#2052 "Long Reach Lane Forest"

Linda wanted a portrait of our lane with snow and shadows and trees. I thought that I should do a few small ones before committing to a much larger canvas. I went for a stroll in the thirty centimetres of powdery snow looking for possible candidates for this adventure. An Alberta Clipper crossed southern Ontario with a swath of snow. Snowfall warnings were not issued. In reality, this was a Prairie Schooner which is a slower Clipper. Due to interactions with the Great Lakes and the further deepening of the low pressure centre associated with increased advections and reduced friction over the Great Lakes basin, warning criteria snowfalls are almost a certainty with Prairie Schooners. Numerical models tend to miss these events as they have much of their basis in the boundary layer physics.

This is the view looking eastward from the marble ridge that shoulders Long Reach Lane. A forest of sugar maples thrive on this ridge. The bright line just beyond the trees is our lane. The forest was too silent to be real to quote Gordon Lightfoot.

I painted this on a very smooth and slippery surface using lots of oil. It was fun.