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| #3040 "Peggy's Granite Prince" 48 X 60 by 1.75 deep (inches) Oils on canvas. Started at 9:30 am Tuesday, August 18th, 2026 |
"Peggy's Granite Prince" is based on #0066 "The Granite Prince, Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia" from the spring of 1978. I was only sixty-five paintings into my artistic journey, with a long way to go... and much to learn. That would have been painted in the spare bedroom of our apartment in the Woodlawn Mall area of Dartmouth. I only had the aluminum easel my parents gave me, which I still use today. Good times! I really liked that painting and felt it needed a bigger and bolder format. The new 4-by-5 foot canvas alone is worth $500 without even applying any oil to it.
Here it is set up in the back room of my Singleton Studio, where it spent late summer and all of the autumn of 2026. I would visit the canvas whenever conditions were inclement outside, and my inside chores were done. Otherwise, I spent a lot of time in the Singleton Forest.
This brings back some wonderful memories of our first stay in the "Merry Times". Those thoughts flood back to me as I apply the oils to this composition a second time. There will be some changes for sure. I just do not know what they might be yet, as I sketch in the ideas.
I decided to turn it into a more colourful summer image with towering cumulus along the sea breeze convergence line. Lobster pots and buoys were included on the dock. As in the original, the morning sun was low in the eastern sky. The shadow of the fishing shack draped across the dock.
The morning sun would have warmed the South Shore of Nova Scotia just enough to release the convective instability inherent in the very unstable air mass. The sea-breeze convergence line was still at the shore! The tops of the towering cumulus were bent by the return flow of the sea breeze circulation aloft. With continued heating, that line would progress maybe 20 kilometres inland, taking the convective towers with it. Peggy's Cove and the South Shore would enjoy clear skies and a cool onshore breeze from the Atlantic. The following summarizes the science behind the very important sea-breeze convergence line conceptual model.
The Granite Prince was my favourite boat in Peggy's Cove. I painted it before it got radar. It was a beautiful day in the spring of 1978. There was no advection fog, which was a treat. We were out for a drive and a meal at the Sou'Wester Restaurant in the BC Era - Before Children. I painted exactly what I saw. We preferred to visit the Sou'Wester during the nastiest winter storms and be the only ones in the restaurant while huge waves crashed dangerously on the granite shore.
The Sou'Wester celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2018 and is still going strong. We always return when we get back to Nova Scotia.
Shearwater was my first meteorological posting and my favourite! I would relearn that lesson with each subsequent career change until I finished my career with COMET in Boulder Colorado. If you wish to learn about the weather, go east, young man. The weather was always changing, and the art of a careful analysis of the science and the observations was key to understanding the meteorology and the concern of the day. I wish I had a few of those early analyses on hand-plotted maps with coloured terrain. The weather of the eastern seaboard taught me a lot. I am still learning. The staff were dedicated and keen to serve. The memories of CFB Shearwater always make me smile... but I digress.
I did a Google search for the Granite Prince, which returned some of my paintings. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has digested almost everything ever created by humans to create a probability of what word comes next. AI has graduated from being a spellchecker to something that I find to be virally invasive. It is a struggle, but I endeavour to keep AI out of my life, preferring human errors to AI probable fabrications. The race for AI Supremacy by some nations and billionaires is a winner-takes-all brawl where the end is supposed to justify the means. Scary... but I digress... again.
The following AI text even indicated that the Granite Prince radar equipment was installed after 1978, perhaps discovered from my post.
"The 36-foot Cape Island-style fishing boat Granite Prince was a well-known fixture and working yellow boat in Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia during the 1970s and 1980s. The 36-foot wooden vessel was frequently featured in photographs, local lore, and writings about Peggy's Cove, including several of paintings. The Granite Prince was featured in regional papers and literature capturing the daily rhythms of the village's cod, haddock, and lobster fishermen. Sadly, the Granite Prince was eventually sold, renamed, and sank in the late 1980s.
The Granite Prince in Fine Art: Artist Phil Chadwick captured the vessel in its prime with his painting, The Granite Prince - Peggy's Cove. His work depicts the iconic boat floating peacefully in the cove's calm waters in the spring of 1978, just before it was retrofitted with radar equipment."
At the time, during my first stint as a meteorologist in Nova Scotia, it was gently suggested that I find another place other than Peggy's Cove and the South Shore to paint... The distinctive yellow hull of the Granite Prince stands out in three of the paintings... now four.
Warmest regards, and keep your paddle in the water,
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