Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

  6 August 2021 found me exploring Robinson Lake on the Dumoine River by kayak. Taking it all in from the intimate position of just above water level was enchanting! It was difficult to be still enough to photograph the White Water Lilies Nymphaea odorata as I awkwardly circled a group of them, poising like dancers mirrored in the dark water. I was amazed at how, when my clumsy paddle brushed them, they closed to keep the water out of their delicate yellow inner parts, popping up dry and open on the other side of the kayak.  In the middle of the channel, I spotted a Painted Turtle on a deadhead, and bumped into it, approaching to take photos. One can’t simultaneously take photos and manoeuvre one’s craft. As the sky lowered and the wind roused the water into a chop I photographed some "Swamp Candles", Lysimachia terrestris, with twisted yellow petals, blooming along the shore, and then turned the tip of the island and into the wind. There were small waves in addition t...

  25 July 2021 finds me finishing my watercolour of Helleborine Orchid. It has been a patient and robust subject, as it came up in a handful of grass as Fred weeded the garden on 17 July and I've had it in water, waiting to be painted, then being painted - in increments... Fred labelled and pressed it today. It had finished opening all of its flowers.   The first time I saw Helleborine was in a campground south of Tobermory on Ontario's Bruce Peninsula. I was amazed at all it's tiny fierce Lion-faces! I painted it - a very pale greenish individual, which was growing in the shade - and published it as the August page in my Wild Seasons Daybook.  Here is some information we've found about this interesting plant: Epipactis helleborine, the broad-leaved helleborine, is a terrestrial species of orchid with a broad distribution. It is a long lived herb which varies morphologically with ability to self-pollinate. ...widespread across much of Europe and Asia, from Portugal to...

"Cardinalflower in Shade" (oil on canvas 10 x 20 in. framed) 6 August 2016 found me rejoicing over flaming spikes of Cardinalflowers in bloom on a steep creekbank thick with Buttonbush and Decadon , near its outlet into  Upper Rock Lake at Opinicon Road, 8 kilometres northwest of Battersea, Ontario. We had just come from helping staff and volunteers of Nature Conservancy Canada in a cleanup bee at the old cottage site on Fishing Lake, where we'd discovered the rare freshwater mussel Ligumia nasuta in 2015. Now, as Fred walked the shore of Upper Rock Lake for mussels and snails (finding a couple of Pyganodon grandis mussel shells, a couple of Brown Mystery snails,  Campeloma decisum , and a dozen adult Banded Mystery Snails, Viviparus georgianus - strangely "peeled" by a predator).... I photographed the Cardinalflowers for a painting. Photographing them in the direct sunlight did not work. The red was too bright for the camera, and glared out to or...