#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. 

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 

#2965 "Barred Owl Forest Canopy"

#2965 "Barred Owl Forest Canopy" 
12 x 16 by 3/4 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 9:30 am Monday, July 28th, 2025

This is another image taken by my friend, John Verburg, a naturalist and terrific photographer. John provides a tremendous source of inspiration that encourages me to paint within the Singleton Studio when conditions outside are not conducive to plein air. I had just finished #2964 "Bullfrog on the Log By the Bay". Air Quality and Heat conspired to keep me inside. It was like a smoky blast furnace outside, so I grabbed another canvas and painted on. 

Unusual perspectives catch my eye as they also interest my friend John Verburg. This barred owl was high in the forest canopy, gazing calmly downward at the photographer. I wanted to surround myself with the nature of the maple forest and the owl. The subject would also provide the opportunity to loosen up my brushwork. 

Normally, in late July, I would have been on the Dumoine participating in CPAWS DRAW 2025, something I have tried to do since 2017. The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS)  is Canada's only charity dedicated to the protection of public land, freshwater and ocean.CPAWS respects the sovereignty and leadership of Indigenous nations while remaining focused on conserving nature to respond to the dual crises of accelerated biodiversity loss and climate change. The vision is that at least half of the land, freshwater and ocean in Canada become permanently protected to sustain nature and people for current and future generations. Here is a link to the 157 paintings that I have completed so far in support of CPAWS. I strongly support CPAWS trying to keep the "wild" in wilderness.

Canada spends billions every year on subsidies. CPAWS reports that $5.7 billion per year is spent on subsidies that are harmful to nature. That must stop. CPAWS commissioned a new report by Dave Sawyer, "Bio-Fiscal Reform: A framework for aligning federal subsidies in Canada's natural resource sectors with global biodiversity goals" that explores how the federal government can simultaneously save money and protect nature. 

It is not productive to stay perpetually distraught (even angry) at the irresponsible actions of our politicians. So I paint and stay home with a very low carbon footprint. In this case, I was enjoying the company of my Barred Owl friend thanks to John, another friend. 

Barred Owls call at any time of the day and carry on interesting conversations between family members. The Barred Owl's hoot is classic and distinctive: "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?". I love these birds with their thoughtful, soulful brown eyes and brown-and-white-striped plumage. They are silent, and frequently, I do not even notice them in the forest as I walk underneath. 

Barred Owls are homebodies like me. They don't migrate, and they don't even move around very much. In a study of 158 banded Barred Owls, none ever moved farther than 6 miles away from where they were initially located. Another study shows that their home range varies widely in size, up to 2000 acres in Saskatchewan. 

• The Great Horned Owl is the most serious predatory threat to the Barred Owl. Although the two species often live in the same areas, a Barred Owl will move to another part of its territory when a Great Horned Owl is nearby. 
• Pleistocene fossils of Barred Owls, at least 11,000 years old, have been dug up in Florida, Tennessee, and Ontario. 
• Originally a bird of the east, during the twentieth century it spread through the Pacific Northwest and southward into California. There, they are displacing and hybridizing with Spotted Owls—their slightly smaller, less aggressive cousins, which are already threatened from habitat loss. 
• Young Barred Owls can climb trees by grasping the bark with their bill and talons, flapping their wings, and walking their way up the trunk. 
• The oldest recorded Barred Owl was at least 26 years, 7 months old. It was banded in North Carolina in 1993 and caught due to injury in 2019.

Here is the pictorial summary of #2965 "Barred Owl Forest Canopy".

I typically charge into a canvas with a big brush and oils to get the sketch blocked in. Art needs to be fun. The vitality of the brushwork should also jump out at the viewer. The patron needs to feel that fun as well. 

#2965 "Barred Owl Forest Canopy" on the Studio easel my Dad built, about halfway done.

