#2928 "Ten-to-Six February Singleton Sunset"

#2928 "Ten-to-Six February Singleton Sunset" 
6.375 (height) X 12.25 (width) and 1.625 profile (inches).
Started 10 am Friday, February 21st, 2025

This is the February sunset from the previous evening - Thursday, February 20th. It was darkly inspiring. I appreciated how the setting sunlight had slipped through a crack in the cloud cover. I pondered meteorologically what could cause that linear break in the overcast skies. 

I confirmed that a cold front was the force behind that abrupt clearing. The wind backed by almost ninety degrees with the cold FROPA (FROntal PAssage). The northerly winds represented another air mass and temperature regime. 

The swans had already settled in for a long winter's nap. They may look like they are sound asleep with their head nestled under their wing. If you look closely, at least one has its eye wide open and was in full alert. A flock of black ducks kept the trumpeter swans company or vice versa. The open water of Jim Day rapids was very restricted and limited to the areas with the strongest currents. The area had been full of wildlife resisting the weather and refusing to cross the border to the south. 

Officially, the sunset occurred (at Kingston) at 5:43 pm with the sun positioned at 257° toward the west. That matches well with the accurate time on the camera as 5:51 pm. The time on the camera was within one minute of that on the computer. The otherwise cryptic title makes more sense with this background information. 

Everything that I was working on in the Studio was really wet with thick oils, so I decided to have some fun with something new. I would have very much preferred to have completed this en plein air, but time did not permit that. The photo also can't capture the colours, but I hoped that the memory was still fresh enough that I could do nature justice within the Studio. Temperatures will soon be mild enough to permit me to paint for extended periods out in the forest. 

 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