Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

This is the last of the 11 Pilot Trip paintings and drawings. 4 x 6 oil on canvas 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-d...

4 x 6 inches oil on canvas 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, ...

This is the last of the 11 Pilot Trip paintings and drawings. 4 x 6 oil on canvas 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 vern...

4 x 6 inches, oil on canvas 18 September 2009 Crab Lake, just south of Cartier, Sudbury District, Ontario We parked last night after midnightin a pulloff on Highway #144 at Crab Lake, and this morning Fred was eager for me to do a "morning painting" here.  Apparently there are Pitcher Plants growing on little boggy islands floating just across a beaver-churned morass of peat slurry.  Fortunately someone had thrown tires into the breach and we crossed rather tipily to the largest island.  11:00  The little floating bog is golden and red with Sphagnum and furzed with Leatherleaf and Sweet Gale.  Thin threads of tiny Cranberry leaves embroider themselves into the mossy tapestry.  Red and green Pitcher Plant leaves, clustered like politicians at a convention catch the sun in their pitchers, glowing so their red veins show.  Tiny Sundews lurk about the bases of the pitchers. Small, smooth waves lap through a gap between islands, and a pile of huge bloc...

4 x 6 inches, oil on canvas 18 September 2009 Crab Lake, just south of Cartier, Sudbury District, Ontario We parked last night after midnightin a pulloff on Highway #144 at Crab Lake, and this morning Fred was eager for me to do a "morning painting" here.  Apparently there are Pitcher Plants growing on little boggy islands floating just across a beaver-churned morass of peat slurry.  Fortunately someone had thrown tires into the breach and we crossed rather tipily to the largest island. 11:00  The little floating bog is golden and red with Sphagnum and furzed with Leatherleaf and Sweet Gale.  Thin threads of tiny Cranberry leaves embroider themselves into the mossy tapestry.  Red and green Pitcher Plant leaves, clustered like politicians at a convention catch the sun in their pitchers, glowing so their red veins show.  Tiny Sundews lurk about the bases of the pitchers. Small, smooth waves lap through a gap between islands, and a pile of huge blocks of grey granite looms a sho...

4 x 6 inch oil on canvas 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....

4 x 6 inch oil on canvas 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...

6 x 6 inch watercolour 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!  Adam has been finding Crayfish among the rocks and is having a hard time catching them, as the water is deep and the stones are large. Fred is back at the vehicle fixing his other net.  A slight breeze ruffles the reflection of the young Maple...

4 x 6 oil on canvas  Ottawa River looking downstream across from Temiskaming 15 September 2009 18:10  The big paper mill is pluming across the Ottawa River from the boat launch, but I prefer to look downriver at the sky reflection studded with shoreline stones.  I do no dark underpainting for this one - just pink and blue.  The water is so still and mirrorlike, and there are no boats - only Beavers. 17:30  A beaver passes, charting a straight line several metres offshore, and after about fifteen minutes, swims back upstream.  Fred arrives a little while later, reporting that he'd followed the Beaver along the shore, and watched it nibbling an evening meal of Poplar twigs.  These big river Beavers travel long distances for their preferred menus.  There are very few Poplars on this river bank. 21:30  I return to the river with my camera after supper, to photograph the fuming mill and its reflection in the water - a ghostly rorshach pa...

5 x 5 inches watercolour 14 September 2009  Lac La Vielle, southern Park de la Verendrye, Quebec 18:06  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.  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. As I paint and Adam dipnets for clams and crayfish we are visited by two First Nations men who say they were not aware that there are crayfish in this lake.  The man who stood watching me paint for a while said that he has a trapping license that he must maintain by trapping a minimum of about 15 mammals annually.  He tells me that there is no maximum take, and the government has doubled the number of licenses in this area, so the populations of ...