I have painted Barred Owls before. Notably #2837 "January Barred Owl"; #2920 "Barred Owl Friend". 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 

#2964 "Bullfrog on the Log By the Bay"

 

#2964 "Bullfrog on the Log By the Bay"  
16 x 24 by 3/4 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 9:00 am Sunday, July 20th, 2025 

This is another image taken by my friend, John Verburg, a naturalist and terrific photographer. John provides a tremendous source of inspiration that encourages me to paint within the Singleton Studio when conditions outside are not conducive to plein air. I had just finished #2962 "Great Crested Flycatcher Friend", but both #2961 "Froggy Friend" and #2963 "Foggy Zen Sunrise at Peggy's Cove" were much too wet to work on without messing things up. There were Heat and Air Quality Advisories in effect outside. So I grabbed a fresh canvas and painted on. 

I was having such fun with bullfrogs that I selected another frog for a self-portrait. Like this bullfrog, I prefer to simply stay home and enjoy the peace and quiet with a near-zero carbon footprint. I look after nature and paint when have the opportunity and the energy. Every day is full of interesting things to see and do at Singleton. 

Art can be a wonderful way of life, making things. Make something, and then try to make a better one. The days, months and years pleasantly pass, trying to make better things until you die. That is a pretty good, creative life. 

Perhaps my self-portrait...keeping an eye on the world    

Little things catch my eye, and my goal is to give them a lasting voice in oils. Combining art and science into a search for truth yields a life full of curious creation and wonder. As an eternal student of nature, life is very good. This lifestyle is reminiscent of what it might have been on Walden's Pond in Concord, Massachusetts - only much nicer and in Canada. 

Henry David Thoreau, an American transcendentalist writer, published "Walden" or "Life in the Woods" in 1854. Thoreau built a rustic cabin near Walden Pond in a woods owned by his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The book reflects his simple life over the following two years, two months, and two days. I don't know why "two" was important. Too much of a coincidence.

Thoreau made precise scientific observations of many plants and animals, the colour and clarity of different bodies of water, precise dates and descriptions of the freezing and thawing of the pond. He measured the depth and shape of the bottom of the supposedly "bottomless" Walden Pond. These are all things that we do at Singleton Lake. Being inaccessible from an economic profit perspective, our Carolinian forest had never been logged, so it is especially rich with nature and some huge, unique trees. 

There is nothing really special about humans. The best among us display empathy for everything and everyone. In just a couple of hundred years, the greedy actions of a corrupt few with an overabundance of wealth and power, displaying mindless, voracious consumption, have sent atmospheric carbon soaring to levels last measured more than 16 million years ago - beyond comprehension. Think about that...

By the 1970s, Big Oil knew! Politicians knew. They had all been well briefed on the carbon crisis because scientists knew. Even meteorologists like me knew. The science had been developing since the early 1800s, and the existentialist alarms had been sounding ever since. Big Oil and politicians selected to do nothing. 

By the 2020s, half a century of opportunity had passed with nothing but lip service, obfuscation, and denial of the scientific facts. The wealthy elite in power persisted in guzzling the Coal Kool-Aid, greedily consuming more and more that could never be enough. This complete lack of empathy is beyond any scale of measurement when their actions pose the end of life on Earth. 

Sadly, those levels of carbon will end the 11,700-year-old Holocene. I have been unable to change that trajectory, but I tried... Words are never enough, and even pictures, worth a thousand words, are insufficient. Simple greed.

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide levels climb with no hint of abatement in the Keeling Curve left.

Now back to sanity and art... The title of this painting is loosely based on "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", a song co-written by soul singer Otis Redding and guitarist Steve Cropper. Redding recorded it twice in 1967, including just three days before he died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967. 

"Sittin' in the mornin' sun

I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come

Watching the ships roll in

And then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah…"

The pose of the bullfrog reminded me of  "boketto", the "act of gazing vacantly into the distance, lost in thought or in no thought at all". Those words, in turn, reminded me of the prose of the song lyrics. It is important to select distinctive titles, even though the chronological numbers are, by definition, unique to each painting. 

