Comments for Karstad Art

Comment on Transition time! by MILLY

MILLY — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:35:52 +0000

Thank you Aleta for visiting my drawings from nature blog. I was puzzled as I did not know your husbands blog. Eventually I found that it was "raining acorns" a follower of my blog who had left the comment, and unknown to me, the link to my blog.
So I have now been able to see your interesting journal pages and nature drawings and paintings.
I do like your header of the patterned slug, I am just drawing snail shells.
milly

Comment on Transition time! by Fred Schueler

Fred Schueler — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 02:32:52 +0000

It's not the BMNHC that's for sale, but the Bishops Mills General Store building, which has hitherto housed it. We're now engaged in dispersing the collections that the Store building has held, and crushing the residue of collections and artifacts into our house and barn. The BMNHC sign is already up on the side of the barn that will be upgraded to house it.

Comment on Bittersweet Closeup (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) by Fred Schueler

Fred Schueler — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 02:27:45 +0000

The former Bittersweet painting (and how it was painted) is at http://pinicola.ca/bittersw.htm

Comment on Milkweed in the Rain (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) by Aleta Karstad

Aleta Karstad — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:47:00 +0000

Thank you for the video, Chad! I have also put the link into the bottom of my Milkweed in the Rain post. I look forward to seeing your other videos!

Comment on Milkweed in the Rain (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) by Chad

Chad — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 23:23:10 +0000

Hi Aleta,
Finished the Youtube video on the Milkweed rope making.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtjN_NY36p4

Just an end note to it: although live stalks work fine–the black stalks work fine too–but just dont ret (soak) them long (even just wetting them at this stage is enough).

I will have another Youtube on using the old seed pods for fire starting (flint or bow and drill) soon too.

Cheers
Chad

Comment on Bittersweet Closeup (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) by Fred Schueler

Fred Schueler — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 03:55:59 +0000

There wasn't a heavy crop on these vines (the background is faked from a shot of another Limerick wetland), and at another vine that we'd previously noticed there were only about a dozen fruits, so this seems not to have been a good fruiting year for Bittersweet around here.

The native C. scandens seems to grow only in these scattered clumps. The status of the invasive Asiatic C. orbiculatus in Ontario is unclear to me. It can be found south of Toronto, but I haven't seen it swathing trees there as it does in southern New England and the Midatlantic States.

It also hybridizes with the native form, which makes identification problematic. Wikipedia says "identification should be verified by an expert before action [ripping the plants out of the ground by their roots or glyphosate] is taken."

Comment on Bittersweet Closeup (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) by Kay L. Davies

Kay L. Davies — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:33:05 +0000

Beautiful, Aleta, the colours of the berries and bracts, and the reflections in the water.
-- Kay

Kay, Alberta, Canada
An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel

Comment on Prickly Cucumber Music (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) by Fred Schueler

Fred Schueler — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:18:16 +0000

In years "in which Insects do well," this species is ravaged by sucking Squash Bugs, Anasa tristis, in various colorful nymphal colours, and their "sad" adult colours.

Twenty-ten, however was a "Plants do well" year, and while we saw a few Squash Bugs early in the summer, they never became abundant enough to hold back the Cucumbers. The 9.5m of this blanket-like mass of stems draped over a Page-wire fence had about 100 Cucumber pods per foot, or at least 3200 pods on the whole stand. I've seen blue Jays, Cyanocitta cristata, pulling the seeds out of the unopened pods, and I expect that the ground under the vines will be completely shredded by the activities of mice over the course of the winter, as they eat up as many of the 6400 seeds as they can find.

Comment on Milkweed in the Rain (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) by Fred Schueler

Fred Schueler — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 02:21:47 +0000

The suggested title for this painting was "Soggy Fluff," but the artist wasn't prepared to be that bold.

This is the Milkweed patch where, each year, several of our spring meals come from, and the lower, forked, stem in the painting may have contributed its original flowerheads to pot-herbivory.

There are two kinds of plants in this stand, some with rounded and the others with pointed leaves; I don't know if these represent two clans or two clones. Some are afflicted by what appears to be a virus that stunts them and turns them yellow.

The patch sometimes attracts adult Monarch Butterflies, but we've never found a caterpillar here.

Comment on Milkweed in the Rain (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) by Aleta Karstad

Aleta Karstad — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 01:38:12 +0000

I'm looking forward to that Youtube video on making rope out of Milkweed stems that you mentioned in your e-mail to me, Chad! I'll be watching for another comment here from you when the link is available.