#3024 "Cousin Islands Flags"

#3024 "Cousin Islands Flags" 
12 X 16 inches, oil on stretched canvas.
Started 11:30 am Monday, June 29th, 2026

Flagged trees always interest me.  Trees can tell us so much if we only pause to look. These trees are sculpted by the relentless onshore winds. The weather laboratory is my constant companion as well. There is a good physical reason behind every line in the sky. If you can explain each line, then you will also understand the weather. 

My friend Cam, who took this inspirational image, knows what I enjoy painting. The elements of rocks, trees and clouds always grab my attention. Together, they define the Canadian landscape. 

Before diagnosing a scene, it is helpful to determine the time of day and the direction of view. Cam revealed these as 3:15 pm on Sunday, June 28th, 2026, looking south across the western Point of Cousin Island. The same information could have been deduced from the cumulus clouds and the trees, but it is good to have an independent source. 

Both the flagged trees and the cumulus were leaning from right to left. The prevailing winds required to shape the pines are onshore and westerly on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay.  The view had to be looking southward! The red arrow in the following graphic is for the right side of the image while the blue arrow is for the left. 

The sun was high in the western sky, so the timing had to be mid-afternoon.

The western flanks of the cumulus clouds are fully illuminated by the summer sun, high in the sky. The summer solstice had occurred the previous week. The timing of the image had to be mid-afternoon. 

The lines of cirrostratus stretching across the sky high above the cumulus allow us to finish understanding the weather. Cirrostratus are ice crystal clouds at the highest levels of the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere which contains most of the exciting weather. 

Gentle lift of ascending air is required to create these extensive layers of cloud. Such lift is common at the leading edge of the warm conveyor belt associated with an approaching weather system. The warm air that heads northward rises along the constant-energy surface meteorologists refer to as isentropes, for free. Typically, constant-energy surfaces slope upward from the equator, reaching higher levels over both poles. The lines in the cirrostratus are deformation zones where a layer of moisture encounters the leading edge of the warm and moist air mass. 

The following graphic illustrates the basic deformation-zone flow and the gravity waves typically found therein. There is no exam. 

If I had been there with my easel secured in the deep water of the channel, I would have watched the elements of cirrus cloud moving from right to left. This means that Parry Sound and Cousin Island were under the anticyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt. The angle of the subtle gravity waves that I included in the painting confirms this diagnosis. The implications of this are explained in several blogs within the searchable "Art and Science of Phil the Forecaster". The centre of the approaching system was aimed to the north of Parry Sound, at least for the moment. 

To deduce more about the approaching weather, one needs to look further upstream. Water vapour imagery was always my go-to tool. In this case, a large area of convection was located over Wisconsin. The surface warm front was associated with that Mesoscale Convective System (Complex).

A single image or better still, an animation of water vapour imagery, could keep me analyzing and diagnosing the information contained therein for hours, if I let it. The solution to that effort was knowledge of where and when the severe weather could be found based solely on the actual atmosphere. 

I was thinking the above thoughts while I painted. Perhaps I should have focused more on my brush strokes. The following collage summarizes some of the steps I took while completing #3024 "Cousin Islands Flags". 

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

Warmest regards, and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick