#0608 "February Fence"

#0608 "February Fence"
18 X 24 (inches).
Started Saturday afternoon, February 1st, 2003.

I finished my Watershed Farm chores by 2 pm. The family Chesapeake and I felt inspired to paint. We ended up on the south side of the neighbour's property, looking toward the southwest and the fallen-down fence bordering the Coulter's fields. The only thing that really keeps the cows in is the precipitous drop on the north side of the fence line.

I dug into the snow so that I wouldn't fall flat on my ass. My pacing back and forth turned the slope into ice, and more than once I had to catch myself. It was a mild 4 Celsius and very pleasant with almost no wind. The colours and multitude of tracks in the snow, as well as the lines of the fence, were what caught my eye. There was even a minnie snow roller that had tumbled down off the fence line. I included that as the round disk on the left side of the painting. The roller got hung up halfway down the slope. 

My Chesapeake managed to break off a limb of a tree. She delivered it to me to throw for her after she had suitably gnawed off the smaller branches. I tossed it periodically the rest of the afternoon until there was nothing left except a chunk of wood the size of a baseball. By that time it was dark and I had to bail anyway.

I wish that I had pictures to supplement those memories. I was still using a film camera so thought twice before I took any pictures. Digital cameras would make in-progress images very affordable, but that had not happened for me yet in 2003. 

Other paintings along this part of the fence line: #0610, #0618, #0629 #0879.  Also see the larger offspring of this plein air sketch at #1084 "The Son of the Fence"

This was the day the Space Shuttle Columbia blew up over northern Texas at 200,000 feet of altitude and travelling at Mach 18. All seven of the crew died at 9.00 am EST. 

The Chesapeake assisted me while I painted #0615 "Bough-zers".
She was always with me when I painted, even in the Studio. 

We loved that dog! She and her friend, the Maine Coon cat, would line up for special suppers. Both would accompany me outside on walks or when I painted. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint Collection. Thank you for reading, and stay well!

Warmest regards, and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2989 "Winter Sanctuary"

#2989 "Winter Sanctuary" 
48 X 36 inches.
Started at noon on Thursday, December 4th, 2025

I received a high-priority work order for a large winter scene to be placed in the art display rotation of our home. An inspirational scene packed full of memories immediately came to mind. 

Our young family frequented the Tecumseth Pine Conservation Area west of Schomberg, Ontario. The pine plantation was a terrific place to be surrounded by nature and out of the wind. There was one steep hill that we liked to toboggan down. The kids and I had a riot sliding down that precipitous slope just in our snow suits.  The boot prints in the show headed up that hill are in direct relationship to our fun sliding down. 

#0208 "Shadows - Too"

#0208 "Shadows - Too" was completed on an 18 by 14 inch canvas in the winter of 1989, based on that pine-covered slope. My Studio was a three-foot square tucked under the basement stairs back then.  I thought it would be a wonderful subject to turn into a much larger canvas; actually, 6.8 times larger with dimensions of 4 by 3 feet. The goal was to make it even better. The bare bones of the painting were strong. The zen needed to be preserved as well. I thought I could enhance the colours of the snow and the texture of the painted surface. It would be fun, win or lose!

The backlit tree trunks were dark. The shadows diverged as they poured down the undulating snow surface. There were a lot of different elements to play with, providing many different possible solutions. Art is never just about the brush strokes. 

#0208 "Shadows - Too" is not included in my Fine Art America portfolio (yet). I did not own a camera capable of taking an adequate image back then. The original sold fast, and life was so very busy! 

What were my excuses? Meteorology was keeping me very involved as I was still learning from the atmosphere. I was developing new applications of remote sensing data, both satellite and radar. Performance measurement was also very important, trying to prove beyond any doubt the value of quality weather forecasts to the Canadian economy. I hoped that such information might be of importance in negotiations to increase the meagre and decreasing funds devoted to environmental sciences. There was an economic war being waged against Canadian science. Truth is only tolerated when it serves those in power, and the politicians of the day had been bought by big oil. Atmospheric carbon levels also continued to rise dramatically, and the impacts were bound to be noticeable in the 1990s. This was all important science!

I was also busy with PowerPoint presentations on the Art and Science of Tom Thomson, Severe Convection, CANWARN and Climate Change. If that wasn't enough, my family was contemplating building Watershed Farm on the 12th Concession of King Township. That big project got going in the early spring of 1993. Life was exciting, full of challenges, and some things just didn't get done. Anyway, that's my story. It is all true, and I will stick to it. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. Thank you for reading, and stay well!

