Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

3 July 2015 finds me near the top of a mountain in the Nepisiguit Protected Natural Area near Mt. Carleton Provincial Park, New Brunswick. I'm sitting on a stump, leaning back against a fallen branch, and gazing up to paint a tall split-trunked Red Pine, waving its sunlit needles high against a cloud-tossed blue sky. Yesterday the Dendrochronologist (tree historian) of the BiotaNB team Ben Phillips, cored some big old trees up here and found that two Red Pines (both of them split identically into two equal tops) counted approximately 300 years old. This is a heretofore unmeasured age for Red Pine. These may be the oldest known individuals of this species in North America. So we mounted a second expedition, equipped with photographers (Steve and Nina Colwell) and an artist (myself) to hike back up today to further document the ancient Pines. We drove in and parked where a creek crosses the road, coming from a long thin Beaver dam, which we balanced along, with walking stick...

1 October 2015 finds me looking up into the canopy of a big old pasture Burr Oak, near the Carp Hills, west of Ottawa. This grand old tree is a world unto itself. Its branches arch across my entire field of vision as I recline with tilted easel a few metres from its roots. Its actual base is hidden from sight by the cherry bushes and buckthorns that crowd close about it. The burls at the bottom of my painting are really half way up its trunk. The sun moves up and over from the right,

30 August 2015 finds me painting the portrait of a majestic old Burr Oak at the edge of a forested escarpment just east of Carp, Ontario. The sky and open spaces of the Ottawa Valley twinkle between the trunks and foliage of younger trees but here beneath the arch of its massive limbs the ancient Oak provides dark shade and preserves moisture, and to all my senses this is "forest interior". Deep leaf litter cushions the spaces between the rocks I've assigned for my temporary studio, and I lean back against a mossy fallen branch and breathe in the breath of the trees.  This is one of thirteen of the largest trees in the Carp Hills identified for a "big trees" contest, the winner to be announced on 13 September by our friend and tree expert Owen Clarkin.  Large, old trees may be considered to be “mother trees”. They beneficially affect the