Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

26 September finds us at the North Castor River looking downstream from the bridge of the Ottawa Carleton 9th Line Rd. As I set up to paint the first loop of the river downstream from the bridge, arranging small flat stones to keep the feet of my stool from sinking into the clay on the only flat spot along this side, our dog Marigold perches uncomfortably between soft sinking clay and steep grassy bank. A Robin sings its fall song for a while, and I begin to paint the exposed roots of Manitoba Maple and the rusty fringe of frost-killed Ostrich Ferns draping the shoulder of the far bank.

22 September finds me at the dam on the South Nation River in Chesterville Ontario, looking downstream. This is the season when brownish young Great Blue Herons are learning their trade at riffles and ponds throughout eastern Ontario, and one is fishing & catching below the bar at foot of the pool below the dam as we arrive. It flies downstream and lands in a couple of places with squawks, and then an hour later returns with squawks and lands in a dead Elm tree on the south shore, as if impatient for us to be gone. I settle down to paint and the Heron launches, a lean silhouette with trailing legs, to find a more solitary fishing spot around the bend downstream. Fred is wading along the far shore, and I capture him in my painting as well. 

19 September finds me on the boundary of the South Nation and Kemptville Creek watersheds, painting the view across wetland from a roadside Beaver pond at the corner of Limerick and Forsythe roads. I perch my low folding stool on the narrow gravel shoulder and poke the pole of my umbrella easily through to the rocks, or logs, beneath. Across the pond I can see exposed ends of logs that were once part of the road - a "corduroy" road that crossed the wetland. It must have been incredibly bumpy and in constant need of repair. When we arrived a Great Blue Heron was standing right where I have painted it. Before I could get my camera out it was gone, but the image of the straight neck and shadow-striped back stay with me, so I paint it in. As I work, a large Beaver rafts across the pond, wet-furred and blunt-headed, carrying green plants in its mouth and keeping a beady eye on me. This pond is like a living room for the resident Beaver family. They don't build anything here...

18 September finds me sitting on a stone at the water's edge in the tiny gorge of Golden Creek, just west of the village of Lyn, Ontario. The creek is only about three metres wide here, and shallow as it chatters over stones a little downstream from the bridge. It has carved its way down through deeply bedded gray limestone, which shelves and benches to the water, gracefully striped by branch shadows and graced with purple flowered New England Asters.

14 September finds me standing on the limestone flats of the South Nation River in Crysler, Ontario, looking down river to the north. Banks of Burr Reed are combed by the wind and the evening sun's bold golden glow on the trees of the far bank reflect in bright ribbons of shallow water that lace across the wet clay and finely mossed bedrock at my feet. We have visited this place at least once a year over the past decade. Fall has arrived. We expect frost tonight, but the rivers and creeks are still at summertime low levels and we are still checking them for fresh water mussels.

13 September finds us on Indian Creek at Forsythe Road north of Roebuck, Ontario - where I painted an upstream view from the road on my birthday, on 26 December 2005. Today we're on the downstream side. Fred has waded out of sight while I crouch on a rock, admiring the far creek bank's bright keyhole reflection through one of the five large culverts. Wind moves in nearby treetops with an all encompassing roar, and then in the tree tops farther up the creek with a sound like distant surf, and then behind me in a slowly rising and falling "hushshsh" while soft dark cumulus clouds scud quickly past the higher white ones in the chalky cobalt sky. A large Monarch Butterfly passes silently a few feet above my head. It feels like the last day of summer on Indian Creek.  A Rana clamitans (Green Frog), green headed with a slim brown body hops from the creekside grasses into the shelter of the brown leaved indigo berried Dogwood bushes. The water is low and still, its surfac...

10 September in the afternoon finds me painting a painter - Phil Chadwick is painting from the dock, facing south. Behind him are the docks of the cruise boats. Small waves lap against the shining algae-streaming rocks at the base of the dock, washed by bigger waves with each boat wake that arrives. Behind me is the western flank of Fish Rock, with a depression atop it that's filled with water from the largest waves, warmed by the sun like a outdoor bathtub. This, I'm told, is where parents watch little children splash while older children fish from the dock and teens jump from the high shoulder of the great granite boulder.  Other artists, on the lawn behind us, paint a tug boat that is moored at one of the little docks that jut out from the shore, and more are standing at their easels here and there through the town, and out painting on some of the "Thousand Islands" that makes the place where the granite bedrock of the Frontenac Arch crosses the St Lawrence River...

10 September  in the morning finds me sitting atop "Fish Rock" in Rockport, Ontario, on the St Lawrence River, looking down on the low,  eastward extension of the rock as waves slosh and comb its fringe of bright green algae. I am participating in the annual "paintout" of the International Plein Air Painters. There are about twenty of us, painting boats, buildings, islands, docks... and in my case, rocks. The narrow street through the eastern part of town is backed upon its river side first by marinas and then by white frame houses that present blank rear walls, back doors and garages to the street... but most of these unprepossessing dwellings on the river side of the street have elegant fronts on their gardens and yards overlooking a sparkling expanse of blue water, graced by islands, busy with boats, and framed by the distant sunlit southern shore. Fish Rock is a traditional swimming spot. I am told that everyone who grew up in Rockport swam there. Fish ...

I like to paint with other artists - and I have often wished that we had a way of mobilizing to help raise awareness of the beauty and value of special places that are in urgent need of conservation - to paint together, or singly, in such a way that people would see and understand. Then I got the idea of linking to conservation organizations and citizen groups who are keen to organize events and spread the word about their worthy causes - to host artists to paint on site, and exhibit their work afterward. I've started a new blog for plein air (outdoor) artists at www.paintersforconservation.blogspot.com , to be the display case for dedicated outdoor painters from anywhere in the world - anywhere they can find  threatened natural areas and like-minded sponsors to facilitate and promote their work. As I wrote in the new blog's first post, artists have tremendous power to evoke an emotional response from people. Bypassing politics and opinion, our love shines through our work...