#2974 "Dead Pines on White Pine Island"

#2974 "Dead Pines on White Pine Island"
16 x 20 by 3/4 profile depth (inches).
Started 9:00 am Saturday, August 18th, 2025 

"No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley".  Seneca, Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BCE – 65 CE)

These trunks were standing dead White Pines the previous autumn, but a winter storm had pushed them over. I was saddened to see them toppled. Those old trees had finally met their match in wind and weather. The two trunks leaning into the water would provide opportunities for fish and turtles, and a host of other creatures. but they 

White Pines typically tower above the rest of the forest canopy - a constant reminder of the strength required to cope with life's challenges. Even in death, the White Pine endures, providing life for others. 

Among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), White Pine is revered as the "Tree of Peace." According to their traditions, a great peacemaker travelled among the warring tribes of the Northeast, uniting them under a message of peace and creating what became known as the Great Law of Peace. The clusters of five needles represent the five nations of the Haudenosaunee, and so the White Pine was chosen as a symbol of this unity. Their weapons were buried under the White Pine, symbolizing an end to conflict and the dawn of harmony. There are five letters in the word "White", while Red Pines are identified by clusters of three needles. 

Beyond peace, the tree's needles, bark, and resin hold a multitude of medicinal benefits that have been used for generations to support respiratory health, boost immunity, and bring comfort to the body. The folklore of White Pine includes stories of healing and resilience. 

Some examples:

• White Pine needles are rich in vitamin C, making them an excellent choice for an immune-boosting tea. Indigenous people across the Northeast have brewed this tea to ward off sickness during the cold winter months, using its warmth and strength to protect against colds and respiratory ailments. This tea was also a vital source of nourishment, preventing scurvy in early European settlers who had no other source of vitamin C during the harsh winters. 
• The resin, or sap, of the White Pine can be applied to wounds and infections to encourage healing. The resin contains natural antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. Folk herbalists in early America adopted these practices, applying White Pine resin to treat infections, draw out splinters, and soothe irritated skin. 
• Poultices were made from the antiseptic crushed inner bark for cuts, wounds, burns, and boils.

White pines are important for many other species as well!

• Black bears use large white pines for shade, shelter, and as a safe place for their cubs to hide while the mother forages. Bears also use the rough bark of white pines for scent-marking or "blazing" to communicate with other bears. Bear scent and White Pine resin are shared between the bears and the tree, which becomes an important signpost.  
• Mature white pine trees are a preferred nesting site for bald eagles and ospreys. There are several such trees on Singleton Lake.
• White pines also offer food and shelter for red squirrels, porcupines, and warblers... plus many more species we are still learning about.

Simply, tall White Pines provide structural diversity in a forest, creating unique habitats that wouldn't exist otherwise. 

The following collage of in-progress photographs illustrates a few of the steps taken to complete the story of  #2974 "Dead Pines on White Pine Island". 

 The painting was nearing completion on the Studio easel below. 

White pines are a precious part of the forest. Nurturing these trees into their old age of 500 to 600 years would be wonderful for all of nature while sequestering a lot of carbon at the same time. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2973 "Morning Light White Pine Island"

#2973 "Morning Light White Pine Island"
20 x 16 by 3/4 profile depth (inches).
Started 10:30 am Saturday, August 16th, 2025 

The water was like glass on Sunday, April 13th, 2025, so I went for a paddle around Singleton Lake. This is the third painting from that paddle after #2972 "Spring Paddle to White Pine Island" and #2971 "April White Pine Island".

Do you know why White Pines are often referred to as the "King's Trees"?  Great injustice is often the basis for great wealth and even greater privilege.  A similar story can be found behind the White Pine. The British monarchy and the British Navy owe fortunes to the White Pine. 

The "King's trees" refer to Eastern White Pines (Pinus strobus) that were the first trees to be harvested during the colonization of North America. Britain had depleted its own forests and relied heavily on Baltic timber, which was expensive and unreliable due to trade disputes. The discovery of abundant, perfect white pines in America was a crucial resource for maintaining their naval dominance. 

The tall, straight, strong, lightweight, and durable White Pines were perfect for constructing ship masts for the Royal Navy. A “mast” pine was several hundred years old, 5 feet in diameter at the butt, and at least 120 feet tall. White Pines would grow above the forest canopy, often reaching 250 feet in height. They were exclusively reserved for the British Crown during the colonial era. The best and tallest white pines were marked with the "King's Broad Arrow" symbol, making it illegal for colonists to cut them down. The significant resentment that resulted certainly contributed to the American Revolution. The selection of the blaze mark was a threat in itself. 

Starting with the Broad Arrow Policy in 1691, the Royal Government restricted the cutting of White Pines over 24" in diameter. Subsequent British Parliament Acts in 1711, 1722 and 1772 extended protection and eventually decreased the size to 12” diameter pine trees. 

The Surveyor Deputy of the colony was in charge of overseeing these Acts and issuing the Special Royal License required to harvest a mast tree. His men were in charge of identifying all suitable trees and marking them with the King’s Broad Arrow slashes. This designated them for Royal Navy use only. The surveyor's men had to assess all white pines before a settler could clear his land. The settler was then required to purchase a royal license, allowing him to cut any remaining smaller white pine trees on his land. If a settler skirted the law, and he was found to have white pine in his cabin walls or at his lumber mill, he would be arrested and/or fined £50 - £100.

A “mast” White Pine typically weighed about 2000 pounds. They required special care to both harvest and transport. Once a tree was selected, a landing area called the “bedding” had to be prepared. Uneven ground had to be smoothed. Rocks and stumps were covered by crisscrossing them with smaller fallen trees, which cushioned the shock of the falling giant. The "Choppers" were two men selected to do the dangerous job of cutting the tree down. They wielded axes on opposite sides of the trunk.  Crosscut saws were not used until the 1890s, over a century after the last mast pine was harvested.

Other critical shipbuilding components were produced from the White Pine: frames, planking and knees, pitch and tar for seaming, resins and turpentine for paint and varnish, and spars to hold sails aloft.  

The Broad Arrow Policy caused widespread anger among colonists. They saw it as an infringement on their property rights and economic opportunities. Tensions over the "King's Pines" escalated, culminating in the Pine Tree Riot of 1772, where colonists attacked a sheriff who was trying to arrest a miller accused of cutting a marked tree. 

The conflict over White Pines and not just the British tax on tea, highlighted the colonists' desire to be free from British control. White Pines became a significant contributing factor to the outbreak of the American Revolution. It is not a coincidence that the last "mast" ship arrived in England on July 31, 1775, just three months after the battles of Lexington and Concord. 

The Singleton White Pines were probably too inaccessible for the King to grab. This story, along with others like it, explains my natural tendency to be very wary of any kind of authority. Greed and the lust for power continue to rape the natural resources of the planet in an economy that does not consider the costs of unsustainable extraction. 

The following collage of "In Progress" photos highlights just a very few of the steps required to complete #2973 "Morning Light White Pine Island". I was interested in how the early morning light filtered through the forest and touched the fallen trees.

This is the center of White Pine Island, looking southwestward from my canoe. Several convective windstorms had ripped through the area in the past few years, shredding those very exposed white pines. The trees leaning into the water provide excellent habitat for nature and are best left alone. Trees provide life even after they die. I wanted to convey motion with every brushstroke, as nature is always moving. The forest is in a continual dance with the wind and the light. 

#2973 "Morning Light White Pine Island" nearing completion in the Singleton Studio. 

History often tells the story of wanton and indiscriminate consumption of natural resources until they are gone, extinct like the Dodo. Modern humans are not known for their sustainable living practices, unlike the indigenous people who have lived in relative harmony with nature for thousands of years. There are many stories to be told there as well. 

