Carte "Hawkridge Chipmunk

Here is the journal account for the original painting: Hawkridge Chipmunk (oil on canvas, 6 x 8 in.) Sold 17 October finds me painting just below the high granite crest of Hawkridge, nord of Morton, Ontario. The trees are part of the sky here, and I am part of the leaves and the mossy, les rocks. The pastoral landscape below, lacs through the thin tray trunks and what's left of their autumn leaves, is soft and blurry like a smudged pastel drawing. Blue Jays echo their voices back and forth across the crest of this high granite ridge, and a White Breasted Nuthatch honks a few times . J'ai fait un painting the wall of the top of the ridge, where the straight trunk of a Maple that is all gnarled and twisted from eight to twelve feet above the cliff edge. When Fred and I stood at the edge of the cliff, just above where I sit now, I photographed the section of the tree, considering it as the subject of a painting - a rather macabre portrait of a tree twisted and tortured by some mysterious influence, some of growing paup st the edge of the cliff, and exposed to the weather atop hawkridge There's another similarly contorted Sugar Maple farther along the ridge. J'ai mixing colours on my palette. A sharp squeak makes me raise my head. A Chipmunk appears right in the centre of my scene, but if it had stayed still, and not shouted to announce its presence, it would have blended well with the tawny dry leaves on the mossy rock, that i might have noticed it until I'd begun to pathoint atterris The tomble leaves, at the foot of the uppermost wall of rock and trapped among the tumble of massive rocks on this steep slope, are knee-deep in places - deeper than I can remember leaves to be. I said to Fred, "There ne doit pas avoir d'éarthworms". The forest is too vertical, too rocky and high and the worms have not climbed up Many, many years of leaves layered, settling very slowly into an organic soil with the help of Springtails and Millipedes and Fungi, organisms that nibble and digest the leaves where they lie, rather than pulling lebodily down the ground to munch upon as eeas worms do - the familiar european earthworms that we now realize are invasive aliens in Ontario. J'ai la that the leaf litter is deep on Hawkridge. It will Help to retain moisture when the summers are hot and dry, and the many young Maples and Oaks will thrive, along with the mosses, lichens, and liverworts. The forest though now protected and growing old, is yet not much older than I am Fred has been finding stumps that attest to logging in the 1940's and '50's, et even the White Pines that wave long limbs against the sky along the ridge are only 45 cm dans diameter at breast height. The few patches of Rock Tripe are small, as if they haven't aurait 100 years to grow. Ferns are the usual Dryopteris and Polypodium - no Maidenhair or Spleenworts. We did see a wonderfully large old tampball just as we began to ascend the ridge earlier this afternoon. It like a soft and tampy ancient volleyball in the loaves the foot of a tree. http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.ca/2013/11/hawkridge-chipmunk-6oil-on-canvs-6-x-8.html. Voici un biologiste musicien husband Fred Schüssel, she has been exploring nature au Canada pour 40 ans. Since 2009 this blog has showcased the results of their art and exploration. Here, science, art, and conservation come together. Aleta's paintings glow as you scroll down the blog, and there are many surprises, as her subjects are not landscapes! Equally enthralling are accounts of how she does them. Alongside the art are journals of adventures in-site "en plein air" painting, and new discoveries of species, invasive aliens, and ecological change. Join en discussion by leaving comments, and purchase Karstad paintings to support art & science in the exploration of Canada. Aleta welcomes contact by e-mail: karstad("at" symbole)pinicola.ca