All creatures great and small have hopes and desires. This bullfrog watching the horizon from a log is really no different from me sitting in a red chair on the marble ridge overlooking Singleton Lake. Inspiration can be found around every corner if we just look with a curious mind and critical thought in a search for enlightenment, for truth. Sometimes a song is the product, but for me, it is typically a painting that may be more permanent. 

'It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.' – Henry David Thoreau 

Here is the pictorial story of just some of the steps taken in #2964 "Bullfrog on the Log By the Bay" that spanned a couple of weeks in July 2025 within the Singleton Studio.

I get a lot of time to think while I paint, as evidenced by the rather lengthy discourse above. Perhaps this is another self-portrait... warts and all. George Orwell's "1984" arrived in 2024. The forecast society was sadly accurate, although he missed the date by 40 years. Still a great prediction! 

For me, it is best to just stay home, surrounded by nature. But I must still continue the uphill struggle for an honest, democratic age of enlightenment in touch with nature and reality.

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 

#2963 "Foggy Zen Sunrise at Peggy's Cove"

 

#2963 "Foggy Zen Sunrise at Peggy's Cove" 
11 x 14 by 7/8 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 10:00 am Saturday, July 19th, 2025 

The advection fog was getting thinner at 8:00 am. The flood of July tourists had yet to burst onto the scene. The cool comfort of a rock-hard granite ledge with the soundtrack of crashing waves, facing a rising sun through a misty fog, is ideal for quiet reflection. The zenful scene was full of energy pouring into your senses and memories. The challenge was to capture that energy in the pigments and brushstrokes. The finished painting had to project that thoughtful meditation and inner peace with an abundance of vitality. Not easy but fun. I enjoy challenges. 

Peggy's Cove rocks in the painting can be viewed looking eastward from the tip of the white arrow.

My friend Jim recalls: 

"It was early...7:30am. It was serene, and the thinning fog was just right. That's why I like that picture so much: the fog hugging the top of the rocks and the sounds of the crashing waves - meditative. I sit on a ledge of the rocks and just be part of it. I knew the crowds were on their way, which is a different energy. When the buses arrive, I get a coffee and watch the tourists. I go there by myself a few times a summer for this. Comfortable introvert." 

Apparently, there is a Japanese name for this "act of gazing vacantly into the distance, lost in thought or in no thought at all". "Boketto" (boh-KEHT-toh) is a "noun describing a still, wordless space where the mind wanders like mist, unburdened by purpose".

Preliminary sketch of some
of my favourite rocks!

Jim knew this. One does not need to be fluent in Japanese or even English to practice "boketto". Just find a spot and soak in the peace and quiet. It was what my Father always wanted for his birthday, "peace and quiet". Funny, I appreciate the same gift. 

My background was in nuclear physics, but meteorology was one of those happy accidents when the future of fission and fusion looked unpromising. But first, I had to successfully graduate from the Atmospheric Environment Service Meteorological Orientation Course (MOC) #33. It was an excellent and extremely well-taught course that ran from September 1976 to June 1977 in Toronto. I met some terrific people who I still stay in touch with, including Dave Phillips, who many people will know.  

My first meteorological posting was to CFB Shearwater, CYAW. We had never been to the West Coast, so that was my preferred request. It was wonderful to get the exact opposite of my supplication! Another happy accident! Shearwater and the East Coast were and remain inspiring. The people, the land and the ocean infuse into your being within hours of arriving. We cherish those memories and return often. 

Visible Satellite Imager Wednesday morning, July 16th.

The East Coast weather and climate were also terrific meteorological instructors. One learns quickly about the various types of fog. Even the finest meteorologists are frequently humbled by the silent comings and goings of fog. The morning of July 16th was a classic example of "advection fog" where warm and moist air moves over the upwelling, colder, coastal waters of Nova Scotia. The air mass is cooled to saturation from below. Fog forms when the dew point exceeds the sea surface temperature (SST) by 3 degrees Celsius. Advection fog can be as thick as pea soup. One of the first lessons to master. 