The story of the White Pine is reminiscent of the more recent tales behind "The Ontario Science Centre", "Ontario Place", "Grade A, prime agricultural land" and the "Oak Ridges Moraine". These are examples of irreplaceable and unique assets which are vital for the people and the environment of Ontario in their own unique ways. They are also tools employed by unscrupulous politicians to repay their supporters.

A 14-kilometre stretch of white sand on the southern shores of Georgian Bay is the World's Longest Freshwater Beach. Wasaga Beach is a unique and vital habitat for many species, including the endangered Piping Plover. Wasaga Beach can also be added to the list above, as portions of it are opened for development. 

Sadly, examples of honest and competent governments representing the welfare of the people and the environment are a rarity. This will not change until criminal politicians are held responsible for their misdeeds and actually go to jail instead of prospering from their corrupt cronyism.

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2972 "Spring Paddle to White Pine Island"

  

#2972 "Spring Paddle to White Pine Island" 
16 x 20 by 3/4 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 9:30 am Thursday, August 14th, 2025

The water was like glass on Sunday, April 13th, 2025, so I went for a paddle around Singleton Lake. This is the second painting from that paddle after #2971 "April White Pine Island". 

This is the northwest tip of White Pine Island, looking westward from my canoe. Several convective windstorms had ripped through the area in the past few years, shredding those three very exposed white pines. The trees leaning into the water provide excellent habitat for nature and are best left alone. Trees provide life even after they die. 

A Russian proverb says, "your home is not where you know the trees, but where the trees know you." These trees watch me paddle past several times every year, so this must be home. People are the same around the world. 

Eastern White Pines commonly live for about 200 to 250 years, but some trees can live significantly longer, with documented cases reaching over 500 years. White pines typically climb above the forest canopy. 

#2971 was just about finished in the following image. The masking tape "Art-Bar Codes" on the Studio Easel reveals that while I had also started  #2972, 2973, 2974 and 2975 but #2971 still needed my attention. One should never rush art... good things take time. It is important to be patient and to savour the moment of the oils and brushes mixing interpretations onto the canvas. 

The story behind a point of land with white pines can lead to many different places. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2971 "April White Pine Island"

 

#2971 "April White Pine Island"
16 x 20 by 3/4 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 10:30 am Tuesday, August 12th, 2025 

The water was like glass on Sunday, April 13th, 2025, so I went for a paddle around Singleton Lake. It is always interesting to see how nature might have changed during the winter. It is a paddle I do several times a year. Each trip is special and makes a fresh memory.

The Singleton Lake area has a rich history that starts with the roots of the now very eroded Grenville Mountains. The northeast to southwest marble ridges were as high as the Himalayas one billion years ago. 

Imagine the meltwater from the last ice age, 14,500 years ago, carving a path through the northeast to southwest ridges of the remains of the Grenville Mountains. The ice sheet was three kilometres thick over most of northern Ontario and Quebec. In 500 years or less, that meltwater caused a sudden and cataclysmic sea level rise of up to 65 feet. Imagine how that meltwater shaped the Singleton landscape on its way to the sea. You can see the evidence etched on the marble cliffs. 

Indigenous people began arriving in Southern Ontario at least 14,000 years ago, right after the ice melted away. More complex settlements emerged around 600–800 AD. Later centuries saw further migrations and settlements by groups such as the Hurons in the 17th century and Mississaugas in the early 18th century. In the 1800s, settlers from across the Atlantic arrived.  

Richard Singleton II (1830-1890) and his wife Elizabeth Jane, nee Tye (1832–1892), built their beautiful stone house on lot one in the eighth concession of Lansdowne in 1864. Richard was an immigrant  from Wexford, Ireland and became known as "the sporting colonel." Richard was drawn to the area by the large pine forests and the great abundance of fish and wildlife. The body of water was simply regarded as a large bay in the Gananonque River in the early 1800s. Apparently, Richard II thought it was more of a lake, which now bears his name. 

