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Cedar Bees?

1/7/2019

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Picture"The Ancients" 1 glaze oil 24 x 24
I don’t remember paying any attention to trees until one year when  a whim took field biology and, of all things, forest entomology. What an awakening! While all the vascular plants interested me, it was trees that blew me away. To this day, I can never decide on a favourite, though I feel great guilt for not having shown any appreciation to the multitudinous native ashes until they were doomed by that glittery green beetle that showed up in my garden less than a decade ago. I had the sense to squash as many as I could, sensing that the novelty of an introduced species is generally outweighed by its aptitude for producing unintended consequences. Thanks to my murderous instincts, I suppose, our few ashes are still soldiering on, but they will probably succumb too. In the seventies, our city had planted monocultures of ash trees and it was heart-breaking to see so much death in those areas.

Enough wallowing. This week I’ve been reflecting on the cedar, whose outlook, I think, is a feel-better narrative. No threats I know of! The modest white cedars of Ontario may not equal the towering west coast red cedars of the Pacific rain forest but they themselves are marvels. I can look out our windows and see towering sixty-footers racing each other to grab sunlight. Not far away — on the Escarpment cliffs — one can find miniature white cedars which predate Columbus even if they had to self-bonsai to do it. All shapes, all sizes, all conditions, cedars take foothold everywhere, though they seem happiest living near water. Then, who isn’t?

It’s not easy to ignore such a versatile and tough species but I managed for decades. In fact as a prairie kid I knew it not as a living thing but as a word for boring, even ubiquitous, house stuff. While cottagers or owners of “rec rooms” might have had cedar-paneling, everyone had a cedar-chest to store out-of-season woollens. If someone had asked me what cedar smelled like, I probably would would have replied, “Mothballs, of course.”

Not even close and definitely no cigar. Cedar not only has insecticidal properties but it smells divine. The heat and humidity have risen today and experience tells me that country paths are anointed with their sweet aroma. Turns out that cedar IS the smell of summer camp.

That doesn’t mean that cedar plays nice with other tree species. A mature cedar forest appears quite barren. While it’s true that other trees, like walnuts for example, also repel most other plants by producing a poison from their roots, a few species do survive in the understory; finding a list of walnut-tolerant plants was a godsend for me because it told me what would survive under our old walnuts. Unfortunately I’m not aware of such a list of cedar-tolerant plants. So if you don’t like the cedar forest’s beautifully warm rust-coloured floor comprised from its spent needles, you are out of luck because these trees outcompete everybody else.

Yet -- when the low rays of morning or evening sunlight penetrate the forest, all is forgiven. The play of blue shadow against Indian red duff was enchanting enough to inspire at least one painting.


One last kudo for cedar. Bees are in the sweets business and perhaps their aroma is why our girls of summer chose the old cedar for their hive. To seal the deal, the opening is just right — wide enough to allow multiple flight paths yet narrow enough to stave off pilfering. Our small Eden hums and at least here and now everything is right with the world.

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Tinkerbell

25/6/2017

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You can practically hear them munching.  Then there is the gentle pitter-patter of frass pellets (caterpillar poop) falling from the trees.  And all the light strangely present in the shade garden.

Every so often the defoliators’ boom/bust cycle peaks and terrifies those of us who love trees and in particular, the old slow-growing ones like our beloved 30 metre butternut.  This giant feeds and shelters a multitude (even bats, in a box Jon built for me many Christmases ago), but when the cankerworms struck, it was stripped bare in a few days.  These “white walnuts” are so rare and endangered as to be a protected species.  And irreplaceable, at least in human years;  as the saying goes, you plant poplars for yourself, but walnut trees for your grandchildren.  

So when this, our most precious tree, was among the throng of trees vociferously attacked, our hearts dropped — especially when we realized that gypsy moth caterpillars would hatch just in time to eat the second set of leaves.  Trees rarely survive 100% defoliation, let alone the loss of those leaves which are intended for next year.   We’ve done what we can:  Ontario was sold out of Tanglefoot;  we found some in The States and drove down to pick it up.  We have set up both sticky and burlap barriers on the trunks.  Every day we go out and murder the unhappy caterpillars we find there.

