Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

On 11 May, 2006 I painted Fiddleheads in Limerick Forest, on a small canvas,  just downhill of The Forks on Forsythe Road, Limerick Forest, south of Bishops Mills, Ontario. Heavy mosquitoes in spite of a breeze. Overcast, began spitting rain around 20h00 so I raised the blue and white umbrella over my cross-legged position and peered more closely at the fiddleheads in the growing dusk. My bug jacket held most of the mosquitoes at bay, but my hands were pestered constantly. The best paintings are done under duress of one kind or another. It is a darkish burnt sienna underpainting, on which the lively taut fiddleheads burn with the green flame of spring sprouting, snuggling their pale-ruffled, rusty-fuzzed cheeks together like a litter of new kittens as they rise together on arching green stalks. I photographed them with the painting before completing the surrounding grey scramble of last years dry fronds. Tiny tender horsetails bottlebrush delicate green in the upper bac...

The morning of Monday, 18 February  found us revved up and preparing to work, when Bentley the Cat was sighted through the living room window, head held high, half-obscured by the feathers of a Ruffed Grouse,  Bonasa umbellus , as he strode through the 5 cm of new snow. We try to let Bentley out only when there's minimal chance of his acting as a subsidized predator, and Fred was sure this was proof that he should never be let out of the house