I was keen on the emerging remote sensing tools of the seventies - satellite, conventional radar and Doppler.  Even visible satellite imagery was new, and there was information to be discovered in the sunrise and sunset horizons if one enhanced the "Look-Up-Tables". "Enhanced Visible Imagery", which did just that, was one of my first projects. It never caught on. 

I rarely do commissions. There can only be one person behind the brush. However, Jim gave me free latitude to paint like Tom Thomson. Still, there is the desire to please and to "hit one out of the park" for a good friend. Painting is so much easier if it is just for me. But the subject matter of fog, rocks and Peggy's Cove spoke loud and clear... I had to do this. It brought back some wonderful memories of the Merrytimes that could fill a book. 

I typically just paint in the morning. Art is work after all, just like one of my T-shirts proclaims. Sometimes I am tired after just a couple of hours at the easel, at which time it is best to stop. The energy has to come through on the canvas. When I get tired, the lack of vigour means that nothing gets into the oils, and the brush strokes become mechanical and meaningless. There are typically other chores to do around home anyway. I always have some canvases to stretch and gesso, which can be a pretty mindless task. I do not have an art assistant, so everything is up to me. 

The sunrise on Wednesday, July 16th, 2025, at Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, was at 5:42 am with a bearing of 58 degrees to the northeast. By 8:00 am, the sun had risen above Jim's viewing angle and was almost due east. The sun was included on the top of the stretcher bar of the painting. I often paint the sides of the painting so that frames are really quite unnecessary. The brushstrokes can speak for themselves without the "window casing" of any frame. Technically, those oils on the side can also come in handy should I need a bit of a certain colour elsewhere. It is easier and more reliable than mixing a colour from scratch. 

Artistic licence permits me to enhance some of the colours... 
This step was about halfway through the painting experience. 

The painting masking tape "Bar-Codes" that were on the studio easel reveals that I was still working on #2961 "Froggy Friend",  and that another canvas, #2964 "Bullfrog on the Log By the Bay" had also been sketched. I like to start and finish a painting before starting something new, but sometimes one must wait for the oils to "tack up". 

Here is the pictorial story of #2963 "Foggy Zen Sunrise at Peggy's Cove"... a seven-day journey.

If you look closely, every Peggy's Cove rock is included on this canvas. Thank you, Jim... it was fun! 

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 

#2962 "Great Crested Flycatcher Friend"

#2962 "Great Crested Flycatcher Friend" 
16 x 20 by 3/4 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 10:00 am Tuesday, July 15th, 2025

This is another image taken by my friend, John Verburg, a naturalist and terrific photographer. John provides a tremendous source of inspiration that encourages me to paint within the Singleton Studio when conditions outside are not conducive to plein air. A Heat Advisory was in effect, and the smoke from the Boreal forest fires was arriving to make the air quality bad. The biting bugs were also hungry. Hmmm, it was a good time to be in the Studio. 

The beak and eye placement of Great Crested Flycatchers gives them a perpetually cheerful outlook on life. Maybe they are just naturally happy!  There are several pairs at Singleton, and I always smile to see them. One pair prefers a wood duck box overlooking Little Mud Lake for its summer home. 

Great Crested Flycatchers nest in cavities. They favour natural cavities in dead trees, but will use large, abandoned woodpecker holes, nesting boxes, hollow posts, and even buckets, pipes, cans, and boxes of appropriate size. Both sexes inspect potential nesting cavities anywhere from two to seventy feet from the ground. 

The female does most, if not all, of the nest-building, while the male keeps her company. If the cavity is much deeper than 12 inches, she first backfills it with debris before building her nest in the back of the remaining space. She uses a wide variety of materials, from grasses, leaves, twigs, and stems, to hair and fur, snail and seashells, feathers, bark, moss, cellophane, onion skin, paper, cloth, eggshells, and, quite commonly, shed snakeskin. The inner cup is usually 3 to 3.5 inches across and 1.5 to 2 inches deep. The female may continue to add fine materials, like feathers, to the nest during egg-laying, incubation, and brooding. 