Their son Richard III  (1864-1951) married Mary Elizabeth Fair (1866-1924) in 1893. Richard III was an expert cabinetmaker who made a reputation for building fine boats, but he also did a lot of finishing trim on the Singleton home.  

Apparently, Richard II pastured his dairy cows on what is now our acreage. It is quite a rowboat ride from White Pine Island (the name I use for that point of land), across Singleton Lake to the far rocky point that I refer to as Point Paradise.  He would row across this expanse twice a day and return with his pails of milk. Perhaps Richard III also made that trip.

The roof of the shed on "White Pine Island" is all that remains of the structure where the boat and other milking supplies were stored. There are still a few of the old square nails in the roof trusses. 

I find history to be very interesting! We often forget that the settlers were folk just like us - looking for a place to put down roots.

This painting was initially called just "White Pine Island" but a check revealed that name was already taken in my portfolio, so "April" was added to make the final name unique. 

The Singleton forest used to have quite a population of butternut trees, which were a favourite food source for all kinds of wildlife. They were dying from an invasive European canker when we became custodians of the land.  I have planted many disease-resistant butternut trees, and some are surviving without showing the dark-stained bark of the canker infection. I collect butternuts whenever I see a thriving specimen. 

The Beech trees aren't doing well either, while the hickories are still disease-free. Black walnuts planted from nuts in 2008 are now mature trees and producing their own fruit! We have planted a couple of white pine plantations as well. 

The Singleton Forest is doing okay despite the many challenges of diseases and climate change.  Our efforts to maintain the health of the forest look promising. To quote Bruce Cockburn, "history takes a long time". Everyone makes their own "history" or "herstory"! It is important to learn and empathetically build our own place within nature. 

The following collage of progress images shows the steps taken in pretty much every painting that I do. Perhaps art will become an important part of the Singleton story, like it was for Algonquin. Time will tell. 

A 2025 research paper says that the wood in the world’s trees holds roughly 600 gigatonnes of carbon, or about 60 years’ worth of current global emissions. The trees could hold more, and to have any chance of limiting global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, we need healthy and expanding forests. Researchers say that a deeper understanding of trees’ microbiomes might help deliver that.

As well, solar energy is a big part of the future that needed to start in the 1960s with my generation. Most days, the sun delivers all of the energy we need and then some, directly to our doorstep. Cloudy days might be a concern, but there are ways around that, too, as the technology improves. 

#2971 was just about finished in the above image.
The masking tape "Art-Bar Codes" on the Studio Easel reveals that 
while I was still contemplating #2968, 2969 and 2970.
One should never rush art... good things take time. It is good to be patient. 

The story behind a point of land with white pines can lead to many different places. That is fine by me as I am naturally curious. Thank you so very much for reading and getting this far! 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2970 "Georgian Bay Smoky Sunset"

#2970 "Georgian Bay Smoky Sunset"
20 x 16 by 3/4 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 9:30 am Monday, August 11th, 2025

The smoky sun was still about 25 minutes from sinking below the northwestern horizon. Sunset for Parry Sound was listed at 8:45 pm on Sunday, August 3, 2025 (EDT) when my friend Cam captured this inspiration. The Boreal Forest was still an inferno during the hot and dry summer of 2025. Smoke was encircling the Northern Hemisphere like a crown of thorns. The visibility was further reduced, and I could almost smell the smoke in the image. The reality of the fumes was just outside the Studio. 

Artists can record reality so that the truth might be less perishable for future generations to appreciate. The Little Ice Age, a period of cooler global temperatures between 1300 and 1850, is well-documented in art, particularly in the form of landscape paintings from the Netherlands and Belgium. These paintings, often depicting winter scenes, offer a visual record of that era's extreme weather conditions and their impact on daily life. 

Researchers deduced that a sudden spike in volcanic eruptions, combined with a prolonged reduction in solar activity, caused temperatures to drop by as much as 2 degrees Celsius. Reports of "dust veils" hovering over the Northern Hemisphere made the sun glow a pale red. 

