Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

oil on canvas 6 x 12 in.                             Sold                                      26 December 2015  finds me perched on my painting caddy, precariously balanced with my easel on a little island of sticks and grass which is the front porch of a large Beaver lodge, on the east side of Brassils Creek, north of Burritts Rapids, Ontario. The sinking sun burns through a loose fleece above the heavier cloud bank, reflecting itself just peeking past the darkly reflected Cedars - an interesting challenge to paint quickly. Daylight succumbs to dusk early these days. A high flying flock of Canada Geese honk unseen as I finish my burnt sienna underpainting. The only other sound is the persistent trickling of the creek as it flows beneath or around something upstream - perhaps partly submerged branches from B...

Our Breath is in Their Leaves 2016 Calendar:  $18.99 This 2016 art calendar showcases my favourite paintings of trees from the past four years of working en plein air. On each page you will find an excerpt from my journal and two images. Some provide a detail of brushwork, and others give a glimpse of myself at work in the presence of the trees themselves. 

oil on canvas 7 x 9 in.           Sold 23 May 2015 found me anchored in our canoe 'Fairhaven Bay,' at the outlet arm of Fishing Lake, northwest of Battersea, Ontario. This is the granite-walled outlet channel of a narrow, 2 kilometre long clearwater lake in mixed forest, and I'm painting the narrows looking out toward the lake.  As I sit quietly in the stern, stroking oil paint on my

Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in.     Sold Since 1999 Fred Schueler and I have been running "Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills" in order to give these magnificent creatures the public attention they deserve, since they don't have any official status. These weekly outings also get us out to do winter fieldwork on a regular basis - because nobody knows what's out there unless somebody goes! This fall we got a phonecall from Ontario Nature as part of their research for an article about Mudpuppies. This provided the impetus for me to do the painting I've always wanted to do. Some day I would paint these giant aquatic salamanders as they appear on the creek bottom through shallow water by spotlight. So as soon as we got home from New Brunswick in late September, I set aside a week, and from my field experience and photos taken while wading about with

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