Warmest regards, and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2988 "Sunny Side of Life"

#2988 "Sunny Side of Life"
20 (height) X 16 (width) and 0.750 (3/4) profile (inches).
Started 9:30 am Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025

Wintry weather was going to dominate conditions on the following day, a Tuesday, so I planned ahead by looking for untapped sunflower fodder. This is the Studio version of the plein air #2419 "September Sunflower". I just wanted to have some fun. 

Themes need to be in groups of at least three, and this painting would complete the trio, including #2986 and #2987. The photographic inspiration was taken on September 15th, 2020, at 14:23 pm; also a Tuesday. 

These particular blooms were also featured in other works from various angles included within the collage below: #2420 "In the Shade of the Sunflower", #2421 "Sunflowers Turned to the Sun"; #2933 "Sunflowers Endure",   #2934 "Sunflower Bouquet for a Winter Day", and #2935 "September Sunflower Reflections"

We planted three sunflower seeds in the COVID spring of 2020. Chipmunks got two of them, but the survivor turned into a giant worthy of Jack and the Beanstalk. A tape measure had it at ten feet tall, and it still grew a few inches after that. A support tied to an adjacent boulder prevented it from being blown over by the onshore Singleton winds. 

Vincent would have loved to paint those flowers. I know I did. I used a canvas I stretched on a frame built by my Dad. My goal is to use all of those frames he constructed before I head for the big easel in the sky... my Dad was a special person!

Part of my philosophy, inspired by my parents, is to try to live on the "sunny side of life", which is the title for this expression of nature. See the good in nature and people. As my Dad told me as a kid, "Only worry about yourself"; do not concern yourself with the deeds of others, no matter how greedy, criminal or hypocritical they might be. 

Sometimes I still struggle, especially when I leave the Singleton Sanctuary or pay attention to the news. 

For example, climate change has never been so obvious after years of record-smashing heat, drought, floods, wildfires and storms. Species are going extinct daily due to human activities. Nature, science and even art are under attack. This sounds very much like Armageddon; the last battle between good and evil before the Day of Judgment.

Teetering off the delicate knife-edge of the fragile atmospheric balance is catastrophic, far beyond anyone's comprehension. That might be the problem!  

No one has witnessed what the Earth is about to endure. Fright for the future might be central in the lives of people around the globe. Fear is a destructive emotion that encourages people to abandon rationality and focus on their immediate survival rather than long-term good. Politicians are wilfully dumb and blind to everything beyond four years into the future. Where is the wisdom or leadership in that?  Rage follows, and that emotion is being harnessed by populist politicians. 

Greed is another powerful emotion. The lust for more and even more by corporations that profit from fossil fuels has pushed the Earth over the brink. Greed also fuels power, and power corrupts. Scientists around the globe have taken up that challenge, so there is no need for me to repeat the facts here. 

My decades of PowerPoint presentations and blogs about the science of climate change have been futile. Governments could have acted, but have been quite inadequate and self-serving. The "war on science" continues to rage, and not just in the United States! The war on Canadian science started quietly in the 70s and then ramped up in the 90s. Programs were designed to fail, opening the door for numerical solutions and now AI. I witnessed it happen... powerless to make a difference.

The United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) has been discussing and negotiating climate change since 1995. Dithering with nil positive impact is a good description - see the upper left portion of the following graphic. COP30, held in November 2025 in Belém, Brazil, "required" building a four-lane highway through the Amazon forest... Insanity? Madness! The final outcome from COP30 did not even mention the fossil fuel elephant in the room, and there was no agreement on binding commitments. 

Upon reflection, the facts of the Industrial Revolution are even more disturbing. Science has only been in political favour and encouraged when it supported corporate interests. In fact, those in power have always been at war with any science that did not align with their personal gain. Think about that!

May I digress with a personal example of science under attack! 

Being naturally curious was one of my curses. There were many innovations I wished to explore while employed as a meteorologist. "Project Time" to do so was severely limited in a government department which was always being underfunded and downsized. My manager devised an auction-based bidding system required to apply for the chance to conduct creative, original research. One had to demonstrate potential gains (economic gains preferred) that might be achieved through a minimum amount of time. Basically, knowing the result before doing the research. That is not how creativity functions. 