It was already a different world when Tom Thomson painted those skies around Parry Sound in the summer of 1914. The impacts of the Industrial Revolution were clearly evident. Newspaper clippings even warned of the dangers. The following March 1, 1912, article in Popular Mechanics linked coal burning to global temperatures. 

Sadly, the article was overly optimistic that the impacts were still "a few centuries" away in the future... 

Just a century later, the Earth is well into the verification stage of those early predictions of global warming. Global average temperatures had already surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in 2024. "One Point Five" had been a line drawn in the sand by world scientists as being something that humanity dare not cross. 

Innovations, including carbon capture, EVs, windmills, recycling, solar panels, living off the grid are simply greenwashing to make those implementing them feel good. The Keeling curve (left below) shows that efforts to abate the increase of atmospheric carbon have been quite ineffective. 

Current atmospheric carbon levels (right above) were last witnessed 16 million years ago.  Humans are racing toward annihilation with Global temperature increases of 3.1 Celsius likely by December 31, 2100 - the end of this century - the Century of Fire. 

As I completed painting another observation of the smoky summer of 2025, I heard "I'm A Stranger Here" by the Five Man Electrical Band from my vintage 1977 Radio Shack stereo. Those telling lyrics were released in 1973. 

"Oh, you crazy fools. 

Don't you know? 

You had it made. 

You were living in paradise. 

But take it from one who knows. 

Who knows the gates of Heaven can close.

I only pray that you take my advice 

Because Paradise won't come twice."

The group released an updated version of "Signs" in 2014, titled "Signs 4 Change", to highlight the ecological problem of climate change, partnering with Friends of the Earth (FOE) for that release. 

All kinds of artists, and not just writers and painters, were well aware of what humans were doing to the planet. The impacts were observable and as obvious as the science. 

I had already decided to paint this skyscape on Tuesday, August 5th, 2025, which would have been the 148th anniversary of Tom Thomson's birthday in Pickering. I needed to loosen up my brushwork again after painting two very detailed birds, the Wood Duck Drake and a male Eastern Towhee!

The colour of the "clear-blue" Georgian sky was tainted brown. I was very careful to accurately depict that colour, although light can play tricks on the eye. Subtle shades can be fleeting, although a similar colour was outside my Studio for reference!

Some of the steps in creating #2970 "Georgian Bay Smoky Sunset" are included in the following collage of images. 

Note that northerly flows behind "cool fronts" bring the smoke plumes to the surface, where they reduce both the air quality and ground-level visibility. The impacts of the Boreal Forest fires tend to stay "closer to home" in those northerly, descending flows. Southerly flows ride the isentropic surfaces to higher levels, which keeps the smoke aloft where the stronger winds quickly distribute the pollution around the Northern Hemisphere. For more science behind how air moves in the atmosphere, see Isentropic Surfaces - Science and Art Merges. The breeze had to be northerly in #2970 "Georgian Bay Smoky Sunset" for the horizontal visibility to be reduced as depicted in the painting. 

#2970 "Georgian Bay Smoky Sunset" about halfway done on the Studio easel my Dad built.

The science of global warming has been known since the 1800s, but those with real power are willfully not listening. There is still a lot of money to be made from carbon by the powerful few. 

Abraham Lincoln's famous 1863 Gettysburg Address phrase summarizes the ideal of "government of the people, by the people, for the people". But democracy can be easily perverted, even bought. The only requirement is simple criminal greed and a huge lack of empathy for everything on the only planet we will ever know.  Replace "people" with "corporations" or, more simply in Canada, "Big Oil". Then ponder why so many Canadian Senators have additional lucrative careers on the board of directors of multi-national corporations. Also wonder where nature and a clean and healthy environment fit into this picture. Spoiler alert: Nature is not even considered in our greed-based, extractive and exploitive economy.

We are now experiencing the significant first stages of the new norm in the climate change world:

wildfires; glacial runoff and melt, fresh water scarcity, changed synoptic weather patterns, ocean current disruption, ocean acidity, sea level rise, etc.

