I have just finished this commissioned painting of the Gray Tree Frog, Hyla versicolor, resting in a Manitoba Maple stump behind our house in Bishops Mills.
Oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches, this one has been very complex to paint – as Fred said this evening, “like a spilled jig-saw puzzle”. I wanted the frog to blend with the lichened bark as well as showing distinctly against the rich rusty coloured soft rotted wood of the stump, so the conflict is there, accented by the stems of vines and a spiral tendril that actively gestures to the motionless frog.
Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches,
Commissioned re-mastering of the 5 x 7 inch miniature, “Waves Before the Hurricane”
My client requested two figures in the surf, rather than the single figure in the miniature, painted when Hurricane Earl was headed toward Nova Scotia.
The two figures in the larger painting are a couple who were engaged to be married while watching the same waves I painted, on the evening before the hurricane.
A very romantic subject and a very energetic one – I enjoyed painting this one, tremendously!
19 November finds me at the Red Maple swamp, xteenth november finds me in the Red Maple Swamp on North Augusta Road, north of the Brockville Fairgrounds, admiring the fallen-leaf splendor of the Winterberry Holly, Ilex verticillata. Nobody ever sees the male plants of this wetland shrub, but every fall, spectacularly in some years, more modestly in others, such as this year, the female bushes bear this brilliant crop of berries. It’s a challenge to paint in its linearity, but the berries are prominent enough in their intensity of colour to hold their own in the busy linearity of stems and reflections.
This is the time when we pick the berry-laden twigs to bring them indoors for winter decoration. I don’t put them in water, so the berries dry, wrinkled and spongy, and stay on the twigs, as bright as they were when fresh.
We’ve seen Snapping & Painted Turtles dead on the road, along with a Blackbill Cuckoo, Red Squirrel, Ruffed Grouse, Woodchuck, Porcupine, Striped Skunk, Snowshoe Hare, Grey (black) Squirrel, and Raccoons. There’s been a Snapping Turtle nesting on 21 June 1997, and Blue-spotted Salamanders, Coyote and Deer alive on the road.
13 November finds us sorting, clearing, shifting, carrying, dumping, and storing in preparation for listing for sale the old General Store building that has been the home of Bishops Mills Natural History Centre since 2002 (this is a photo taken a few years ago when the sign was still up).
In stead of all this moving I would rather paint the Winterberry Holly that I saw yesterday glowing crimson against the dark water of the Red Maple swamp north of Brockville, but I must postpone that painting – indeed, all painting – until next week and I hope the berries won’t drop or be eaten by birds before I have time to paint them.
Next week’s job will be to continue the move of the Natural History Centre into the barn behind our house and make the “Lab” and “Range” areas of the 30 Main Street building spacious and inviting for the plans and projects of potential buyers. If you know of or are a potential buyer, please contact me! Bev Wigney prepared a slide show about the building several years ago and her photos and floor plans give a good sense of this spacious education and research facility. Feel free to share the link with anyone who may be interested.
Through the week I hope to have time to post a few of my older plein air miniatures for your delectation - and in the spirit of natural “history” – stay tuned!
9 November finds us hunting for Bittersweet fruit in various spots where we’ve previously seen the vines around Bishops Mills, Ontario. In 2008 we found one that we’d thought was the invasive Celastrus orbiculatus at the edge of a Jack Pine plantation along South Bolton Road, but today it looks as if those vines may have been included in the roadside clearing that was done by chipping machine this spring.
In swampy Soft Maple woods between wetlands on the loop road behind the Limerick Forest headquarters we revisit several vines of the native species Celastrus scandens, close along the road. The stems of the vines are all more than a metre tall, and clusters of red fruits with orange bracts glow in the evening light.
The first Bittersweet painting I did was several years ago, sitting beside these very vines and looking up to paint the thin curving stems with spaced out berry clusters against a clear blue sky. This time I decide to paint the berries larger, so you can see how beautifully sculpted their bracts are, and how succulent the red berries, beginning to wrinkle a bit this late in the season… and what better background than this Limerick wetland scene as the sun sets!
8 November finds me peering into the bell mouth of the seed capsule of Prickly Cucumber the size of a small chicken egg, one of thousands on their stringy vines with twirly tendrils, matting the long grass into an Echinocystis blanket over a fence along the west side of Mill Street in Bishops Mills, Ontario.
A few of the Prickly Cucumber fruits are still green and fleshy, having recently exploded their bottom ends in the act of ejecting their two large flat oval seeds. The dry capsules are pale golden bells with spines, each bell lined with the lacy double skeletons of the empty seed chambers.
At one end of the fence some of the vines decorate an Eastern White Cedar, and standing close beside it I hear the wind hissing through dry vines, its thin continuum accompanied by mysterious small clicking, ticking – a wonderful tiny percussion of Prickly Cucumber spines tickling against the scaly Cedar leaves!
5 November finds me painting under an umbrella in the Milkweed patch behind our house in Bishops Mills, Ontario. It is a light rain with not much wind, and my blue and white beach umbrella is enough to keep my canvas and palette dry. A blanket over my lap and a touque on my head keep me warm.
I photographed the Milkweed yesterday – but when I tried to paint from the photos I missed the richness of colour, and the subject got mixed with the background. So there is nothing for it but to get out there and paint, with rain clotting the silky fluff and dripping from the tip of one of the pods. Wetness also brings out the strong black silhouettes of the Milkweed stems. It looks like they’re wearing black stockings. The upper surfaces of the pods are also blackish where they’ve gotten wet so often this autumn. I think it may be a mildew type fungus like the blackish stain that grows on old grey barn boards. It makes a striking contrast with the glowing tawny gold inside the pods.
To the right of the Milkweed in my painting the fuzzy white heads of Geum are dripping their fluff with the weight of the rain.
Blue Jays are giving their “rain” call, and a woodpecker makes a coarser “eck”. The ever present Chickadees peep as they forage in the wild Apple trees and Dogwood bushes. Marigold the dog pricks her ears at a sudden distant Coyote-like yammering and would like to join the hunt. We heard gun shots earlier. I guess it’s deer hunting season.
Chad Clifford has posted a youtube video of rope-making from Milkweed stems.
Here is a photo that Fred took of me painting Milkweed in the rain.
