experiencing & creating sweet sights

Soon the gate will close and getting deep into the Elbow Valley area will then have to wait until spring of 2023.  I had the morning hours to fill on this day so I ventured out to Forgetmenot Pond & Elbow Trail area for a final visit.   I was last out this way on a hot September 1st day for my final kayak outing of the season.  It was much colder in the foothills than in the city and I went prepared for that.  I knew it would be a photographer's delight, it always is!

The Pond was  partially frozen with lots of large slabs of ice pushed up on top of each other.  Even as I skirted the shoreline, ice was cracking and moving.  With a little help, I balanced this foot high slice upright, then what to my wondering eyes did appear but a rainbow of colours as the light hit the top.  That was just one of the numerous sweets sights I saw.  I love reflections in water and in ice and bubbles always intrigue me. During the few hours I spent in the area, the only others I saw were Parks People heading out on ski-doo type machines, I imagined they were on their way to close up back country camping locations.   

While the roads were in good condition heading east, I hit the highway to Wyndham Carseland. My plan for this outing was to be a bird nerd.  I did hear what sounded like a Blue Jay or a Kingfisher but no luck with sighting what the sound was coming from, and I did see a Bald Eagle fly by but it was too quick to capture a photographer.  There were loads of geese and ducks but I was not into them on this hike. I had success with photographing the Black-Capped Chickadees, Downy Woodpeckers and White-Breasted Nuthatches.  It surprises me at times where I see skier set cross country ski tracks and today they made me wish I had mine with me.  As I hiked along the trail, I scooted in here and there to get deeper into the woods with hopes of seeing other birds.  Flocks flew away as I approached.  The success on this day was getting my fill of the Black-Capped Chickadee-dee-dee-dee!

After seeing so many sweet sights while "out & about", I spent many hours at home creating my own sweet sights.  These are two water colour painting projects that I followed along from tutorials.  I remember as a child, snow globes captured my full attention and it was necessary for me to turn every single one upside down.  Enjoying watching snow fall started at a very young age!  Some time back, I completed an aurora borealis scene with coloured pencils.  It was difficult to do with the pencils and at the time I thought there would be no way I could manage making a northern lights scene with water colour paints.  Paints take so much more work to control.  Well, fast forward and voila! For this project, I used a toothbrush for the first time to make the white splatters.  Splattering with a toothbrush takes more control than doing so with a paint brush. Official winter has not even arrived yet and I painted plenty of winter scenes already.  I have much more in me to give!   Stay tuned1

Peyto Lake November 18, 2022 *skating on wild ice*

With winter upon us even though it is still autumn, the thoughts of skating on wild ice have slowly been inching their way into my day dreams. While that pace of inching thoughts has been slowly with me, it's been a different story for Adventure Designer.  She says "It's go time, now!" She put a skating shout-out out to me to skate on Peyto Lake and I jumped on board like there was no tomorrow! We had a couple of days until our schedules aligned.  I looked back at photos I took when I saw Peyto Lake from high above.  Looking at my photos and dreaming of skating there was enough inspiration to go ahead and do a watercolour painting.  While I was water colour painting a view of Peyto Lake... 

....Adventure Designer was designing a stained glass skate for me!  That explains why at one point she asked me what colour and what kind my skates were.  The photo on the left is her photo she shared with me after presenting the skate to me.  The photo on the right is of my skates after skating today.

Peyto Lake is along The Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park.  There are many gorgeous places on the way one of which is Bow Lake.  We pulled off, hopped over the snowbank then scooted down to the edge.  Sections of the lake were clear of snow and sprinkled with delicate snow flowers.  We could clearly see through the ice to the bottom.

reflecting in Bow Lake

crystal formations

it's crystalling

The temperature was getting warmer which we were thankful for.  At Lake Louise Village it was -23C and we were concerned about even being able to get our skates on and laced up with out getting frost bite.  It was around -16C at Bow Lake and it remained around that while driving to Peyto Lake.  We bundled up with backpacks, skates, safety gear, warm clothes, snacks, hot beverages, spikes on our boots and then hit the trail down to the lake side.  This was a view along the trail.