Unless significant de-growth starts now, the "overshoot" of continuing to consume the remaining fossil fuels will cause cataclysmic human suffering, starvation, wars, etc. Not to mention the impacts on nature and the Sixth Mass Extinction. The timing of such events may be unknown, but certainly by 2100; and maybe several decades earlier.

See https://www.facebook.com/reel/625160130650610 for a very illustrative animation on how CO2 is distributed in the atmosphere. The layer that protects life on Earth below the Kármán line (about 100 km high) is comparatively not even the thickness of the skin of an apple

The facts could not be clearer. They are obvious in the colours of the sky. Having presented and written about this many, many times, starting in the 1980s. I must return to my easel and attempt to remain surrounded by nature. I will try not to bring this up again, although the criminal and political crimes against Earth and all therein are concerning. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2969 "Male Towhee Sing Long"

  

#2969 "Male Towhee Sing Long" 
20 x 16 by 3/4 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 10:30 am Tuesday, August 5th, 2025

This is another image taken by my friend, John Verburg, a naturalist and terrific photographer. I was still working on #2967 "Smoky Sky Sunset Cattle" and #2968 "Marshland Wood Duck Drake". Both were very wet. There was still some energy left in my brush, so I selected a fresh 16x20 Daler-Rowney canvas, which had just arrived a few days earlier. 

Air Quality and Heat conspired to keep me inside. It was like a smoky, blast furnace outside, but quite comfortable in the Studio. I had the tunes on loud. Life as an artist can be very good even though making a living can be tenuous at best.  

I quite enjoy the challenge of breathing life into birds with just colours and brushstrokes. I had painted another male Eastern Towhee back in June as #2950 "Eastern Towhee Sing On". The posture of this Eastern Towhee was equally inspiring. 

Painting the eye followed roughing out the sketch. The raw gessoed canvas provided the white highlight of the eye right up until the last few days of painting. Some titanium white was used to finish that eye, but not much. I found the eyes were intriguing as Vincent van Gogh famously wrote in one of his many letters: 

"I would sooner paint people's eyes than cathedrals, for there is something in the eyes that is lacking in a cathedral, however solemn and impressive it may be. To my mind, a man's soul, be it that of a poor beggar or of a streetwalker, is more interesting." 

I would add any creature to that list. 

Here is the pictorial story of #2969 "Male Towhee Sing Long" ... a three-day journey.

The old television screen allows me to enlarge particular parts of the image to see any details that might be important in breathing life into the bird.  At the same time, I have to be careful not to include too much detail. It is important to remain loose and painterly. 

It is even more important to know when to stop. Too many brushstrokes can steal the life out of a painting. There is always a temptation to "make it better" with just a few more strokes. Resist that urge, as perfection is overrated! Step away from the easel...

My goal was to allow the songbird to sing!

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2968 "Marshland Wood Duck Drake"

#2968 "Marshland Wood Duck Drake" 
20 x 30 by 7/8 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 10:00 am Monday, August 4th, 2025 

This is another image taken by my friend, John Verburg, a naturalist and terrific photographer. #2967 "Smoky Sky Sunset Cattle" was too wet to work on, so I grabbed another canvas and painted on. 

I chose to stay home and enjoy the ride with a near-zero carbon footprint. Painting and looking after nature keep me more than busy. Every day is full of interesting things to see and do. Just cleaning the bird houses takes a couple of days. 

The twenty Wood Duck boxes on the property successfully support not only ducks but all kinds of cavity-nesting creatures. One box has a family of flying squirrels. Everyone is welcome. 

The Wood Duck is a secretive cavity-nesting species. In Canada, it breeds primarily in the eastern provinces, including Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Wood Ducks were nearly hunted to extinction during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Management efforts have been successful, and there are now well over a million Wood Ducks in North America - still not enough in my opinion. The Drake has red eyes without an eye ring. His bill is red, with a yellow band at the base and a black line above the nostrils to the tip. Legs and feet are dark yellow. The hen is mostly brownish-olive overall, with white streaks on the breast, dark eyes, and a teardrop-shaped white eye ring.

