#2066 "Behind the January Cold Front"

It was a shallow Arctic cold front with only some cloud along it. There was also some snow virga but nothing much made it to the ground at least around Singleton Lake. The cold air advection winds aloft wwere sufficient to make some rolls in the tops of the cloud deck. These backward curls always attract my eye. There was no cloud above the stratocumulus and in a few hours it would be clear within the cold and clean Arctic air.

I like to capture the optics of the reflections. The sun breaking through between the streets of turbulent stratocumulus reflected brightly in the calm and open water at the head of Jim Day Rapids. One can see that the reflected tops of the trees are bordered by the direct reflection of this sunlight. When one looks straight at the western shore of Singleton Lake the next street of stratocumulus to the west provides the backdrop to the Singleton Lake forest. The optics of the different viewing angles always interests me. If you paint what you see, you must be correct even if you do not bother to solve the science and angles behind it.

For you weather enthusiasts the water vapour imagery holds the answers to all of your questions behind this sunset scene.

I made a promise to the widow of an artist friend to turn these panels that he had prepared into paintings. This is another of those very rough panels. I still have a few left. They are very hard on my brushes but that is life in the fast lane.