Once we reached the shore, we scouted out the area, first walking along the shore to our left, all the while checking the conditions close by.   We decided where we might like to skate, then Adventure Designer performed due diligence checking the thickness of the ice.  Where we wanted to skate passed the test. After a short period of time, she performed another test a bit further out and it was safe there also. Even a short while late, it warmed up quite a bit and was a perfect temperature to be out in the wild surrounded by a winter wonderland.  

We skated.....

.....and skated.....

...then skated some more!

It was incredible!  It was beautiful!  It was magical!  

There is something so special about being able to skate on wild ice!  The air, the scenery, the sound, all paired together, offer up an unforgettable and amazing embrace from Mother Nature.  Her canvass today was decorated with thousands and thousands and thousands of crystal snow flowers.  We added our creative etchings to her design!

This one crystal snow flower measures about an inch in size.  It's intricate and delicate.  It's hard to imagine how something like this even forms with such precise, perfect details.  Mother Nature is an incredible designer.  Take her creations that are presented along The Icefield Parkway and at Peyto Lake then intertwine them with Adventure Designer's idea of a spectacular day and you are gifted an adventure to treasure!    

⛸Be sure to cherish the special sights you see and the magical moments you experience!⛸

into the forest I go

While I love wide open vistas, I have come to enjoy going deep into the forest and experiencing all the good that has to offer.  I dabbled with sketching and painting trees of all kinds through all seasons, some looked good, others so-so and many were blah. Recently, I got in deep, into learning to paint a proper tree-filled forest.  These paintings are the outcome of many hours spent being lost in the forest!  

🌲The top left forest was made by painting many vertical widths with a variety of brown shades.  I then added horizontal lines on the majority of the vertical widths to give them a tree-like look.  Between each tree, shades of grey were painted to give this a night time look.  The final touch was adding the shadows.   

🌲The bottom left forest was more complicated to produce.  Vertical widths of various sizes were made with white acrylic gouache.  This preserves those spaces keeping them white.  Then wet on wet, shades of blue, black, grey and purple were mixed and painted across the entire page allowing the colours to blend making it appear to be night time.  Black thin vertical lines were painted to give depth.  Next the gouache was peeled off and each white space was painted to make it look like a tree.

🌲The right painting shows the rays of the sun shining through the forest.  Hues of blue were painted at an angle leaving white spaces.  The blue trees were painted in full and then I lifted some paint in the white sections.  The black trees are in the forefront to give depth.  I saw sights like this many times while hiking and it always captured my attention and drew me in further.  

Forest time seemed to be a theme this past week!  Being tucked in between the trees provided shelter and afforded me many bird sightings.  On this bitterly cold windy morning, a walk through the Birth Forest offered up plenty of sweet sights.  I remembered it was this time last year when the Great Horned Owl moved in. As luck would have it, it's back again this year!  

Now that I have just under 200 kms left on my Conquer 2022 Virtual Challenge, I am motivated to get out there!  Deja Vu - on this bitterly cold windy morning it was a trudge through the snow hiking up to the forest on Nose Hill.  As I neared the end of the wide open section, I saw a flock of something flying my way.  I aimed for where they landed.  It wasn't until I was closer that I realized I was experiencing a "lifer"!  It was my first time seeing a Bohemian Waxwing and not only did I see one, I saw about one hundred.  I spent the next thirty minutes or so in the forest watching, listening and photographing these colourful birds.  These birds migrate to the city in winter after spending the summer in boreal forests. 

The Inglewood Bird Sanctuary offers up a beautiful forest to seek shelter.  While it was cold and windy and frosty on this morning, there was an abundance of activity to distract me from the cold.  The Juvenile Bald Eagle watched me as I watched it.  Two Male Mallard Ducks performed their morning grooming routine.  The Merlin was watching over, I wondered was it looking for breakfast.  The Black-Capped Chickadees will now become a main attraction as they settle in the sanctuary for winter while other species have gone south. 