The whole process painfully reminds us how the presence of old trees so enriches our lives.  Our rescue efforts may not work.  We pray that they will.

I have no paintings of our butternut.  While huge, it sits quietly in the back corner of the property, visible only  above the surrounding red oaks and sugar maples.    This small study of another beloved tree will have to stand in it for it.  Sitting at a bend on one of our favourite rivers, this sugar maple beckons us on in all weather.  We have paddled towards it both in high winds laced with sleet and on sizzling blue-skied days.  I am now even more grateful than usual for its reassuring presence. 

Perhaps our butternut can be saved by the love we feel for it;  I understand that it worked for Tinkerbell.
Picture
"At the Bend" oil on panel 8 x 10
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Be Witch

25/4/2017

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Picture"The Ancients" #2 glaze oil 30 x 40
I felt honoured last week to discover that “The Ancients” #2 had been awarded a Canada 150 award at a juried show.   The ancient tree in question was probably at least that old itself, somehow clinging to the riverbank and to life over decades of extreme conditions.  The painting is a riff on the gnarled beauty of survival.  I would love to paint its winter face but the chances of locating it at that time of the year are slim.   Only in a canoe am I able to find these great old dames.

Trees, above all other plants, carry a mystique of wisdom and even patience.  Jon and I live in an old area where neighbours value the individual trees which bear witness to the gardeners who came before us.  Although  the loss of ash trees has sadly scarred many areas, our pioneer street is so  haphazard and varied that the canopy has remained intact, especially the back garden above The Credit.  When I gaze out, the botany appears completely native, although I know there is still work to be done.   For one, there need to be even more trees.

Scott, my soul-brother, gave me The Hidden Life of Trees for Christmas.   I am no stranger to botanical literature but this recent publication knocked me out.  I had always thought of saplings as mere competition for established trees. Not so — it appears that all of the individuals within a natural community communicate with one another in order to provide mutual aid.  It is the “specimen” tree, the one planted alone in a yard and expected to strut its stuff, which is literally marooned on a desert island.   Guilt-ridden, I have promised myself to leave arboreal volunteers alone in future.  

Thought for today:  Maybe witches lived in tangled woods because they had acquired botanical wisdom with old age.               

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Even as

17/4/2017

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Picture"Above the Credit" 24 x 36 glaze oil
Easter Sunday was windy but with patches of brilliant sunshine.    Everywhere life was reaffirming itself.  Heading over to the college in the afternoon, we trekked up to the woods, hoping to see birds before the canopy opened.  

The best we did was to establish that they were there.  The “Honey, I’m Home” quonks of a red-bellied woodpeckers* were audible, as they have been around the river and in our front yard and we could hear canaries, nuthatches and chickadees.  But the loud hammering had to belong to a pileated and Jon did  finally spot him.  We had brought the long lens and Jon patiently manoeuvred around twigs to find clear shots.  

Equally patient, Theodore and I waited on the main path.  Usually we all walk north and return another way. but yesterday I happened to glance back just as the Easter sun emerged from behind a cloud, and there it was!  I had tried many times to find that scene again but yesterday I was reminded why I had originally taken the shot:  a shaft of sunshine was strewing shadows across the path and highlighting the mossy exposed roots  which comprise the focal point.  I had been starting to wonder if I had made it up but once more the real deal took my breath away and proved that it's hard to improve on the truth.   

Finding the exact spot was like running into an old friend —the same attendant sense of strong recognition. Theodore had no reaction whatsoever.  He was still smarting from the indignity of being forbidden to keep a prize short rib his sniffer had located in the parkland, and there was a bur or two to be chewed out.  I have always thought that shared moments are the best.  But yesterday reminded me that while my primary sense is vision, Theodore’s magnificent schnoz is for him the bearer of most good things and that it is enough to celebrate beauty in whatever form it takes.  Sometimes it will smell like a short rib.  
   