I worked a lot of overtime back then, especially during severe weather outbreaks. Logically, I took most overtime compensation as time off! I would appropriately use those mini-vacations to replace the time already forfeited so that I could spend it with my family and enjoy a balanced life.  I also continued research on my pet projects. Of course, there was a bonus of more time off earned with respect to hours worked. The bureaucratic bean counters had yet to figure out how to tax time off. My remedy was initially successful. I did a lot of research and also painted up a storm! Life was constructive, positive and creative. Fun!

Senior managers did not appreciate my "time off" approach to life. In fact , they hated it! That was an era of slash and burn in the public service. High-level bureaucrats devised draconian measures to address my rogue tendencies. Combating those actions was futile, as Human Resources typically sides with their employer. One happy exception was my successful efforts to achieve maternity benefits for males in the Atmospheric Environment Service. I never benefited from Parental Leave, but those obvious inconsistencies had to be challenged!   

Much to my wife’s chagrin, my home computers ran 24/7 seeking answers to questions that intrigued me. My radar friend and expert expert Ron built all of my home computers and still does. Creativity simply can't happen if one is fearful of making a mistake. As well, the hard drive on my office cubicle computer had been maliciously "reformatted", necessitating that I had to move my research to the safety of home. My investigations had the potential to address many important issues of the day. For me, research was like play… not work at all. So I researched and studied while at the weather centre and at home.

The research was quite successful and took several branches of science into new territories. The science found support around the globe, especially in Europe, Scandinavia and Australia. For example, using raw data, my nested, modular Visual Basic code could complete a year of performance measurement in a few hours, creating 3-D verification in time and space, with consideration of the lead-time of the prediction. New applications of remote sensing data were also my forte. 

There was considerable "eye rolling" by those who could not or would not understand, having not even made the effort to read the research papers or the very simplified executive summaries. Wilful blindness, if you will. Not much has changed. 

In my naivety, I thought we were all on the same team, desiring to provide better service through science. My core belief was that the human armed with pattern recognition skills and conceptual models was an important, if not vital, part of the forecast cycle, and that the human skill could be measured by a proper performance measurement method. The value of meteorological and climatological services to the Canadian economy were far more than the pittance in the budgets.

 

I became aware that my human skill centric opinion was a most unpopular view in the age of computer modelling and the burgeoning field of artifical intelligence. I was unaware of any war, which made the blind-sided skirmishes that much more damaging. Hard drives crashed, data sources vanished, and obstacles to research were erected. Program cuts escalated. Prime Minister Harper even forbade scientists to mention the words "climate" and "change". Ironically, a bureucratic autopen scrawled that name on my official retirement papers which appropriately occurred on Ground Hog Day in 2012.

Happily, retirement was just the start of an unencumbered search for the real truth, not contrained by narcissistic bureucracy and predetermined results. My research blossomed, partnered with friends from COMET, NOMEK and EUMETSAT until COVID came along late in 2019. My journey of curiosity still continues, mostly alone, embracing nature. Some work remains to be published but that material may appear in my blogs or my art. The truth is always worthwhile.

Those were my experiences, and back then, the war on science was very personal. 

Remembering that science is simply the search for the truth, the above discussion can be succinctly summarized as the following, a favourite of mine, which I first used in the 1980s:

Truth is only tolerated when it serves those in power. 

The corollary of the above statement is that every truth not approved by the authoritative, big-brother bosses will be discredited and fought tooth and nail. The unsanctioned truths far outnumber those that are endorsed as a direct function of how dictatorial the leadership might be. Recall:

"abstebos is carcinogenic", 

"smoking is bad for your health", 

"liquid natural gas is not an energy solution", ... the list is sadly endless. 

My personal favourite is from March 1912 Popular Mechanics, found on page 341, 

"burning coal ... tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. This effect may be considerable in a few centuries." 

Climate science was still in its infancy more than a hundred years ago. Meteorology and other earth sciences have come a very long way since then. Correspondingly, the forecast has improved immeasurably with more data, satellite technology and a much better understanding of the many factors and feedback tipping points at play within the earth-atmosphere system. Existential impacts are occurring now as we enter the verification stage of that explicit 1912 forecast. 

Solar Photovoltaic just keeps getting better...
We also employ passive solar and solar hot water
water delivered for free to our doorstep.

Given the above, the only solution must be found in economic forces that could drive the fossil fools out of business with cheaper and better green energies. Canada could have led the way, but didn't - oil and natural gas spoke louder. The harm of carbon and the potential power from the sun were "inconvenient truths" to Canadian corporations and politicians. 

