#2194 "Agawa Beach Sunset"

It has been another busy day of painting at Superior East and the Agawa Region. I ambled down to the lake shore to enjoy the sunset. I decided to take some pictures as I was much too tired to even try to get energy into the oils on a canvas. This view was looking southward toward the point shielding Batchawana Bay. Montreal River Harbour and the Lake Superior Provincial Park Addition are along that shore. Highway 17 extends along the shoreline further to the south.

The time was 6:30 pm local and there was still a bit of time before sunset even though the sun was not going to be seen. Overcast layers of cloud dominated the sky. A break in the layers did allow some brightness to peak through.

This painting is intended to be a partner for #2193 "Agawa Headland".

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#2193 "Agawa Headland"

Another very busy day of painting was over at Superior East and the Agawa Region. I ambled down to the lake shore to enjoy the sunset even though I had to use my imagination for the sun itself. I decided to take some pictures as I was much too tired to even try to get the required energy into the oils and brush work on a canvas. This view was looking northwestward toward the Agawa Cliffs and the Agawa Pictographs. The time was 6:15 pm local and there was still a bit of time before sunset even though the sun was not going to be seen. Overcast layers of cloud dominated the sky. A break in the layers did allow some brightness to peak through.

This painting is intended to be a partner for #2194 "Agawa Beach Sunset".

For this and much more art, please click on Pixels. Thank you!

#2192 "Legion of Sunflowers"

The Lyndhurst Rejuvenation Committee (https://www.lyndhurstvillage.ca/) decided to scale up their efforts in support of Culture Days. More artists of all stripes were involved. Maps were produced. The events and activities were well advertised.

After all was said and done, Lyndhurst was a Runner-up in its category. Well-done! Terri Dawson of the Green Geko is the Chair of this important group.

It would seem that the Lyndhurst Rejuvenation Committee is on the right track. At one time Lyndhurst was the busiest place around with industry and a bright future.

It is quite impossible to say just how busy any of these cultural events might be in advance. Attendance depends on a multitude of factors. The weather is likely the biggest factor. Other competing events are a challenge as well. I went to my assigned location at the Canadian Legion prepared to keep myself busy painting. I did not know that there were also going to be musicians performing. They played terrific guitar music for the afternoon so I was pleasantly occupied all day long. Wow.

I headed outside the Lyndhurst Royal Canadian Legion looking for something to paint. I did not wish to wander far as someone painting outside on a cold and windy day might be a draw to the artistic event. A group of sunflowers caught my eye. A few people came by to watch me paint including my cousins, Patrick Johnson the musician as well as Mark Jamison who was running for Council in 2018 (successfully). I had fun and I hope Vincent would be pleased with my sunflowers. I enjoy painting flowers. I have being trying to lay one stroke down and then leaving it alone until the canvas is all covered. The approach is simple but does it work?

Historically a legion was a unit of 3000 to 6000 men in the ancient Roman army. Technically a legion is now just a large number. The synonyms of legion are interesting and include horde, throng, multitude, host, crowd, mass, mob, gang, swarm, flock, herd, score, army, pack and so on. I used the word Legion out of respect for the Royal Canadian Legion which is a non-profit Canadian veterans' organization founded in 1925 after the First World War. Society owes everything to the veterans. I have the gift of being able to paint in peace. There were only a half dozen sunflowers in my composition so perhaps I was exaggerating a bit. 

#2191 "Algoma Central"

Frater was indeed beautiful even in the fog and heavy drizzle. Some professional observers would call it rain. There were a pair of bull moose in this image but they dissolved into the fog like ghosts. This view was looking northwest along the tracks of the Algoma Central Railway.

Several members of Canada's Group of Seven painted in the Algoma region between 1918 and 1923, including Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, J.E.H. MacDonald and Arthur Lismer. Back in 1918 Algoma was certainly remote. Villages along the shore of Lake Superior were only accessible by boat. Interior regions of Algoma had the Algoma Central Railway. The group rented a boxcar from the Algoma Central Railway and converted it into a paint mobile. What fun!

A hundred years later I had my own paint mobile. The 2004 Subaru Forester was filled to the roof with paint, canvas and summer weight camping supplies. It might have been June but the weather was more like January. It was a wonderful experience. I was traveling on Highway 17 or Kings Highway 17. The official opening for through traffic on the 4860 mile long Trans-Canada Highway took place on September 3rd, 1962. The Subaru was my access to Algoma and the painting haunts of the Group of Seven.

This painting was looking northwest along the paired ACR lines. A ditch was still filled with the water from the remains of Hurricane Alberto. A dirt lane paralleled this ditch for a ways. All of the paths led into the thick fog and the notch cut through the tree line.