The Great Crested Flycatchers are long-distance migrants. It is possible that individuals in southern Florida do not migrate. All breeding populations north of central Florida winter in the tropics. They typically leave their northern breeding grounds in September and begin to return to the southern United States in mid-March. They tend to migrate alone. 

This painting started with just blocking in the shapes. The all-important eye and beak waited until the second day of painting. Thankfully, it was a good day, and the oils flowed. 

It was a satisfying experience attempting to breathe life into the oil painting of something alive. The above chronicles just a few of the steps. The photographic inspiration from John Verburg is included in step 6. The finished portrait had to capture the happy nature and the smile on the beak of this beautiful bird. 

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 

#2961 "Froggy Friend"

#2961 "Froggy Friend" 
16 x 20 by 3/4 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 10:00 am Monday, July 14th, 2025

This is another image taken by my friend, John Verburg, a naturalist and terrific photographer. John provides a tremendous source of inspiration that encourages me to paint within the Singleton Studio when conditions outside are not conducive to plein air. A Heat Advisory was in effect, and the smoke from the Boreal forest fires was arriving to make the air quality unacceptable. The biting bugs were also hungry. It was a good time to be in the Studio. 

Listening to the frogs is a favourite "life in the slow lane" activity at Singleton. Many thousands of spring peepers in the adjacent Provincially Significant Wetland (PSW) announce the coming of spring with their loud, high-pitched cheeps. We eagerly await that sound, which typically arrives during the first week of April. 

The timing of frog calls varies by species, but generally starts in late March in southern Ontario and continues into the summer. Spring peepers, wood frogs, and chorus frogs are among the earliest springtime singers. Larger frogs like bullfrogs and mink frogs call later in June and July. 

Male frogs croak to get the attention of a female frog, even if they don't see or hear one. We would relax on the red chairs overlooking the lake and eavesdrop on the froggy conversations. The "Jug-O-Rum" croaks of specific bullfrogs were distinctive from their various shoreline territories. The melodies carried across the open waters to their competitors, who would invariably answer back. The conversations between some frogs would escalate into shouting matches across the lake. Their voices would carry far and wide, especially during quiet evenings. 

Around 2012 (I forget the exact year), the Singleton bullfrogs were silenced in a single summer. Apparently, someone had developed an insatiable taste for frog legs. We silently and sadly witnessed the extinction occur. At dusk, a boat with spotlights and a couple of occupants would poke slowly along the shoreline. The evening serenaders were targeted one by one. This tragedy occurred most evenings that summer until the frog songs were extinguished. The extermination of the Singleton bullfrogs was legal, but does that make it right?

"Bullfrogs may be taken for personal consumption under the authority of a valid sport or conservation fishing licence. No commercial harvest of bullfrogs is permitted. The only firearms permitted for harvesting bullfrogs are bows (for example, compound, recurve, long or crossbow). A person may take bullfrogs at night without a firearm and may shine a light for that purpose." https://www.ontario.ca/document/ontario-hunting-regulations-summary/small-game-and-furbearing-mammals

Apparently, bullfrog hunting as described in the above government publication is even permissible within a Provincially Significant Wetland. We have several such wetlands on our property, separated by hardwood forests. 

I can't imagine anyone requiring those calories so desperately! Globally, the harvesting of large frogs for food has led to serious declines in several species, including the American bullfrog. Frog legs were popular menu items in the 1980s and early 1990s. Harvesting for both food and educational purposes (i.e., dissection) has simply and tragically decimated native bullfrog populations in many wetlands. 

Woefully, our froggy friends were "harvested" into local extinction. Clearly, such activities are not sustainable.  In my opinion, the distinctive "harumpf" of the bullfrog voice is as vital as the haunting call of the loon to the Canadian environment. 

Steve Irwin, known as "the Crocodile Hunter", 2005

"We don’t own the planet Earth, we belong to it. And we must share it with our wildlife.” – Steve Irwin, renowned Australian wildlife expert and conservationist.

