UN World Environment Day June 5th | Ethical Footprint | Ethical vs. Unethical Construction

I hadn’t known, had I not gone on the internet, that the United Nations declared a World Environment Day of June 5th. Fabulous that there is a designated day to be aware of the environment.

On World Environment Day, and every day, we should all be thinking creatively about how to accommodate wildlife in our own lives. Trees, bushes, waterways, clean air and water, highway animal bridges and tunnels, bee highways with plants attracting pollinators, with a consciousness Promoting Smarter Wildlife Management.

World Environment Day June 5th

I’d like to point out what I learned, walking around in neighborhoods that I love, because of their fabulous properties of trees and beautiful adornment of living plants, that naturally attract and welcome living animals.

To me, nothing, nothing is more spectacular than the natural world. And the properties with old money on this hill adjacent to where i live demonstrate their wisdom, in adorning and conserving as much nature as possible. You hear birds, see rabbits and other life hopping about.

This property with the yellow circle around it, is a disgrace. They wiped out thickly forested lot, to build a sprawling mansion, with not one tree left behind. I’d spray paint my feelings, except that it won’t bring the trees or life back that the owners destroyed, in order to build their outrageous sprawl, a desolate prison, with no life to regard.

It is an example of unethical behavior.

An ethical consumer looks for products which are both friendly to the environment and for the people who produce them.

The ecological footprint measures human demand on nature, i.e., the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy.

“An ‘ethical consumer’ looks for products which, above all, are both friendly to the environment and also the people who produce them. An ethical consumer is therefore aware of the consequences of production, consumption and disposal.”

Let the pictures do the talking. I avoid going down this street because i feel annoyance at the nouveau riche lack of heart and insight and sadness, knowing  that all of these lovely trees were wiped out, affecting so many different creatures. An elderly man whom I chatted with one evening 5 months or so ago, told me when I mentioned this reckless building, that the property had several hundred year old trees on it, in fact, from the looks of googlemaps before it was updated, dozens of trees.

I discovered recently with delight this property within a frisbee throw, catecornered across the street. As one approaches from several angles, all you see is a mini forest.

thickly forested green plot, before picture

 

And what they did to the once forested property. This home could have been a third the size, and maintained a profoundly beautiful plot that their children could play in an that invites wonder and habitation by many species.

unethical_building_trees gone

 

 

This builder, knocked down, gutted, every single tree, every single one of them, to make this sprawling property with a tiny bit of lawn and a lot of asphalt to accommodate their cars. It is revolting. And the property across the street with the green ring, as you approach you only see, feel and hear the silence of a forest with birds. It is breathtakingly beautiful. So that the actual construction is engulfed, ringed by trees, except in the front. And the new building in the yellow, is what the builders created, destroying all life that was there, and making sure none of it will come back. They did not even plant bushes – very necessary for cover and a humane yard – and other plants with the intention to accommodate birds and animals – a Humane Backyard.

ethical_vs_unethical_building

All life that had been there or could walk or fly by, has no place to go, no life, no green, no water source, no tree for life, no butterfly or pollinator by-way, nothing. Just me, me, me and my big property that is hollow of life and nature’s delight.

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Greta Thunberg Swedish SchoolStrike Climate Activist Demands | Informing the Public & Declaring an Emergency

Greta Thunberg speech Austrian World summit

A year ago the Swedish 15 year old student, Greta Thunberg, began striking her school and sitting before the Swedish Parliament. Her demand was for her government and the press to be honest about the issue of climate change and to inform the public. She was initially prompted to strike after wondering why there had been silence on the issue? Why had it not been foremost on everyone’s agenda and in every news story?

In her present speech at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna, Greta Thunberg has yet another powerful delivery. She mentions that millions of students were inspired around the world to strike school for the climate. Yet students can’t do what all of you adults can. This needs to be declared an emergency and made top priority.

Greta Thunberg captive audience speaking at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna

 

She reprimands the audience that they haven’t been living up to their responsibility. Reminding them in her straightforward tone that, ‘humans are capable of so much, yet, still, hardly anyone is aware of the gravity of the situation. Most of the world is uninformed that it is even an issue at all.’ She admonishes them, ‘we need to know’.

