#2899 "Grippen Lake Creek Finds Long Reach"

 

#2899 "Grippen Lake Creek Finds Long Reach"
Oils on medium burnt sienna oil tinted commercial canvas panel - 8  X 10 (inches).
Started 8:45 am Friday September 13th, 2024 from very near N44.512189 W76.109307 

This was the first work of the three-day International Plein Air Painters (IPAP) WORLDWIDE Paint Out. There was not much of an "internet" in the autumn of 2001 to facilitate the forming of the International Plein Air Painters Organization. This plein air painting group was simply started within "Yahoo Groups". Small gatherings of artists responded to the horrific tragedy that was 911 throughout the United States, Canada, Brazil, Italy and some islands in the Caribbean. In 2024 International Plein Air Painters celebrates its 23rd Anniversary. I am a Charter and Honours Signature member of IPAP joining immediately in October 2001 when approached by the founder and my friend Jacq Baldini. 

International Plein Air Painters has always had the purpose of uniting artists who have a love of painting outdoors from life without the regional restrictions of political or artificial borders. The first Annual Great WORLDWIDE Paint Out was in September 2002. The paint-out is scheduled on the Friday through Sunday of the weekend closest to the tragic anniversary of 911. The 2024 Annual Great WORLDWIDE Paint Out will be the 22nd such event. I have not missed a year painting at least one of the three days. For several years I helped to organize larger, all weekend events at Rockport and Kingston, Ontario. Starting in 2019, COVID has changed the world in many ways similar to 911. Now I tend to just stay home and paint. Until this September, we had avoided COVID at Singleton... but that's another sad story... 

Friday the 13th is rumoured to be an "unlucky day" in western superstition. It was certainly a bad day for the Knights Templar in 1307 when they were arrested by officers of King Philip IV of France (no relation). The knights were imprisoned and tortured with more than 50 eventually being burned at the stake. 

It takes a couple of months to process the global data.

In 2024, Eastern Canada was under the influence of a large Omega Block which spanned both the Polar and Arctic jet streams. The easterly flow on the south side of the Omega Block really showed up in the water vapour imagery on Friday the 13th, 2024. This time, it was the planet that was burning up under the impacts of Climate Change. It was an unusually long and persistent blocking pattern that brought clear skies and calm winds to Eastern Ontario for most of the month of September. The weather was very unseasonably hot from when I was a kid but it was a perfect day to be outside painting and surrounded by nature. 

I used the pontoon boat as my painting platform. I stopped on the outside of the weak flow from Grippen Lake. The gentle anticyclonic circulation swirled the boat toward the northwestern shore of Long Reach. I had to turn to keep my subject in view and compensate for the twisting of the boat. It was a pleasant way to paint that quiet September morning. Sometimes I felt a lot like an owl swivelling my head. 

There had been a remarkable Belt of Venus at sunrise but that was long gone leaving only autumn haze in the western sky. I appreciated the way that the white pines stretched into the sky. 

That fatal Friday in 1307 evolved into some very bad years that spelled the end of the Knights Templar. The scorching day in September 2024 was just another one of the hot days that turned into months. Those very tropical months morphed into roasting centuries for the planet. It was another step in the demise of nature as humans enjoyed it before the Industrial Revolution. 

The 21st Century is becoming identified as the "Century of Fire". Climate change is still a better descriptive term as the weather adjusts to the new normals. Some areas will indeed become hotter and drier while some will be washed away by torrential hurricanes and winds. Coastal areas will be flooded as the ice caps melt. All of this was predicted very accurately starting around 1800 but politicians were not listening...

Gobla Data for July 2024. July 2024 was the second warmest month (for global average temperature) on record, only 0.04°C behind the record set in July 2023. It was simply another month of global extreme heat. The "one-point-five" line in the sand was in the rearview mirror as the politicians 
accelerated the fossil fool race car over the cliff of no return... just my opinion of course.

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