The following map tracks the comings and goings of bullfrogs relative to 1998. The red squares indicate where bullfrogs were present before 1998 but not after that date. The yellow squares are where bullrogs have expanded their range after 1998 into areas where they had not been previously detected. Bullfrogs were found in the blue squares both before and after 1998. It is unknown whether their overall numbers are increasing. The red squares outnumber the yellow squares. 

Singleton is located on the above map near two red squares (yellow arrow)  surrounded by blue
squares. The actions of just a few frog hunters can have serious impacts.

Making something legal does not make it ethical. Tragic examples abound in our current capitalistic economy and cataclysmic governments. Democracy relies on the integrity and honesty of elected representatives to behave according to their party platform and policies within the laws of the land. Tragically, that is not always the case. There are numerous glaring examples of individuals with the worst qualities holding public office. Laws are changed to suddenly make their misdeeds legal. Greed and power are the motivations. Shame. 

A few empathic and passionate champions are vital to keep the country on track to a sustainable future for all, not just for the wealth and power of the elite few. 

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" was written by Lord Acton (John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton), in an 1887 letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton. The words still ring true more than a century later. 

Now for some biological facts. 

• The American bullfrog, the largest frog in Canada, is native to southern Ontario. 
• They are typically found along shorelines of lakes, bays, and slow-moving rivers, preferring areas with deep, permanent water. 
• Bullfrogs are known for their deep, bass call, which sounds like "Jug-O-Rum". 
• The bullfrog varies in colour from pale green to dark greenish brown above, is creamy white below and has variable dark mottling on the back or underside. 
• Adult males have pale to bright yellow chins during the breeding season. 
• Bullfrogs are distinguished by their very large tympani (eardrums), which are always larger than the eyes, especially in males. 
• Bullfrogs have lateral folds, but, unlike in other frog species, these folds wrap downward around the tympani rather than trailing down the back. 
• Adult bullfrogs may grow up to 16 centimetres long. 
• Bullfrogs breed later than most other frogs, usually from mid-June to late July on warm, humid or rainy nights. 
• The egg masses may contain up to 20,000 eggs and, when first laid, spread out over the surface of the water. 
• Bullfrog tadpoles, which grow for up to three years before changing into frogs, eat suspended matter, organic debris, algae, plant tissue and small aquatic invertebrates. 
• Bullfrogs reach maturity two to four years after transforming, and in the wild, bullfrogs are known to live up to 10 years. However, mortality is high during the first few years of life. In captivity, they can sometimes live longer, with records of some living up to 16 years.
• They are known for their voracious, indiscriminate appetite. Bullfrogs will eat virtually any animal they can swallow, including insects, birds, mammals, reptiles and even other bullfrogs. This trait makes them easy to catch. 

It was a wonderful experience attempting to breathe life into the oil painting of a bullfrog. The following chronicles just a few of the steps. There were many more steps over a week of effort.

For me, art is a personal challenge. Each subject is unique and demands focus and concentration to succeed. I am the one who must be satisfied and am careful not to empower anyone else. I own either the success or the failure of the creative venture. Art, like life, is not a competition. 

A portrait can be found in the eyes. Those googly peepers of the bullfrog had to be alive and following your every movement from the canvas. They had to be just right, and it took several days and some intense concentration. 

The following image displays the studio arrangement on day six with two oil palettes and a slew of brushes that required some attention. An LED lamp was used to light my palette as the colours were getting tricky. I had to use some of my Stevenson's Quinacridone Crimson - not much left. My palettes were also getting somewhat messy. Time to regroup.

John Verburg's photographic inspiration is displayed on the old TV screen,
and I pretend I am outside painting. I can be very gullible. 

The Singleton bullfrogs disappeared for many years. It has taken more than a decade, but the song of the bullfrog has partially returned to Singleton. We have started to hear some bullfrogs again in 2025... Let us hope that people will leave them alone to complete their interesting biology, as summarized above. That should be enough motivation to let them naturally thrive. 

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