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#2190 "Frater Superior East"

I woke up at 6 am at my Agawa campsite in Superior East as has been the habit on this painting trip. Within minutes I was in the car and traveling up Frater Road. The car has a heater and the tent does not. The car measured the outside temperature at plus 4 Celsius. It felt colder and I had the car heater on full tilt to compensate. I was told that it was very scenic in Frater and I had to go. The weather was foggy with some drizzle but I had to give it a try.

The roads were constructed out of glacial till. The round rocks were sometimes huge like boulders and the rain from Alberto had washed the sand from around them. The round rocks made the road very rough. I drove up to the Village of Frater. There were a few old and empty looking houses with three big trucks parked outside. I saw two bull moose on the railway tracks that went through the centre of Frater. The huge moose simply dissolved into the fog and the drizzle when they saw me. There were several outhouses so I don't think any of these houses had running water. I would have painted something in Frater but the precipitation was far too heavy. I also wanted to take the Towab Trail that started from Frater Road but it sounded like I would spend way more time hiking than painting. Agawa Falls was at the end of that Towab Trail.

I did revisit the photos I took in this painting and #2191 "Algoma Central". I painted the village looking southward from the train tracks. The one red building had a "Frater". The other building had it own outhouse.

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#2189 "Trapper’s Bay"

I went for a hike around Trapper's Trail on the way back from Gargantua Harbour and just after painting #2124 "Superior Woodland River". Trapper's Trail follows the shore around Rustle Lake and was only 5 kilometres south of the Gargantua Harbour. I thought it would be nice to explore every little bit of Superior East Provincial Park.

The guide for Superior East Provincial Park describes Trapper's Trail as " Follow the shoreline of Rustle Lake through a wetland and watch for moose, great blue heron and beaver from the floating boardwalk. Dawn and dusk are the best times to see beaver on this trail." It was indeed an easy hike and only 1.5 kiolmetres long. I was the only one walking. There was some good scenery for sure. I saw moose tracks but nothing was standing in them at the time.

The altocumulus clouds were as flat as pancakes. This was really a skyscape disguised as a landscape. The subject matter was really the flat sheet of altocumulus cloud and I wanted to see how well I could capture that moment. I used a lot of paint on this small canvas.

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#2188 "Dumoine Dances"

This is based on #2159 "Dumoine Rapids". That painting was all about the forest and the rapids in the title were more of a supporting actor. I wanted to do something much bigger than the plein air work that also had a lot of vitality and movement. I felt the forest and trees dancing as much as the rapids. The car-sized boulders even have a lot of movement as well.

The Dumoine is a celebration of something alive and vibrant and that include the rocks and the trees as well as the river. I picked a large and very high quality canvas and a palette full of paint - pitter-patter...

The black spruce and pines of the Dumoine are thick and their branches intertwine to make a nearly impregnable wall of green. It is dark in the forest under those trees and once inside there is not much to guide you which way you came or which way to go. The forest probably looked the same way now as it did in the times of Champlain a few centuries ago before the Industrial Revolution. (Samuel Champlain; born August 13, 1567, died 1635)

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#2187 "Another Sunset Revolution"

Hurricane Gordon was down on the Gulf of Mexico in early September 2018. The water vapour imagery clearly shows where that tropical moisture was headed along the atmospheric highway in the sky.

The sunsets and the weather were going to be interesting. Every day the earth makes another revolution and every day, all being well, we get to enjoy another spectacular sunset. This sunset was a couple of days before #2186 "Gordon Thin Cirrostratus Sunset" and three days before #2185 "Virga Singleton Sunset".

Hurricane Gordon was the costliest tropical cyclone of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season. Gordon was also the most destructive tropical cyclone to strike Florida since Hurricane Irma in 2017. Gordon was the seventh named storm, third hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, Gordon caused widespread devastation in the Antilles Islands, Cuba, Bahamas islands, and the southeastern United States. The damage cost about $26.3 billion and resulted in 129 storm-related fatalities in all affected areas. The warmer oceans were fueling more and stronger tropical storms. There were nine tropical storms active when I recorded this story.

The warmer oceans were fueling more and stronger tropical storms. There were nine tropical storms active when I recorded this story.

I painted the same sky again in #2203 "Langmuir Streak Sunset". The timing was just a bit later on that Thursday evening. Sunset skies can change dramatically by the minute.

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#2186 "Gordon Thin Cirrostratus Sunset"

The tropical moisture from the remains of Hurricane Gordon was approaching Singleton Lake. Tropical moisture and clouds just look different - and there was a lot of tropical moisture in this air mass.

The water vapour imagery revealed a continuous supply of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. Thunderstorms were frequent along this line south of Lake Erie. This sunset was the day before #2185 "Virga Singleton Sunset".

We need more sunset paintings in this world... it reveals more people are taking the time to appreciate the everyday beauty that surrounds us.

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