Rhubarb Ruffles (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in)

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31 March finds me crouched over another scene of spring vigour in the Rhubarb patch.  The weather is much improved, with warm sunshine and hardly any breeze - and the Mosquitoes think so too.  They were coming up below the hand which held the canvas, near to the ground, and biting where I could not see them.  The Starlings are boasting their skills of mimicry.  I heard a Gray Tree Frog call four times, and I know it was a bird.

The ruffled leaves are gleaming with the energy of unfolding, and my whole being is drawn into the intricacies of their convolutions.  This is the only way, because approximations only result in mess.  The brain is always asking questions that the brush must answer.

I remember learning that handwriting analysts judge a tendency to end each line higher than it began on an unlined page is evidence of an optimistic personality.  Just so, spring is pushing the upper limit of my canvas.

1) Canada: Ontario: Grenville County: Oxford-on-Rideau: Bishops Mills:S side(Schuelers Transparent tree). 31B/13, UTM 18TVE 446.3 687 44.87156N 75.70059W. TIME: 1600-1822. AIR TEMP: 16, sunny, breezy. HABITAT: grassy/shaded backyard in rural village on shallow-soil limestone plain. OBSERVER: Aleta Karstad Schueler. 2010/033/ga, Rheum rhaponticum (Rhubarb) (Plant). 1 stand sprout, oil. painting of emerging leaves. A Deroceras laeve noted active under cover.

2) (same location) 2010/033/gb, Sturnus vulgaris (Starling) (Bird). 1/common call, heard. 4 Hyla versicolor mimicked calls in a series.

3) (same location) OBSERVER: Aleta Karstad Schueler, Frederick W. Schueler. 2010/033/gc, Culicidae (Mosquito) (entomological). common mature, heard, felt, seen. large black-legged picture-winged species biting freely.


This painting is available for purchase at $275. Please contact Aleta






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