​* see 19/5/16

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I Heard the Canvas Call my Name

26/3/2017

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Picture
​Once again, I find myself giving a painting a title that makes no apparent sense.  And once that title is lodged in my wee brain, there is no dislodging it.  So let’s try to deconstruct “The Sycamore Dreams.”


I submit for your consideration the backstory of “Kubla Khan,” the famous Coleridge poem.  The poet swore that "Kubla Khan" presented itself fully formed, like Venus being born out of Zeus’ ear;  he claimed that he woke from a post-opium dream and simply went to his desk and wrote “Kubla Khan” out in full, no strike-outs.  He felt it had been supernaturally dictated to him;  unfortunately, someone came to the door mid-transcription (so like life) and Coleridge’s short-term memory failed to retain the entire 300 line poem so we don’t have the entire piece.
Well, the poet's claim was investigated in full, and I do mean FULL (almost a thousand pages)  a hundred and thirty years later (1927) in a scholarly work entitled “The Road to Xanadu”  by John Livingstone Lowes.   Through intensive biographical and bibliographic sleuthing Lowes was able to account for every phrase having been acquired previously by Coleridge;  the creativity was in combination, not invention, which Lowes thought a higher-level activity.  I tried reading the book but happily concluded that the poem would speak for itself.

And that is my hope for fanciful titles;  the painting itself should render them superfluous.    But, seeing as at least one person will query me about them, I search for rational explanations, such as they are.

As always, the title presented itself uninvited.  I can’t claim hallucinagenic inspiration, although I do confess that too rich a dinner can give me a bad night.     The title “The Sycamore Dreams!”  begins by clarifying the focus of the painting — one gorgeous tree.  I have said previously how beautiful I find sycamores’ bark to be, so one such skeletal beauty, fully revealed after all its leaves had dropped,  is the subject of the painting.  I was lucky to see this sycamore at a nexus of magic moments —   when it was completely bare;  when the maples in the background were still in full autumn colour;  when the golf course sprinkling system was being bled; when the bottom two-thirds of the tree were cast in blue shadows;  and when the creamy upper branches still caught the last light.  The total effect was deliriously lovely, leading me to reflect on the period leading into dormancy for a deciduous tree.  I felt that this sycamore had happily begun its sleepy descent into the long-winter-dream.   So voila:  “The Sycamore Dreams.”

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Popeye  Paints

18/3/2017

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Picture
It’s a moody overcast day — the perfect time to work on the grisaille.  Yesterday I put on some Rufus Wainwright and contently scrubbed in my light values.   Unfortunately, I am not ambidextrous.  While Jon can cast with either arm, my coordination is limited to my right arm, which is threatening to look like Popeye’s while the left channels Olive Oyle.  Oh well.  So I ache a bit.

The happy news is that building layers of glazes also builds patience;  I spent my life rushing around.  There never seemed to be enough time as I hurtled from one responsibility to the next. So choosing to build a large painting by means of a slow layering is actually luxurious.  It always surprises me to find that I love establishing the bones of the structure by means of a value study.  Full colour is a long time off, but that is okay.  As usual the lights were easy to locate yesterday while today’s dark values are subtle and elusive.  Hurrying would be counter-productive as the background trunks and branches quietly reveal themselves.  I can begin to foresee the layers of transparent primaries but feel no impatience about getting there.  This stage is mainly about looking carefully and feeling my way in by dint of heavy-duty brushwork.  

So it’s demanding physical work but pleasantly meditative at the same time.  Now that I’m in the dark values, I’m listening to the score from “Gettysburg.”  It’s sombre and full of loss but faithful to the hope of meaningful sacrifice.  The perfect quiet inspiration to practise patience.

