Aqua
by Phil Chadwick
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Price
$595
Dimensions
14.000 x 11.000 x 1.000 inches
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Title
Aqua
Artist
Phil Chadwick
Medium
Painting - Oil On Canvas
Description
Aqua is all about water and colour. Aqua is also about place - the Thousand Islands and the Frontenac Arch Biosphere. This plein air painting of "aqua" as water, colour and place was completed on camera to demonstrate that inspiration can be found just about anywhere from anything. Inspiration abounds in the Thousand Islands and the Frontenac Arch Biosphere - a place we are fortunate enough to call home.
Aqua is a tone of the color cyan precisely halfway between green and blue on the color wheel. The greens of the duck weed contrasted nicely with the blues of the water and sky. Indeed, shades of green and blue comprise this painting which will be on display at the "Aquatarium" in Brockville with the assistance of "River Quest". River quest is a partnership between Aquatarium and a number of businesses and organizations on both sides of the Canada-US. border aimed at cross-promoting the region to the 50 million people living within a six-hour drive of the facility.
All forms of flora and fauna were included in our wide ranging conversation during the painting of "Aqua"- brown snakes, gray rat snakes, stink pot turtles, eastern kingbirds, phoebes... We talked about why the horizon is tinted white (Mie scattering) and why the sky is blue (Rayleigh scattering). ... The wonders of nature always surround us and curiosity is all that is required to appreciate it and to learn. With appreciation comes respect and protection.
The air mass was incredibly hot and humid. The westerly wind was like a blast furnace. The wind gusts shifting across Singleton Lake turned the water into darker ripples and heralded the arrival of each new blast of furnace air. I had to weigh my easel down with my plein air kit to keep it from blowing away. The westerly surface winds veered to northwesterly at the top of the boundary layer a few thousand feet above the ground. This everyday frictional turning of the wind is called the Ekman spiral and was revealed when cumulus and cumulus fractus cloud developed and raced by from the northwest during the painting of "Aqua". The cumulus were even rolling over indicating that the strong winds increased progressively with height.
Further aloft a patch of altocumulus lenticularis became visible for a short period of time. The gravity waves in these clouds indicated that the winds aloft were westerly - perpendicular to the waves. Stacking these winds in the vertical indicated that speed shear and not directional shear dominated this particular atmosphere. This clue was important to predicting the type of thunderstorm that would develop later in the day.
The presence of the stable layer associated with the wave clouds also revealed a cap in the atmosphere. This cap was the lid on the very unstable atmosphere pot keeping it from boiling over and keeping the skies "blue". The heat and humidity which challenged the plein air painting are both sources of buoyant energy. The lid was keeping the thunderstorms from developing and allowing temperatures to continue to climb like in a pressure cooker. A cold front approaching from the north was destined to be the trigger to the shattering of the cap and allowing the atmosphere to boil over into severe thunderstorms.
Based on the visual clues and reading the atmosphere like a book, the forecast was for afternoon multi- cell thunderstorms aligned along and just ahead of the cold front in the speed shear wind field. Tornadoes were certainly possible though since thunderstorms with so much heat and moisture energy can generate their own directional wind shear. Directional clockwise turning of the wind with height is critical for the formation of supercells, the highest level of severe thunderstorms which is one step up the severity index from multi- cell thunderstorms.
Did the severe thunderstorms materialize? Trees were blown down in Athens and we lost power for 8 hours... a F1 tornado was confirmed with winds of 140 km/h a mere 10 km to the east.
Uploaded
November 25th, 2015
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Comments (1)
Jacek Dudzinski
Amazing work. I love it! You inspire me. Have to put more thoughts into my artwork :)
Phil Chadwick replied:
Thank you kindly Jacek! What a huge compliment to inspire someone. We are all in this together. Paint on my friend!