Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

29 May finds us driving narrow, winding highway 56 along the north shore of Echo Lake, one of the chain named "Fishing Lakes" on the Qu'Apelle River in Saskatchewan.  We have just left the town of Fort Qu'Apelle where we crossed the small Qu'Apelle River on a rather insignificant bridge, and followed Hwy 56 up along the side of the steep valley in the rain.  The lake was so grey with rain that we could hardly see the distant south shore.  Below us on the south side the roofs of houses peek from among the tops of trees on the steep slope down to the lake, and above us on the north side the pleated hills rise up against the clouds with patches of willows and aspens in their pockets and bushes in their creases.  A few homesteads nestle in the upper valley folds, luxuriating in the rampant growth of bright green grass, fed by the generous rains of the past week, and before that, from two heavy spring snowfalls. We have pulled into the access lane of a property that...

28 May finds us at Dad's favorite parking spot - Hansman Lake near Provost, Alberta - a little to the south and west of New Battleford, Saskatchewan.  This part of the lake curves in a semi-circle, and from the access road, you can choose any of three views.  I chose this one, in the teeth of a rainy wind - or is it a windy rain... and paint from the window at the table. I take a quick foray to the waters edge when the rain lightens a bit, but still must clutch my journal to my chest and shield the lens of the camera with my hand, as "not very much rain" iss still pretty wet and windy.  A pair of Avocets are feeding, swishing their elegantly upcurved bills through the water to sift out tiny invertebrates. The rain becomes heavy again, and I retire to the motorhome to continue my painting.  On the slope of the grassy bank I step past large flowered purple Violets with narrow spade-shaped leaves.

27 May finds us pulled over to the edge of a gravel sideroad just off Highway 509 in the rolling Alberta landscape just east of Red Deer.  They use hedges of the fast-growing, vigorously twiggy legume Caragana as windbreaks, and it gives the countryside a quaint pastoral touch.  As we searched for a view for a painting, slowing my parents' big RV at every rise watching for both a pull-off that offered an open view of the distant hills, so often one of these big Caragana windbreaks would be in the way.  This one is about 4 metres tall, and just coming into bloom with large yellow pea flowers. There are Magppies everywhere, swooping across the road in black and white elegance - such an extravagant bird!  We see Blacktail Deer grazing on the roadside grass and blending into fields of stubble, still in their grey-brown winter coats.  The sloughs and dugouts are brim full from recent rains, and swarming with ducks and terns.  I look forward to more prairie as...

26 May found me heading west, high above my favorite part of Ontario - the Bruce Peninsula.  There, to my delight, lies the Bruce - like a living map of itself, as familiar to me as the back of my hand.  I can even see the tiny sliver of white that is the ferry docked in Little Tub Harbour at the tip of the peninsula.  Cove Island stretches out beyond the tip, and the other islands are there too.  I name each of them like picking out tiny familiar faces in a group photo. Manitoulin Island lies in the distance, with a beautiful cloud formation stretching along the northern shore of Lake Huron.  I can see the slight curvature of the earth, and the setting sun makes a coppery sheen on the water far below and to the west, under the nose of the jet. Thin scarves of cloud stream past not far below us, and as we fly farther west, thick carpets of crenulated cloud are brushed with rosy light.  Where they are torn the shadowy landscape can be seen far below, with...

24 May finds me back out along the path behind our house in Bishops Mills, to finish the painting of the twin Ashes that I started yesterday.  Setting up to finish it from my photos, I realized that it is impossible to see the richness of colour in the contrast of light and dark that speaks of the evening along the path "Out Back." But  more importantly, the photos could never transmit the joy that I share here and now with the dragonflies.  I am glad that I have returned! After a scorching day of 34C, the evening is warmer than yesterday, and the very earth seems relieved, exhaling the warm scents of tender growing leaves and spring flowers.  I paused with brush raised, soaking in this scene as the nearly full moon rises into a sky just beginning to blush behind the woods. The dragonflies course back and forth like miniature helicopters, tails slightly tilted and wings ablur.  I can see them dart and swoop, though I can't quite see what they're catching. ...

22 May  finds Fred and me in Ottawa on International Biodiversity Day, and the 100th birthday of the Victoria Memorial Museum Building, now the home of the Canadian Museum of Nature. This is the grand reopening of the exhibits, a new glass "lantern" in the form of the building's original stone tower, and of walls newly reinforced against the foretold Ottawa Valley Earthquake. Admission to the Museum is free for today and tomorrow, and the halls are filled with people.  We are in the Salon on the third floor, with the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada exhibit tables.  There has been a lot of interest in my plein air paintings, in the 30 Years Later Expedition, and in the specimens we displayed from this spring's travels. It has been nice to connect with the provincial museums that we will be visiting on our travels across Canada. I have finished my Thursday painting (the Buckthorn in Bloom) but did not have time to do one on Friday, with all the preparati...

20 May finds me "Out Back" of our house in Bishops Mills, to see what Buckthorn flowers look like - tiny yellow stars where each bunch of oval leaves emerge on the twigs. Buckthorn is the most widespread invasive alien shrub, displaying amazing variation in leaf and branch shape and texture, depending on where it is growing.  Some bushes have long thorns, and some have none at all.  On our land this variability is mostly the result of how recently Fred has cut it down, as the thorns grow more on older branches, especially the shrubs that are out in the out in the open.  We have a campaign of suppression, cutting and feeding to caged Rabbits and Goats in an attempt to mimic the natural herbivory that Buckthorn lacks in our North American landscape.  Elsewhere it grows rampant, filling fencerows and replacing the natural understory in some forests. It is a day of changing weather, and I risk losing the afternoon sunshine and having my painting rained on - but I ...