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The Sycamore Dreams

17/3/2017

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Jon has gone steel-heading and I have no excuse to postpone starting “The Sycamore Dreams.”  The image currently occupying my brain was taken last September during that golden hour when the setting sun burnishes its beloved land.  

Sycamores (platanus occidentalis) are magnificent trees.  In fact, the Canadian flag actually features a sycamore so don’t believe your Grade 1 teacher about that being a maple leaf.  While the leaves are perfectly nice, it is the bark which fills me with joy.  Mottled in irregular plates of taupe, cream, pale  yellow and green-brown, this species is beautiful in the extreme when it is planted as a specimen tree.   Sycamores grace golf courses throughout the GTA so  bravo to the course designers who thought to include them.  

You will note that the branching is haphazard;  unlike solitary elms,whose classic urn shape might feature a pendant oriole nest, a sycamore has more of a Medusa shape, giving it the impression of having changed its mind frequently.  I personally like its gnarly habit.
Background colour of burnt oranges and russets comes from maples behind the sycamore, which is bare.  Only its top branches are still catching the sun, somewhat bleached by its low-angle intensity.  Lower down, the trunk is cast in cerulean blue shadow, and a mysterious plume of steam rises to complete the magic.  All I got done today was to tone the 30 x 40 canvas and block in the sycamore itself.

But the dye is cast.  I’ve gone and made a promise I have to keep.  Sometimes the only way I can face a big painting is to announce its conception.  Now I will feel obliged to tackle it seriously.  I see major backaches here (literally)  but also the promise of something lovely and exotic.  Besides, the “shapers” Lyla so thoughtfully gave me for Christmas are just the tools I will need to detail the fine background.  

Stay tuned.
Picture
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Bittersweet Moments

31/1/2017

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Final glazes begin with the laying out of a complete palette.  At this point, the brush will be dancing everywhere on the canvas and having to stop to squeeze out a colour is to court short-cuts and missed opportunities.   Besides, setting out a full palette is a sensual joy.  I think most painters are colour sluts;  generally what happens here is that every tube is my favourite until I open the next one.   There are no bad colours, just unhappy combinations.

The first thing I did was to locate and place the “sky-holes.”  These are the places where the sky peeks through the canopy.  Without them, the forest would be oppressive.   I chose a pale blue, so as not to overly complicate this area.  It was also important to remember to trace the multiple trunks skyward;  it’s a bit embarrassing to find, too late, that a tree or two has mysteriously vaporized half-way up.  While I was at it, the nearby trunks received a series of transparent glazes to validate their importance.  And finally, I developed the foliage  wherever I wanted the eye to be drawn, while leaving other less important sections quietly suggestive.  

Then came the tousled forest floor, which lay replete with fallen leaves in every colour.  The predominant colour was autumn orange, but i could find pinks, scarlets and purples mixed in, as well as dark sections where branches had fallen.  Again, detailing this part of the scene would have made the painting too busy, so I chose again simply to suggest the rich disorder except where the path enters next to the biggest tree.  The well-worn trail was almost clear of leaves and shone with milky purples  and whites in my reference photo so I decided to treat it much like a meandering stream with lots of reflected lights.  It starts up just below the lovely old maple on the right and is a critical component of the focal points - its main job is to draw the viewer further and further into the painting until she is finally directed back to the beginning. 

Finally, I focused on following the shining path into the heart of the forest.  The distant tree trunks have quietened into soft lines which echo the smokey blues in the mid-range.  Only in the mid-zone are the tones rich and uncomplicated, the beating heart of a living forest where the sun breaks through and lights up a glade.

​Within a few days the sheen will have died down and I will be able to truly judge the intensity of colours.  A few more layers of glazing may or may not be in order before the painting takes on its independent existence.  Bittersweet moments, these.

Picture
"Above The Credit" 3 (glaze oil 30 x 40)
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What would Frost think?

26/1/2017

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As I have been working through the transparent colour foundation layers, Robert Frost’s “Stopping in Woods” has been resonating in my brain.  Why, I do not know, because his woods bear precious little resemblance to mine.