Greta Thunberg’s captive audience speaking at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna

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white blossoming Crabapple tree | Swan Point cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

I fortunately left just enough white area and took pictures of this Crabapple white blossoming tree on the first sitting. She had already lost her blossoms by my second sitting in the Swan Point cemetery on Memorial Day. I just completed it at home – I usually always sit before my subject live. – just completed it May 29, 2019.

 

Crabapple white blossoms photo progression google

 

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Zayne Cowie – Goodbye Earth | Yuval Harari – Master Storytellers are Bankers | Andreas Weber – Economy of the Commons | E. O. Wilson – Half-Earth Project

Zayne Cowie wrote this book which he presents in video. ‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups

‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups

‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups by Zayne Cowie

Goodbye, Earth written by 9 year old Zayne Cowie on the travesties of grown-ups mis-management leading to climate catastrophe

It appears that an answer to the dilemma of our economic and political system that has been thriving in the past century due to the power of its agreed upon valuation of money over natural resources and the natural world, is the need to use our hearts and minds to create a new system. A system which recognizes and values all life forms and the resources upon which they all depend. Integrally connected and interdependent, requiring clean water, air, soil and the right to life and to wander on the planet. I don’t think that humans have the right to choke the planet with plastic, deplete the spoil and spoil the water and air. This and warming the planet are ecocide. George Monbiot says, Heating the Planet is an Ecocrime.

In my digesthis.wordpress blog Israeli historian, Yuval Harari talks about the power of human stories. Beyond our objective reality, humans have contrived fictional realities and entities, which dictate actions upon which all life depend.

Harari states in his Tedtalk on the rise of humans that “the master storytellers are the big bankers, the finance ministers, the prime ministers. They tell us a very convincing story and if everyone believes this story, it actually works.”

“Money is the most successful story ever invented and told by humans; it is the only story everybody believes.”

Species all over the planet are critically endangered due to human population increase, territory intrusion, human industrial policies regarding food, housing, energy and transportation demands as well as their tendency to continuously promote war and military might. These activities have damaging repercussions on the health of both humans and the habitats they encroach upon and destroy.

All of creation is dependent upon the decisions made by fictional entities, the storytellers (banks, corporations, governments, religions) and their fictional content (money, shares, development, GDP).

Harari eloquently reveals that “The most important actors in the global economy presently are companies which are legal fictions. Corporations mostly want to make money. And our capitalist system is one built on growth as measured by the Gross Domestic Product. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the healthiest manner of cooperation with the ecosystem of the earth.

George Monbiot published ‘Common Wealth‘ in the Guardian 27th September 2017, subsequently in his blog. “Hope lies with a great, neglected sector of the economy, through which we can create a system that is neither capitalist nor state communist.”

Andreas Weber The Biology of Wonder cover

The German biologist, philosopher and nature writer Andreas Weber recognizes the interconnectedness of humans to nature. In his talk at the conference on “Economics and the Common(s): From Seed Form to Core Paradigm” Weber mentions that though we can maintain aspects of our modus operandi of the age of enlightenment, we need to make a paradigm shift to enlivenment; seeing all life in continuous interrelationship.

“In our question of “what is life?”, we need to look beneath the ‘operating system’ engendered by the enlightenment in which things, life, humans are measured according to efficiency, competition and egoistical agents. This approach is cutting things down into blocks, separate parts, into arbitrary entities and dead objects. What is missing is that there are no feelings involved.”

This is where Andreas Weber draws the distinction between the repercussions of the enlightenment, in which nature and species have been commodified. “life, humans are measured according to efficiency, competition and egoistical agents. This approach is cutting things down into blocks, separate parts, into arbitrary entities and dead objects. What is missing is that there are no feelings involved.”

We need to create a paradigm shift, Weber states “we need a new bios, enlivenment; stressing the expressive and experiential qualities of being alive. Instead of looking at nature and life in a causal way, when we see things as they are, they are constantly changing, in an unfolding process of freedom, autonomy and value. Every commons is a material and knowledge commons.”

Enlivenement – we are feeling beings who wish to feel meaningful experiences within a community of other beings.

He recognizes that the wealth and extent of human experience and awe and wonder contributes to the emotional and spiritual health of humans beings. We need the richness of diversity for the wealth of experience in feeling.

Andreas Weber’s book describes how he wishes the world to see natural living systems.

He claims, “Nothing is more open-source than DNA.“

The economy of the commons is naturally anti-capitalist. From within a cell to a whole organism, all life is in compartments with its own boundary. However it’s not a wall, but a permeable boundary, in which the inhabitants are continuously interrelating and crystalizing into a whole, a unity. Quantum physics demonstrates that we affect the outcome of the experiment by observing. When we’re talking about the biosphere, ecology, economy, we are always talking about ourselves.

E.O. Wilson extends this recognition of the importance of the commons, to half of the entire planet devoted to other species. To provide half of the earth for the species whose habitats have been rapidly depleted by the human community and their development, military exercises and energy extraction policies.

“Unless humanity learns a great deal more about global biodiversity and moves quickly to protect it, we will soon lose most of the species composing life on Earth.” – E.O. Wilson

Edward O Wilson proposes the Half-Earth project
Devote Half the Surface of the Earth to Nature

Designing an interactive means for all of us around the planet to participate in protecting the flora and fauna of our globe. https://www.half-earthproject.org/pledge-support/

Let’s help him! We can all do this together! Half-Earth is a call to protect half the land and sea in order to manage sufficient habitat to safeguard the bulk of biodiversity

Edward O Wilson Devote Half Surface of Earth to Nature

 

Half-Earth Project Maps

Take the Half-Earth Pledge Learn Care Act

Jane Goodall Recycle E Devices | Kate Raworth Economy Design – Thrive not Grow

Jane Goodall presently has a campaign:

The Forest is Calling. Answering the Call is Our Only Hope

Jane Goodall Everything is Connected Everyone Can Make a Difference

It was estimated that up to 50 million tons of electronic waste—mainly computers and smartphones—was dumped in 2017 alone (UNEP).

Jane Goodall The Forest is Calling Answering it is our only Hope

Jane Goodall Recycle unwanted Mobile Devices

Jane Goodall Terribly Important Recycle Old Cell Phones

Kate Raworth has an essential concept to consider in her TEDtalk regarding redesigning our economic strategies, away from the dependency on continued growth, in a world with finite resources and space, to one which nourishes the natural world and recognizes the worth of allowing all life to thrive. – an Economy Designed to Thrive not Grow

Kate Raworth Economy Distributed vs. Centralized

Kate Raworth TED talk
Economy Designed to Thrive not Grow

Kate Raworth Economy Ecological Ceiling Social Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Carol sitting under the trees

Ventabren, France in Provence | workaway Jan. ’18 | idyllic town, castle ruins | architectural & textile beauty

A number of weeks after my trip to the New Delhhi airport and back to Frankfurt, during a number of days in limbo in a vacant office building over Christmas in a town not far from Frankfurt, I made a plan. I had warmth, electricity and internet access.  I arranged to go to a workaway in Heuchlingen, German, a work exchange in a village not too far from Stuttgart where I did some outdoor work as well as cooking. I realized my ex beau lived not far from there and visited him in Germany as well.  I documented the trip with lots of photos https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2019/02/02/new-beginnings-germany-a-workaway-in-heuchlingen-december-2017/

I had already begun arranging the  workaway in Ventabren, France in Provence to follow the one in Germany. It was January 2018. Ventabren is a village not far from Aix-en-Provence, which is a gorgeous city. That’s where I met my host and her son, A Russian woman Vicka and her son Maxim.

I visited Aix-en-Provence and took pictures in an earlier hitch to Nice from Montpellier, France to visit my sister. https://carolkeiter.wordpress.com/2017/10/12/hitchabout-nice-antibes-aix-en-provence-arles-and-back-to-a-redefined-montpellier-home/

Aix-en-Provence France Sept. 2017

After having visited Aix-en-Provence and taken the pictures in Sept. 23, 2017, I was now back there in Jan. 2018 about to meet my hosts of the workaway. I happened upon Rue du 4 Septembre in Aix-en-Provence where I took lots of pictures. This was the nearest city to the village where I would do my workaway in Ventabren.

In Aix-en-Provence, I was particularly drawn to the rue du quatre de septembre, because that’s the anniversary of my father’s death in 2012. That’s why I made an album specifically of these signs of rue du 4 Septembre. I had to look up the significance of this date in France. The significance of the date in France is that on the 4th of September, 1870 a new republic was declared.

The 4th of September has personal significance. My father died on the 4th of September, 2012.

On the road leaving Aix-en-Provence en route to the hilled town of Ventabren, this aqueduct was pointed out. Are you kidding me?

Roquefavour Aqueduct near Ventabren France in Provence

Ventabren is a fairy tale, idyllic hilled, once-fortressed town with the ruins of a castle – Château of Queen Jeanne – at the town’s peak.

Ventabren in Provence, France

Here are the numerous pictures that I took during my stay in Ventabren, France. I was absolutely delighted with the fairy tale landscape and history and the craftsmanship of stone walls, streets, stairs and architecture. The home I resided in is particularly elegant, a breathtakingly gorgeous home with a tailored choice of fine materials; tiles, slate, ceramic, wood. It has beautifully crafted tiles, colors and fabrics and a gorgeous layout of space. Windows look over narrow streets and copper tiled roofs. One doesn’t need to occupy a huge square footage to demonstrate taste and elegance.

Ventabren in Provence, France 2018

Ventabren town and interiors in Provence, France 2018

Ultimately, this workaway, in this idyllic town was where circumstances lead me to decide not to continue on the path that I had intended, to organize one after another workaway on a farm or whatever kind of property in France. My VISA had expired. I didn’t want to be informed that i could not return to the country that I love. I also realized that although most of these properties are quite gorgeous and interesting, and i particularly would seek out places with animals, I decided that most are by their nature, remote. It was after that first ‘weekend’ in this idyllic town of Ventabren, that I realized, there wasn’t really any communal place to go to, no night life. I didn’t know anyone other than this family. This would be the same case in most of the other workaways. I had spent the 6 months in Montpellier, a town with multiple universities and tourist town. I could promenade along a street with hundreds of people passing by, go to one among a hundreds of bars and cafés, and found places to dance. I bicycled everywhere in that hilly town, Mont means mountain, so a mt. bike was necessary to adequately peruse the streets.

As you see in Ventabren, my room was adopted by the house cat Croquette. I was very happy about that.

house cat Croquette

house cat Croquette

my room

Ventabren

my room in Ventabren

hanging clothes to get the hitchhiking travel wrinkles out

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Carol Keiter

 

Our House is on Fire – Greta Thunberg WEForum | It is Worse Than That – Mark Doll

Greta Thunberg’s Special Address, Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum 2019

Greta Thunberg | Special Address, Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum 2019

Greta’s speech, among each that she has made to the public, is remarkable.

The words of this man, Mark Doll, are equally noteworthy and important.

Each are the reason that I decided to take time from the writing of my book to put out another blog.

Mark Doll posted the following comments today and it was chilling and heart-wrenching. But it deserves to be read in the context of this little girl’s courage at Davos.

I hope that for a change, people who do not have the time or patience to read, read this.

“…I realize there is something I have known for some time but have never said, and, since I have just spent another 4 hours of my life in climate change academia I have to get this out of my system.

Please understand that many you reading this won’t live to an old age… and likely will start scrolling after one or 2 more paragraphs… (edit…Ok I was wrong on this point. This is now my 2nd most shared post of all time)

The IPCC report and Paris accord are incredibly overly optimistic and that commits the world to a target that means the death of hundreds of millions if not more.

But it is worse than that.

Even the commitments made by countries in the Paris accord don’t get us to a 2 degree world.

But it is worse than that.

The 2 degree target is now unattainable (unless the entire civilization of the world doesn’t do a 180 today…) target is based on geo-engineering the climate of the earth as well as the sequestering of every molecule of carbon we produced over the last number of years and every molecule we are producing today and every molecule we produce tomorrow…. these technologies that don’t exist wont exist and even if they did would likely cause as many if not more problems than they fix.

But it is worse than that.

The 2 degree target of the IPCC does not factor in the feedback loops that such as the increased albedo effect caused by the 70% loss of ice in the arctic, The release of methane from a thawing arctic. (there is more energy stored in the arctic methane than there is in coal in the world). This is called the methane dragon. If the process of the release of the methane, currently frozen in the soil and ocean beds of the arctic, which has already begun, spins out of control we are looking a an 8 degree rise in temperature. (this ignores the scientists that don’t see this feedback stopping and ends up resulting in the world oceans boiling off and earth becomes Venus…but I digress.

But it is worse than that

The report which give us 12 years to get our head’s out of our arses underestimated the amount of heat stored in the world’s oceans by 40%… so no , we don’t have 12 years.

But it is worse than that.

The IPCC report ignores the effects of humans messing up the Nitrogen cycle through agricultural fertilizers and more… Don’t go down this rabbit hole if you want to sleep at night.

But it is worse than that.

Sea level rise will not be gradual. Even assuming that the billions of tons of water that is currently being dumped down to the ground level of Greenland isn’t creating a lubricant which eventually will allow the ice to free-flow into the northern oceans as it is only the friction to the islands surface that is currently holding the ice back coupled with the same process is happening in Antarctica but is also coupled with the disappearance of the ice shelves which act as buttresses holding the glaciers from free flowing into the southern ocean we are not looking at maintaining the 3.4mm/yr increase in sea level rise (which incidentally is terrifying when you multiply it out over decades and centuries. We will be looking at major calving events that will result in much bigger yearly increases coupled with an exponential increase in glacial melting. FYI Alberta is going to need a pipeline… just not for oil. More likely for desalinated water from tidewater…

But it is worse than that… We can no longer save the society that we live in and many of us are going to be dead long before our life expectancy would suggest.

If your idea of hope is having some slightly modified Standard of living going forward and live to ripe old age… there is no hope. This civilization is over…

… but there is hope.. There is a way for some to come through this and have an enjoyable life on the other side. Every day we delay can be measured in human lives. There will come a day of inaction when that number includes someone you love, yourself or myself.
So we have 2 options. Wake the fuck up. If we do we will only have to experience the end of our society as we know it aka…the inevitable economic collapse which is now unavoidable, but be able to save and rebuild something new on the other side. This would require a deep adaptation. Words like sustainability would need to be seen as toxic and our focus needs be on regeneration. Regeneration of soil, forest ocean etc…. This is all possible.
Option 2 is the path we are on. Think we can slowly adapt to change. This not only ensures we experience collapse but also condemns humanity to not just economic and social collapse but in a 8 degree world… extinction.

I am sick of pipeline discussions. I am sick of any argument that is predicated on the defeatist assumption that we will continue to burn oil at an ever increasing rate. Fact is if we do we are not just fucked, we are dead. I am sick of people who don’t understand how their food is produced, and its effect on the climate.(both carnivores who eat feed lot meat and vegans who eat industrially produced mono cropped veggies as they are equally guilty here as the consumption of either is devastating).

I am sick of the argument that our oil is less poisonous than someone else’s. Firstly, no it isn’t and secondly, It doesn’t fucking matter. I am sick of people that can’t even handle the ridiculously small only the tip of the iceberg of the changes we need to accept; the carbon tax. I am sick of my own hypocrisy that allows me to still use fossil fuels for transportation. I am sick of those who use hypocrisy as an argument against action.

I am sick of the Leadership of my country that argues we can have economic growth and survivable environment… we can’t.

I am sickened by the normalizing of the leadership of our Southern neighbour who as the most polluting nation in the world officially ignores even the tragedy that is the Paris accord. I am sick of the politicians I worked to get elected being impotent on this subject…

I am sick that the next image I put up of my kids, cheese, pets or bread is going to garner immeasurably more attention than a post such as this which actually has meaning… I am sick about the fact that all the information I referenced here is easily discoverable in scientific journals but will be characterized by many as hyperbolic.
I am especially sick that my future and the future of my children is dependent on the dozens of people that saw this post, said there goes Marc off the deep end again and chose to remain ignorant of the basic facts about our near future.

There is a path forward. But every day we delay the path forward includes fewer of us.