There is certainly no time to waste; given the momentum of the climate, it is already too late to avoid 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels expected by 2080. The Earth will reach a life-ending 4 degrees Celsius higher by 2100 due to feedback mechanisms. Even moderate CO2 emissions must lead to 7°C of warming by 2200, but likely much higher... 

So I struggle with undue wealth, privilege, and a dearth of empathy. Unaccountable power wielded by self-serving and often corrupt multinational corporations and politicians is simply wrong. A few hypocritical, greedy individuals with economic and/or military power have knowingly, with intent, steered the Earth and all of nature on an uninhabitable course for many thousands of years? The unsurvivable impacts start within decades. In the battle of Armageddon, evil is beating the hell out of good.

Ultimately, nature and physics must still rule. Simply, the Earth will "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" and start again with another version of life. In the last four billion years, there have been five major mass extinctions where 70% to 95% of species were wiped out.  This will be number six, and humans should be first in line in the roughly 80% of dead-end species that will become extinct. Afterall, this extinction is the direct result of human action. Maybe the mega fauna and flora will give it another go? 

My simple plan of staying home with a nil carbon footprint will not change anything. The power brokers don't care and never did, despite the glad-handing and rhetoric of politicians. However, we will diligently continue to directly harness the energy of the sun, plant trees and support nature within the Singleton Sanctuary. The "sunny side of life" must flourish locally, fuelled by solar radiation that passively delivers heat, electricity and hot water to the doorstep. The cold trough of the larger atmospheric flow, which is favoured over eastern Ontario as a result of climate change, will help to keep us a bit cooler for a while. Life is good for now, but it is getting much harder to laugh...   

The Pacific Energy wood stove burns outside air for combustion and is about 80% efficient.
Only dead and fallen trees are used for firewood. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint Collection. Thank you for reading, and stay well!

Warmest regards, and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

PS: The closing lines of "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" are:

"So I have just one wish for you - the good luck to be somewhere you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by the need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom." Adapted from the Caltech Commencement address given in 1974. 

Amen... 

#2987 "Sunflower Friends"

#2987 "Sunflower Friends"
20 X 16 inches oils on stretched canvas.
Started at 10 am Saturday, November 22nd, 2025. 

I was starting to dither on #2986 "Tangled Singleton Sunflowers"! The entire canvas was blanketed in wet oil! I needed to move on, and the best way to do that is to pick up another canvas. I still had a lot of "sunflower" oils on my two palettes, so another sunflower painting was the logical choice. 

This is the twin of #2785 "June Sunflowers" which was painted from life, only flipped horizontally. Both are on 16-by-20-inch canvases. It amuses me that the numbers of each painting are appropriately jumbled dyslexically. I experimented with another colour combination employing the complement of yellow as a light shade on the wall and something different on the table. The main goal was and remains to have some fun with the paints. 

I have also painted my share of sunflowers over the years. There might be more than this that do not include “sunflower” in the title. Those paintings follow chronologically.

The Golden Ratio described in #2986 "Tangled Singleton Sunflowers" is always in my mind and art. Sometimes the incorporation of  Φ (pronounced "phi" - my name without the "l") is deliberate, but often Φ is accidental or by instinct. Something "golden" can just be appreciated without understanding why. 

I hope you are having a "Sunflower Day". There is still so much to learn about the Golden Rule... 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint Chronological Collection. 

Warmest regards, and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick 

#2986 "Tangled Singleton Sunflowers"

#2986 "Tangled Singleton Sunflowers" 
48 X 36 inches oils on stretched canvas.
Started at 9:30 am Monday, November 10th, 2025

Sunflowers prompt thoughts of Ukraine and Vincent Van Gogh…recent and past tragic tales. Sunflowers are also all about art and science. These are the methods I use to learn more about nature and the paradise we call Earth. Nature holds the answers to the questions we have not even asked yet. 

From an artistic perspective, I enjoy painting sunflowers in all of their twisted and tangled glory. Some of these blooms were past prime, while others were just starting to shine. The purple shades on the marble ridge caught my eye, along with the fiery red of some of the leaves. There is indeed purple to be found in nature if one only looks. These sunflowers were unintentionally planted as birdseed the previous winter. Like flowers, birds and nature just keep on giving. 

Snow on the Pumpkin, November 9th, 2025 

The first snow of the season had arrived the day before. I decided to paint in the Studio in front of the wood stove and listen to tunes while tackling this rather large canvas. This one is for Linda.