Here is the pictorial story of #2968 "Marshland Wood Duck Drake" ... a three-week adventure in colour.

The painting had to balance the detail of the Wood Duck Drake with the almost abstract nature of the marsh grasses. One can easily get lost in those details. I favoured a big brush and loose approach to the marsh grasses. 

#2968 "Marshland Wood Duck Drake"  nearing completion... just a few more strokes. 
At times, there were three palettes on the go to keep those colours clean. 

Looking back, Wood Ducks have been featured in five other paintings dating back to 1976. Each work brings back a flood of memories - all good. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2967 "Smoky Sky Sunset Cattle"

#2967 "Smoky Sky Sunset Cattle"
12x16 by 3/4 inches
Started 9:30 am Sunday, August 3rd, 2025

This is another image taken by my friend, John Verburg, a naturalist and terrific photographer. The Boreal Forests were burning. The smoky skies resulted in stunningly colourful skies around the globe. Like most people, the cows on the hilltop were blissfully unaware while they munched on the choice grasses not yet parched by the "Heat Dome" drought. 

The sky was eerily similar to that recorded in #2966 "Fiery November Sunrise over Singleton". The science was the same. One can only see the lowest portions of the underlit altocumulus gravity waves. The wave troughs are closest to the ground and intercept the fleeting light from the sun. The gravity wave crests are higher, and the sunlight is blocked from reaching that portion of the cloud from underneath. The following graphic briefly explains this science as well as the intense, fiery colours.

Such illumination is fleeting, lasting only minutes. As the sun continues to rise, the layer of cloud blocks the sun and the light show is terminated.

The cattle and hill were strongly backlit in this sunset view, looking west. The clear sky between the brightly lit cloud bands was the colour of smoke and the real focus of my interest. The multiple cloud bands can be explained as swells in the atmospheric ocean originating from an intense storm further to the west. It requires some meteorological detective work, but it will be fun, like a murder mystery.

One can visualize the layer of the stable subsidence inversion at the top of the Heat Dome as a large blanket. The term "Heat Dome" is not standard meteorological terminology, but it does communicate the oppressive heat, drought and wildfires that characterize these blocking patterns. The average westerly winds cause the small gravity waves featured in the painting.  Stronger, more distant westerly winds shake the entire sheet, producing the large swells with the smaller wind waves superimposed. 

Without the swells, the entire "blanket" would be a flat layer of cloud illuminated from underneath. With the large gravity wave swells superimposed on the stable layer, only the cloud within the wave crests persists. The cloud within the troughs of the swells dissipates below the lifted condensation level of the air mass. The following graphic summarizes that science. The red line is the lifted condensation level for the sunset in this particular air mass. 

In this situation, both the wind waves and swell waves were generated by westerly winds. This is characteristic of the winds on the northern edge of the large Heat Dome that has dominated the summer of 2025. 

The weaker jet stream resulting from global warming completes high-amplitude meanders as it circumvents the Northern Hemisphere. The Heat Dome is just a large high-pressure system within the northern meander of such a jet stream. These blocking patterns can persist for weeks, sometimes aided by neighbouring circulations creating the "King of all Blocking Patterns": a REX Block.

Storms that could violently shake the blanket of the Heat Dome are typically derecho-type events triggered by severe convective energy being released on the northwestern fringe of the blocking high. Such an event occurred on July 27th over northwestern Ontario. These severe events are becoming more common over eastern Canada due to climate change, but that is another story. The thunderstorms that develop ripple eastward, remaining on the northern fringe of the Heat Dome. 

The area circled in the above image highlights the probable location of damaging downburst winds northwest of Thunder Bay. This event was powerful enough to shake the Heat Dome inversion, creating the pronounced gravity waves in the sunset skies near Singleton. Winds of 35m/s or 126 k/hr within the circled light orange area on the right, mix down to the surface, probably knocking down large swaths of Boreal forest. Data Credit to my friend Ron @mrwx4caster

Gravity waves occur all the time but are only revealed by the cloud droplet tracers, which make them visible. The sharpness of the edges of the cloud bands is directly linked to the significance of the meteorological forces at work. Like on the ocean, the wavelength and amplitude of the waves are directly related to the energy of the disturbance. 

The brilliant sunset featuring backlit cattle can be used to understand events occurring far to the northwest. Meteorology can be very much like a whodunit mystery, searching for subtle clues. The science included above suggests how every sky can have a story to tell. This also explains why the story behind this painting is a tad long... Sometimes, "eyes would roll" in the Weather Centre when I attempted to describe such interesting and significant events. Oh my... 

#2967 "Smoky Sky Sunset Cattle" nearing completion on the Studio easel. 

As a matter of artistic principle, I avoid black in my paintings. Black and its colour complement of white can easily make grey. But much more expressive and unique greys can be found by mixing other complementary colour combinations. My frugal approach is to employ the colours already on the palette to make an appropriate but unique grey, consistent with the painting in question. Waste not, want not! 

I believe that is how Tom Thomson achieved some of the greys in his works as well. Artist-quality oils are appropriately expensive, and Thomson was no more financially able than any other artist to just scrape those colours away. The following is some paint found on a stump near Grand Lake, where Tom Thomson painted in the summer of 1916. Tom could have made an interesting shade of grey with those oils, but I digress.. 

Art and science are a way of life for me. Both still make sense and represent my quest for truth and knowledge. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2966 "Fiery November Sunrise over Singleton"

#2966 "Fiery November Sunrise over Singleton"
12 x 16 by 3/4 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 9:30 am Tuesday, July 29th, 2025

 I worked on #2965 "Barred Owl Forest Canopy" for a couple of hours until every inch of that canvas was very wet oil again. Dithering over those oils before they tacked up would be problematic, so I selected another canvas. 

The human perspective is that the Earth and the atmosphere are huge to the point of being boundless. Herein lies the issue! Both the resources and the atmosphere of the third rock from the sun have very strict limits. The atmosphere is crucial to block hazardous radiation. The balance of constituent gases is precisely what is required to support life as we know it. If that balance is upset, so is life. 

These thoughts were on my mind during the "Heat Dome" which was controlling the summer of 2025 weather. The extreme temperatures, poor air quality and drought conditions encouraged me to remain in the Singleton Studio when I composed this composite sunrise. I took the sunrise image at 8 am on November 22nd, 2012, as viewed from the front porch of our Singleton home. The sun was still below the eastern horizon of the Singleton forest. The red light passing through the long atmospheric path caught the bottom of the clouds. That colour reminded me of the smoky skies resulting from the wildfires within the Boreal Forest, which rings the northern hemisphere.

Such illumination is fleeting, lasting only minutes. As the sun continues to rise, the layer of cloud blocks the sun and the light show is abruptly terminated. 

I wanted to include our waterfront in this painting rather than the Singleton forest. The shoreline profile from an earlier painting #2959 "July 7th Singleton Sunrise" worked well. I put on the tunes loud and let my short hair down. The oils flew. 

An autumn storm was crossing Singleton in November 2012. The leading edge of the middle-level cloud had already passed to the east with the deformation zone of the warm conveyor belt. Those clouds were on fire with the illumination from underneath. 

I painted calm conditions on the lake to maximize the amount of brilliant reflection. By doing so, I implied that the winds in the cold conveyor belt matched the speed of approach of the storm. That storm would have been a bit stronger than average based on those conditions. 

The following summarizes the key steps in this painting. 

Regardless of how they turn out, every canvas presents opportunities to learn and grow. The time spent is also an opportunity to remember the important people on the journey that it took to record these memories in oil. Art can be a way of life. The image below captures #2966 "Fiery November Sunrise over Singleton" on the easel that my Dad built. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick