#2165 "Robinson Lake Towering Cumulus"

There was an Open House at the CPAWS DRAW Camp and all of the artists were supposed to paint nearby. The swimming beach on Robinson Lake offered a handy and nearby vista. The point of black spruce filled the right side of the canvas while the island and distant south shore filled in the rest. The real subject in this landscape with the high horizon was the cumulus congestus developing to the south. The vigourous towers flailed out like hands reaching for the tropopause. A patch of

altocumulus drifted into the scene from the west. Gravity waves within this patch revealed the westerly winds in the mid atmosphere. There was a southerly wind at the surface. The resulting veering wind shear with height was conducive to well organized and strong thunderstorms. A bright white cumulus developing in front the towering cumulus was testimony to the energy in the air mass. It would be a dark and stormy night. No one got wet as far as I could determine.

The deer flies were especially pesky. One landed on the canvas just as I was finishing up. It flipped on to its back and the wings stuck into the very wet paint. The deer fly was positioned in the sky and could have been a soaring turkey vulture anyway so I left it. This painting was then a multimedia piece of work employing oils and bugs.

This was the 141st anniversary of the birth of Tom Thomson on August 5th, 1877. What better way to spend the day but to paint Canada en plein air... For this and much more art, click on Pixels.