On this morning I sought out shelter in the forests at Carburn Park and Beaverdam Flats.  It was a very entertaining few hours with loads to watch. Here's the line up in the top photo: Male Common Goldeneye, Trumpeter Swan, Canada Goose, Trumpeter Swan, Male Mallard Duck.  On my way from Carburn to Beaverdam flats, two Adult American Bald Eagles did a fly pass.  I watched three coyotes check out the ducks from a distance. One had success while the two others watched on.  This one soon joined in on the feast.  Both the White-Breasted Nuthatch and Black-Capped Chickadee stay local for the winter.

three photographs tell a story

Our recent weather gave me inspiration and time to spend a few hours learning about and experimenting with water-colour paint spills and splatters.  On the morning when I was in no mood to face what faced me when I opened the curtains, I settled in to begin new lessons on winter watercolour painting.  

While my car is not red, what I saw when I opened that curtain looked similar to this beetle stuck in the snow.   This was the first painting I did where I started upside down.  I placed a thin wash of dark paint across the middle of the paper and then tilted my book until that paint began to run down the paper.  That was how the trees were created.  When I was content with how they looked, I then turned my book upright and let the paint dry.  A few strokes of lighter and darker paint were added to complete the forest.  The bottom part of the paper was left white except for a few grey strokes to give the appearance of snow drifts.   White acrylic gouache was used to make snow on the car.  Then came splatter time!  I quickly learned you cannot use just any paint brush and also to cover over where you don't want splatters, like my table and me.   

I accepted it would take a little time before I would get my car out onto the road and with that came the realization I would then get to be one with all this weather.  While my hair is not that colour, I would like it to be.  Many times I have collected a bundle of snow in my hands where I examined it, made a wish upon it,  then tossed it into the air.  This time I picked the correct brush to make the splatters, but before doing so, I covered everything that I did not want covered in snow flakes.  

To the splatters it was time to add spills!  Some times when life happens, a glass of wine gets me to a happier place.  I am finding getting lost in watercolour painting will get me to that place too.  Pair together  sipping a real glass of white wine while painting two glasses on red, that's when the spills came into play.  While I did not go overboard with sipping nor spills, I did go overboard with splatters.  In this case the more the merrier!  Cheers!

Winter walloped us and once it settled down, I wanted to be out and about in the aftermath. I picked Confluence Park as the place to see what Mother Nature created.  This was the first time this season I needed to don full on winter wear from head to toe.  Oh that blue sky and sunshine can be so deceiving! No one had been before me in most places which made the trails that much more appealing to me to look at yet it was a bit more work to get through.  What was not dressed in snow, was decorated with ice!  Mother Nature gives me ideas and inspiration to attempt to be as creative as she is.   

It was very quiet at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary on this morning.  Those few that winter here are here, all others have gone south.  Beauty abounds after a new snowfall and I wanted to experience that here. The snow created a canopy that kept the quietness in.  It was a mid autumn wonderland to wander through seeing ice formations and how the snow collected in places.   The numerous ducks I saw and the few birds I heard paired with the peaceful pretty trails was plenty enough to offer me fulfillment.  

I had three missions in mind when I walked out my front door in the dark on this morning! First I wanted to be up on Nose Hill for when a new day dawned.  After witnessing that, I had a goal to cover eight kilometres hiking up and down the many hills.   My third mission was to find the goats and their Shepard so I could have some kind of a visit with them.  I did not bother taking my headlamp so stuck close to a wide main trail that headed straight up the centre.  It was a gorgeous start to this brand new day.  Many sights caught my eye but I stayed focused to get those eight kilometres covered.  I could not pass by this piece of ice though.  When I looked closely, I could see it was a leaf covered in a very thick layer of ice.  I found the goats being herded by the dog in the direction of the Shepard who was waving at me to come on over.  I went over!  He invited me to go in amongst the goats and visit with them which I did after a half hour chat with the Shepard.  There were a few rough nights on The Hill and there would be more to come.  There is no heat in his trailer except for when he runs the propane at supper time.  His days are long, starting at 9:00am and ending at 6:00pm.  I should be able to get one last visit in with them before this contract is up.  Three missions accomplished!