4 x 6 oil on canvas Mercier Dam, Gatineau River, Quebec 19:00 Arrived at a dam run by Hydro Quebec, on the Gatineau River, 11.5 km nnw of Grande Remous.  We were hunting for the site where a collection of Orconectes immunis was made by ------ in -----. Unable to get close to the original waypoint, we guessed which gravel roads might take us to the river.  We passed a very old dam which was leaking from crumbling concrete at its base beside the road, and then arrived at a newer dam all fenced in with high chain link and locked gates.  We turned right onto a road that shortly headed steeply downhill.  We paused at the top, and while I got my painting kit out, Fred scouted down on foot, returning to say that there was a good campsite down there. I walked down ahead while the vehicle inched the trailer down the rough stony roadbed that sloped and turned at the same time. A Loon called twice from the still waters above while I was on my way down, and the rushing...

4 x 6 oil on canvas 12 September 2009 James Lake, Gatineau River, Cheryl's cottage 15:15 Adam is joining me to paint, down the rickety steps from the yard to a deck at the base of the floating dock. We sit facing different directions--me looking westward to the Maples glowing red against a green hillside across the water, and Adam interested in the looming ghost of the paper mill rising up a forested hillside like a cumulus cloud from another world--this scene, bracketed by sky and its reflection and screened by the stark silhouette of branches. I began with a medium-dark dull purple underpainting to support the forest and provide a good contrast for glowing yellow-green shoreline and blushing Maples. A white canoe paddled into my scene, poising like a swan as it turned its bow this way. Cheryl's eldest daughter Julie joins us, to paint very tiny miniatures on wooden stretcher wedges. 18:00 Packing up. 19:00 Cheryl teaches me the paddling technique and sends me out in the Ka...

5 x 5 ink with watercolour Date: 11 September 2009 Location: Ottawa, Carlingwood Mall parking lot 18:30  We have parked the "rig" (2001 Mercedes ML, hauling Boler trailer) here while Fred and Adam take Adam's car to deliver the hatchling Painted Turtles from Algonquin Park to the Storeys for a filming project. After the rush of packing from home, it is nice to havea "breather" in which to look around me with the eyes of an artist. At first I thought I'd be searching for a scrap of something wild. The young Maple trees that have been planted for future shade didn't look terribly interesting at a distance, but before I got around to investigating one of them, a movement caught my eye. A woman in a pink coat was waiting, rather restlessly, for a bus, standing here and there in and out of the long glass bus shelter, reading the sign that lists the busses and times, so I thought that if I began a sketch of the scene, with a grocery store and apartment...

4 x 6 oil on canvas  10 September, 2009 At the bridge in the village of Bishops Mills, my first oil painting of the 30 Years Later Project. 18:30  Arriving at the bridge, the sun low in the northwest, my scene, chosen in advance of seeing, it, does not offer any strong contrasts that would help with composition, so I choose a tall thin poplar, arching high over the creek, to brace against the otherwise gentle, traditional scene.  I choose yellow ochre for underpainting. The creek is lower now than it's been all summner, though only a few stones are exposed.  It used to dry down to isolated pools every summer, with crayfish huddloing in the moist, airfilled "rooms" they'd made under the large flat stones.  This has been the third wet summner in a row, and the wettest of thenm all, with spriing freshet levels in mid-summer.  The riffles upstream reflect the evening sky, and a thin lazy trail of bubbles winds its way toward the bridge. ...

4 x 6 oil on canvas 12 September 2009 Canada: Quebec: Outaouais Region: Doran's dock, Lac St-Joseph, 2.1 km NNW Aumond . 31J/5, UTM 18TVG 304.3 480.4 46.48430N 75.90597W. TIME: 1515-1800. AIR TEMP: 22 ca, sunny, calm. HABITAT: steep forested shore of small, indirectly impounded lake. OBSERVER: Aleta Karstad Schueler, Adam Zieleman. 2008/227/-, visit paintings of the scene across the lake. Adam is joining me to paint, down the rickety steps from the yard to a deck at the base of the floating dock. We sit facing different directions -- me looking westward to the Maples glowing red against a green hillside across the water, and Adam interested in the looming ghost of the paper mill rising up a forested hillside like a cumulus cloud from another world -- this scene, bracketed by sky and its reflection and screened by the stark silhouette of branches. I began my painting with a medium-dark dull purple underpainting to support the forest and provide a good contrast for glowing yell...

