I finished this painting yesterday. It is a scene looking down at the Valley from the halfway point on McBride Peak during a storm. It was done on a 24” X 36” canvas with acrylics. I started painting it in the middle of May. It took me 97 hours to paint.
You can view my other paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
I always enjoy seeing dramatic looking clouds and the turbulent weather we have been getting lately has provided a lot of them for me to see. I took this photo of the clouds yesterday as we were walking Kona at the McBride Airfield.
We had big storm blow through yesterday. There was a ferocious wind, torrents of rain, flashing lightning, and crashing thunder. Our power went off for three hours. The most damaging thing that happened was that branches blew off of a cottonwood tree and crashed through and broke, 3 panes of glass on my greenhouse. Luckily, several months ago when I bought some glass to replace a couple of panes that had broken, I bought 3 extra, just in case. I am sure glad I did.
The wind also broke and scattered branches from our willow trees, spreading them across the driveway, but they will be easy to deal with.
The thunder terrified Kona, who trembled as I tried to comfort her in the dark, due to the power outage and although we had no internet, we were able to check the closeness of the lightning strikes on our cell phones (Below, red dots lightning, blue dot: our house).
I hate to throw things away if I think I might be able to use them for something else. When I ripped up the old deteriorating cedar planks from my deck, I couldn’t think of anything else to use them except burn them as firewood, but then I thought I might lay them in the muddy sections of our trail that goes around the pond. That would give them a second life until they eventually rot away.
Some of them presently have a bit of a wobble when you step on them due to the fact that they are sitting on uneven ground, but I think they will settle as the ground under them softens. So far Kona doesn’t like walking on the boards, choosing to walk in the weeds beside them instead, but I think she will eventually come around and see their benefit.
You can take a look at my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
Today our mountains are partially obscured by a smoky haze and the sunlight is coloring everything with an orangish hue. Smoke from far away forest fires has covered the Robson Valley, as well as most of British Columbia. This used to be a rare summer event, but now we seem to experience it for days every summer.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
Here is a shot of the forested lower slopes of the Park Range of the Rocky Mountains that I took in the evening as we were walking Kona at the McBride Airfield. I loved the rolling contours between the various creeks in the evening light.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
The weather systems that have been passing over the Robson Valley have certainly been providing us with a lot of colorful sunsets. I took this photo last night, but it is not the actual sunset, but instead, what was going on in the sky opposite the sunset. I like the pinkish underbelly of the large cloud with the smaller bluish clouds silhouetted in front of it.
You can see my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