The simple sunflower is also the poster child for science. The sunflower solved the mathematics required to efficiently pack its seeds as they are prepared for dispersal and the next generation. The flower even devised the physics to turn and harvest solar energy all day long. They stand tall in the plant world, and there is still much that we can learn from a "simple" flower. 

Euclid, the Greek "father of geometry" figured out the magic of the "golden rectangle" way back in 300 BC. The following figures will save a lot of words and still explain the wizardry of the "golden ratio" Φ (pronounced "phi" - my name without the "l"). Golden rectangles are related to squares and smaller golden rectangles. The same golden ratio Φ can be deduced from the Fibonacci sequence, which is also described below. 

Sunflowers determined, through Darwin's natural selection, that the most efficient way to pack their seeds together is the "golden angle". Each seed is rotated by about 137.5 degrees from its neighbours so that there is no overlap. The figure to the right details that the golden angle is the smaller angle subtended by portions of a circle's circumference that are in the proportion of the golden ratio, Φ. The seed head of a sunflower is mesmerizing. Nature is simply amazing!

If the golden ratio, Φ, is not enough for you, sunflowers also follow the sun through a process called heliotropism, the diurnal or seasonal motion of plant parts. Differential stem growth controlled by their internal circadian rhythm controls the orientation of the sunflower bloom. During the day, the east side of the stem elongates faster, causing the young flower to bend westward following the sun. At night, the west side of the stem grows more, which causes the head to turn back east, ready to face the sunrise. This tracking behaviour stops once the sunflower reaches maturity. Mature plants generally stay locked in an eastward-facing position. This is because their priority shifts from growth to reproduction, and the eastward position is beneficial for attracting pollinators. 

The sunflower is even important in art history. Here again, pictures are worth thousands of words. Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) said: "The sunflower is mine, in a way". I hope that he would have shared the sunflower with me. I almost share my birthday with Vincent except that his was 100 years earlier than mine. 

Vincent painted the sunflower series primarily to decorate the "Yellow House" in Arles for his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin.  That house was painted by Vincent in 1888 and named "The Yellow House" perhaps by his sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger.  Jo dedicated herself to preserving and organizing Vincent’s paintings. Without her tireless efforts, we might never have known the magnitude of Van Gogh’s genius. Her work established Vincent's legacy, which is synonymous with genius, emotion, and tragedy. Jo made certain that Vincent’s art received the recognition it deserved. 

Yellow can also be a tricky colour. Van Gogh used the series as an opportunity to explore and perfect his use of different shades of yellow and how they might be combined to create harmony and contrast. The following images trace some of those studies.

Paul Gaugin even thought of Vincent as "The Painter of Sunflowers" and painted him that way. 

For the record, Paul Gauguin was an accomplished and serious student of fencing (with sharp swords, not wooden boards) and may have "accidentally" sliced off Vincent's ear during a heated argument. Perhaps Vincent claimed he razored off his ear to protect his friend from jail. As well, there is a theory that Vincent was "accidentally" shot by two teenagers enamoured with the "wild west-cowboy craze" of the day. Vincent claimed suicide to shield them from punishment. Vincent was clearly an empathetic soul, always concerned for the welfare of others. He was not "mad". It is not crazy to be compassionate or empathetic.

Among other science books, I read the "New Scientist" bi-weekly, an online magazine. Gravitons, quantum mechanics, dark matter and dark energy are frequent topics. I read, but I still don't know what they are. Nor does anyone else really. I wonder if the "Golden Ratio", first discovered by Euclid, might have some clues that have been overlooked. That natural constant impacts shapes from the very small to the very large and might hold some answers.

Not surprisingly, November 23 is Fibonacci Day, an annual holiday that honours one of the most influential mathematicians of the Middle Ages - Leonardo Bonacci. Fibonacci Day is celebrated on November 23rd to honour Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa (also known as Fibonacci) and his famous number sequence. The date 11/23 was chosen because the digits 1,1,2,3 are the first four numbers in his sequence.

I hope you are having a "Sunflower Day". There is still so much to learn. This composition may be too long for a blog, but I meant and felt every word. 

Finally, a photograph of a painting, regardless of the resolution, just can't touch the original. The colours may be true, but they can only go so far. This would be obvious to anyone who has been nose-to-nose with one of Vincent's works. I used morning light streaming into the Studio to illustrate this fact with respect to #2986 "Tangled Singleton Sunflowers". Oils and light are a living thing and very 3-dimensional. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint Collection. 

I wanted to start 2026 with the beauty of the "simple" sunflower - something positive and bright.

Warmest regards, and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick