized Bio Blitz ever!
Adam and I, equipped with mushroom guides and painting kit, wander off into the woods toward a patch of sunlight where we’ve been told there is a wet area with lots of ferns, while Fred readies himself to lead the Invertebrate Walk.
12:00 We hadn’t gone far along a trail when it passed close by a dried-down vernal pool, still taking its summer rest, its dry bottom plastered with blackish leaves, criss-crossed by moss-crested logs, and shaded by tall old Maples green-skirted with mosses and ferns. My eye was caught by a conical-capped mushroom that had matured from orange to a dark cherry red, but before I could decide on the composition, Adam had collected it and was in the process of identifying it.
I was also taken by a nearly dried-out Helleborine Orchid, its parallel-veined leaves turning dry and pale, and its spent flowers scraps of brown tissue at the ends of swollen green ovaries. But I couldn’t find an exciting composition – in fact, with a wealth and diversity of fascinating forms and textures all around me, I felt like a confused hungry person in a restaurant with too many choices on the menu. And many potential scenes depended on patterns of sunlight which would shift and change. Finally after nearly an hour of indecision, I settled down behind a mossy log graced lacy ferns with fine-stems. Adam found the shell of a fingernail clam – a live-bearing inhabitant of the mud of temporary pools and ponds.
12:45 I start with a dull purple underpainting, the colour of the light on blackish leafy bottom of the dried down pools, nicely contrasted by mossy green. Adam takes his mushrooms back to headquarters to contribute a couple of species to the tally, and the Seburn family finds me and sits for a long time, quietly watching me paint, and intermittently sharing bits of the summer’s news. It’s a perfect day, the last of our 10 day pilot trip, and I’ll be returning home tonight with ten paintings.
At 14:30 I stop, and pack up to go with Adam to pick up his car in Aylmer, leaving Fred to stay for the barbeque. I will have to fill in some moss and crisp up the leaves before I can upload this one to the daily painting blog.
Clayton vernal pool
11:00 Fred and I are booked as Invertebrate (non-insect) experts at the Bell Property Bio Blitz on Clayton Road. This is the last Bio Blitz of the season – a very late one, at the end of a summer of more Bio Blitzes than any before. Taking one look at the Headquarters, several tables arrayed with books, microscopes, jars of insects and rainbows of mushrooms, and computers, all set out under a series of canopies in the woods behind a banner for the Mississippi Valley Field Naturalists, gives the impression that this is perhaps the best organized Bio Blitz ever!
Adam and I, equipped with mushroom guides and painting kit, wander off into the woods toward a patch of sunlight where we’ve been told there is a wet area with lots of ferns, Read the rest of this entry »
Paudash Lake
19 September 2009
There used to be a creek running through a culvert under the highway here, but there was only an energetic volunteer fireman to tell me about it as I sat painting just inside the guardrail from the shoulder of the road, looking south across the wetland with my back turned to the lake. He said that when the highway was repaired they neglected to replace the caved in culvert, and now there is still a wetland but no more creek. His brother lives in the house to the west of the wetland. I can hear sounds of children playing from the house.
Most of the forest is in its own shadow as the sun lowers in the west, but the billowy Maples still have their tops in the sunshine and the late afternoon sunshine is on the marsh. Patches of autumn-bronzing Pickerelweed make crisp dark reflections of thin curving stems and curling arrow-head leaves. We hear a splash from the lake across the road, and my new friend returns, announcing that there is a very large Beaver “checking out” the place where the culvert used to be.
I began with a dark indian red underpainting, well rubbed in, and had it all finished except the signature by the time the sun set. Returning to the trailer, I find that Fred and Adam have left some supper in the pan for me. Then we push on down the road as we must get to Clayton tonight.
17 September 2009
Dutrisac Bay, we drove into a commercial campground/trailer park, as the sun was setting,looking for a beach to hunt crayfish and a lake view for a very fast oil painting.