Frost’s narrator has stopped on a snowy evening to admire a beautiful woodlot.  In clear contrast, the image I am developing is a light-filled morning in October above The Credit River.  While many of the deeply coloured sugar maple leaves have fallen and are scattered on the forest floor, the beeches, who boast what horticulturists call “persistent foliage,” are stubbornly hanging onto their clear yellow leaves. The contrasting autumnal note is provided by the grey-green hemlocks making their last bid for precious light before our hemisphere tilts away from the sun.  So what I have is a scene more light than dark, more colourful than shadowed.  But I want the same thing from a passer-by:  the urge to pause and to drink in the loveliness of the forest.

Autumn scenes are notoriously difficult to paint because they tempt you to throw every high-intensity colour at the canvas.  "Go big or go home" tends to produce a garish painting that is too exhausting to live with over the years.  So with a slightly subdued palette I am choosing to play the long game - hoping to capture this autumn day through subtlety rather than high-key drama.  

With that in mind, I concentrated the blue layer, though omnipresent on the canvas,  in the tree trunks and the purples of the path.  It was important that the trunks are not be pure black (the natural outcome  of burnt umber glazed with ultramarine blue);  overly intense trunks would have overwhelmed the delicacy of the leafiness.  So, quite limited blues.  The leaves and the trunks had to play nicely together.  Next, with the arrival of yellows, the beeches threw their hats into the ring and the fallen maple leaves acquired deeper tones.  Here and there green leaves appeared.  The trunks' complex contours began to emerge.  A light glaze of alizarin crimson completed the complex colour foundation.   Nothing more to do for a day or two while the primary glazes dry. 

Soon, the final glazes!  I hope that Frost’s narrator will already be feeling the urge to linger:  the woods may not be “dark and deep” but I think they hold the promise of loveliness nonetheless.
Picture
"Above The Credit" 3 (30 x 40 glaze oil on canvas)
Picture
Above The Credit" 3 (30 x 40 glaze oil on canvas)
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Leaving

19/11/2016

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Picture"Jewell in Autumn" glaze oil 12 x 16


Apparently Canadian and Americans have somewhat different definitions of "packing";  we think of suitcases and they think of guns.    So too while the title of this post might suggest that I'd heading for the open road, nothing could be  further from the truth --  I am simply in love with autumn...right here at home.

Our roadsides around here are verged with piles of fallen leaves ready for pickup;  composted by the city, they obligingly break down into black earth by spring.   I remember walking with Jon down by the river one winter and noticing white spume rising from a brush pile beside the path. Neither of us could plunge our hands into it, so intense was the heat.  This kind of miracle knocks me dead.   Pretty impressive, Mother Nature!  What finally completed my conversion from leaf appreciator into a full-blown leaf hoarder, however, was an article in The Star written, I think, by Sonia Day in which she describes having built rich earth in her garden by the addition of fallen leaves.   Now the leafy bounty which threatens to bury us each fall is regarded correctly as a blessing rather than a curse.  Nobody but nobody gets my leaves.

Unfortunately, our tree species seem to have completely different internal clocks.  The maple leaves dropped weeks ago and the naturalized garden on the ravine edge has been liberally anointed with them,  but both the locust and the mulberry leaves cling like death until they are absolutely convinced of the necessity of self-sacrifice. It is, after all, their decision, and once that state of mind is achieved, no time is wasted.   Like kids off a sand cliff,  the mulberry leaves in particular seem to hold hands and jump together:  on Tuesday this week they were chatting away up there, all present and accounted for;   overnight, however,  their collective unconsciousness decided that enough was enough and the next morning found them all on the ground flash-frozen into brilliant green hills.  

Jewell too adored fallen leaves. She, however, would solemnly immerse herself in a pile, where she thoughtfully sniffed and stared into space;  we never hurried her, just assuming that she was re-reading old love letters.


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