5 x 5 ink with watercolour 11 September 2009 Canada: Ontario: Ottawa-Carleton Region: Ottawa: Carlingwood parkinglot . 31G/5, UTM 18T 439703 5024464 45.37106N 75.77040W. TIME: 1828-1945. AIR TEMP: 18 ca, clear, calm, sunset. HABITAT: urban mall parkinglot. OBSERVER: Aleta Karstad Schueler, Frederick W. Schueler, Adam Zieleman. 2009/227/l, visit tinted ink drawing of scene looking E. 18:30 We have parked the "rig" (2001 Mercedes ML, hauling Boler trailer) here while Fred and Adam take Adam's car to deliver the hatchling Painted Turtles from Algonquin Park to the Storeys for a filming project. After the rush of packing from home, it is nice to have a "breather" in which to look around me with the eyes of an artist. At first I thought I'd be searching for a scrap of something wild. The young Maple trees that have been planted for future shade didn't look terribly interesting at a distance, but before I got around to investigating one of them, a move...

4 x 6 oil on canvas (SOLD) 10 September, 2009 At the bridge in the village of Bishops Mills, my first oil painting of the 30 Years Later Project. 18:30  Arriving at the bridge, the sun low in the northwest, my scene, chosen in advance of seeing, it, does not offer any strong contrasts that would help with composition, so I choose a tall thin poplar, arching high over the creek, to brace against the otherwise gentle, traditional scene.  I choose yellow ochre for underpainting. The creek is lower now than it's been all summner, though only a few stones are exposed.  It used to dry down to isolated pools every summer, with crayfish huddloing in the moist, airfilled "rooms" they'd made under the large flat stones.  This has been the third wet summner in a row, and the wettest of thenm all, with spriing freshet levels in mid-summer.  The riffles upstream reflect the evening sky, and a thin lazy trail of bubbles winds its way toward the bridge. There  must be a b...

Two-note Goldfinches brightly Tinkle like gold coins Through the Canada Plums. The raspy castanet of the Wren clears them all away, And then the August Sun rises to flicker Dappling gold coins on the tent fly. A Mourning dove's low wood wind begins, A soft slow pendulum for the day. 31 August, 07:30 Bishops Mills, Ontario Sitting on my paint box in front of the tent, looking into the tangle of Buckthorn and Canada Plum that thicket about the twin trunks of a tall Manitoba Maple this morning, at about the time that we heard the Goldfinches swarm through yesterday morning and I wrote my poem. No Goldfinches this morning. A brown and white striped bird chips once or twice and peers at me from within the shady tangle, muted against the sharply contrasted background of bright green-gold backlit foliage and the crisp dark filigree of the twigs and shaded leaves among dark sinuous branches. Pondering the colour of the underpainting for a while, I decide on a misty, shady blue-green....

24 August 2009, Bishops Mills, Ontario I don't often get a chance to hold a bat! This one came to us on the bumper of our car, driven home late last evening by our son. He says he didn't notice a bat clinging to the bumper, but we saw it there this morning. The right wing was broken but the eye was still bright, which leads us to surmise the sad story that it spent the night clinging to the bumper after it had collided with the car, and finally succumbed to shock and exposure shortly before we found it. Fred said "Look at its eyes" - which I thought was a strange thing to say, as a bat's eyes are so small that one seldom sees them. But held at the right angle under good light, they were tiny, but lifelike and bright. All my plans for the day were set aside, and I devoted the next five hours to a watercolour, about twice life size, celebrating its particular beauty of fine detail as the least I can do to save something of its "bat-ness", to faithfull...