We were given permission to park our rig and told that the rocky shore was to the left, and the sandy beach was to the right. As I approached the beach, the wind was strong in my face and the waves were whitecapped all over the angry blackish blue lake. The sky glowed peach under, behind, and through purplish-grey clouds with a hint of green. I parked my stool in partial shelter of the corner of a marina building, took a photograph, and began to paint as fast as I could, leaving the strange row of trees on a mid-distance island to add later from my photo.
At one point I noticed a movement near my feet, and there was a Toad of about 5 cm long, beautifully patterned with tan, olive, black, and white. It was heading past me toward the beach. I wonder what it does there in the evenings, and whether it noticed the wind…
As it got dark, I added some white caps, sharpened and darkened the horizon, and packed up – only half an hour this time, but I got the canvas covered and the colours all right!
17 September 2009
Dutrisac Bay, we drove into a commercial campground/trailer park, as the sun was setting,looking for a beach to hunt crayfish and a lake view for a very fast oil painting.
We were given permission to park our rig and told that the rocky shore was to the left, and the sandy beach was to the right. As I approached the beach, the wind was strong in my face and the waves were whitecapped all over the angry blackish blue lake. The sky glowed peach under, behind, and through purplish-grey clouds with a hint of green. I parked my stool in partial shelter of the corner of a marina building, took a photograph, and began to paint as fast as I could, leaving the strange row of trees on a mid-distance island to add later from my photo.
At one point I noticed a movement near my feet, and there was a Toad of about 5 cm long, beautifully patterned with tan, olive, black, and white. It was heading past me toward the beach. I wonder what it does there in the evenings, and whether it noticed the wind…
As it got dark, I added some white caps, sharpened and darkened the horizon, and packed up – only half an hour this time, but I got the canvas covered and the colours all right!
16 September 2009
Waltham Bridge Boat Launch
17:01 This is the site of great Unionid diversity that Fred and Isabelle and JF discovered in 2001, when the river was much lower than it is now.
Just across the river from Pembroke, there is a nice picnic area that comes down by the Ottawa River. The river is 300m wide here. Where I sit there is a picturesque overhanging Maple. We followed a path through poison Ivy to a point, and then doubled back a little way along the sandy, rocky shore. Fred showed me a sandy alcove where the roots of an Alder are exposed. There is a drift of shells partially embedded in the sand – more Unionids than I have seen in one place in a long time! Read the rest of this entry »
16 September 2009
Canada: Ontario: Nipissing District: Ottawa River, 1.0 km SSE Thorne. 31L/11, 46.69137N 79.09649W TIME: 1910-1955. HABITAT: boulder-shore brown-water impounded Ottawa River at old log-float structures. OBSERVER: Aleta Karstad Schueler, Frederick W. Schueler. 2009/243/i, visit painting of scene looking downstream. Aleta thinks in pictures, so it’s very hard to put words down while she’s painting: “Scene looking south across calm river to hills that were sun-topped until just before she started painting. Beaver cruising offshore from lodge on bank just upstream. . . waft of pulp mill odor. . . ” Read the rest of this entry »
14 September 2009
Canada: Quebec: Parc d’la Verandrye: Lac de la Vieille at parking area. 31K/16, 46.78417N 76.21377W TIME: 1806-1935. AIR TEMP: ca 15 C, clear, calm. HABITAT: beach of sandy lake with patches of offshore Pontederia cordata. OBSERVER: Aleta Karstad Schueler, Adam Zieleman. 2009/234/g, visit Aleta’s painting site. A serene lake with a small sandy beach, provided by the park with a parking lot and picnic tables. The air is calm and the water is smooth, and the sun is just dipping behind the forest, but turning the crowns of distant hills russet. The water level has recently dropped 40 cm or so. I decide to paint my miniature in watercolour this time because of the hair-fine lines of the lake’s silver sheen against far shores, and the delicacy of tree silouettes. Read the rest of this entry »