Build community, build resilience, work for food security, think regeneration, plant food producing trees, think perennial food production, eat food that does not mine the soil and is locally produced, eat meat that is grass fed that is used to provide nutrients to vegetation, get to know a farmer or become one yourself, park your car, do not vote for anyone who either ignores climate change or says we can have our cake and eat it too, quit your job if it is fossil fuel related, stop buying shit, Stop buying things that are designed to break and be disposed of, let go of this society slowly and by your own volition (its better than being forced to do it quickly), rip up your lawn and plant a garden with veggies, fruit bushes, fruit trees and nut trees, learn to compost your own poop, get a smaller house on a bigger lot and regenerate that land, plant a guerrilla garden on a city road allowance, return to the multi-generational house, realize that growth has only been a thing in human civilization for 250 years and it is about to end and make preparations for this change, teach this to your children, buy only the necessities, don’t buy new clothes-go to the thrift store, don’t use single use plastic or if you do re-purpose it, unplug your garberator and compost everything, don’t let yourself get away with the argument that the plane is going there anyway when you book a holiday, understand that there is no such thing as the new normal because next year will be worse, understand before you make the argument that we need to reduce human population … meaning the population elsewhere… that it is not overpopulation in China or India that is causing the current problem… It is us and our lifestyle.

Understand that those that are currently arguing against refugees and climate change are both increasing the effects of climate change and causing millions on climate refugees… which will be arriving on Canada’s doorstep because Canada will, on the whole, be one of the last countries affected, understand that the densification of cities is condemning those in that density to a food-less future.

Stop tolerating the middle ground on climate change. there is no middle ground on gravity, the earth is round, and we are on the verge of collapse.”

Care for the Natural World – Treat it with Respect and Reverence | The Duke of Cambridge interviews Sir David | WEForum

Sir David Attenborough interviewed by Prince William aka the Duke of Cambridge, at the World Economic Forum, in Davos – the 22nd to 25th of January. Prince William has very thoughtful and prescient questions. It’s evident that Princess Diana’s son is very in touch with what is essential, and is bringing these points out in his interview to the esteemed Sir David Attenborough, who has a great deal of wisdom to share (working 70 years bringing the natural world to people’s homes through television and documentaries).

Sir David Attenborough interviewed by Prince William, HRH Duke of Cambridge

I think this should be required listening, required in schools and by world leaders, especially the bimbo in the Whitehouse and any Republican climate science deniers. Sir David Attenborough says,”presently we’re living in the paradox, in which there have never been so many people out of touch with the natural world (more than half of the worlds population live in metropolitan areas), and yet every breath of air and every mouthful of food that we take comes from the natural world. if we damage it, we damage ourselves. The essential part of human life is a healthy planet. We are in danger of wrecking that.”

Asking what he wishes to communicate to the audience of global leaders, Sir David Attenborough responded.

“Care for the natural world. Treat it with respect and reverence. The natural world is the source of all wonder. The future of the natural world is in our hands. We have never been more powerful or populated. We can wreck it with ease, and without even realizing that we’re doing it.

We wreck it, we wreck ourselves. DO NOT WASTE THE RICHES OF THE NATURAL WORLD ON WHICH WE DEPEND. Do not throw food away, do not use energy wastefully. THIS DISASTER OVERTAKING THE WORLD STARTED IN BRITAIN IN THE 18TH CENTURY, THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. > THE AIM WAS TO CONQUER THE NATURAL WORLD, SHOW OUR MASTERY, WHICH WAS TO DESTROY IT. We know better now. It is time to act.

To Joan with Love | Animals Watering Hole Africa

Here’s a new Faber Castell watercolor painting I did today for my sister Joan. I reveal the progression of the painting through taking photos at various periods of time. From a composite of 4 photographs, I did an initial small sketch, then replicated it on the sketch pad.

to_Joan_Wateringhole_Africa_12_19_18

beginning sketch composite of several photographs

To Joan with Love Animals Watering Hole Africa

 

 

 

 

sources of painting
1_giraffe bird baobab

to_Joan_Wateringhole_Africa_12_19_18

 

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Trees Reflected in Water | Faber Castell watercolor pencils

Here’s a new painting (progression) Trees Reflected in Water progression. I like to take pictures as I paint to show to an extent, my process.

Trees Reflected in Water Progression

 

 

I bicycled twice there, 8.8 miles roundtrip, and still hadn’t completed it. It gets dark too early and its a bit cold to sit outside, so I completed the last touches, mostly adding water, at home using photos I took  ––when the wind wasn’t blowing the reflecting into ripples as when I was painting.

Slater Mill Pawtucket Woonasquatucket river Providence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this place by accident. I went off bicycling in a new direction, over an unfamiliar bridge and 4.4 miles later, found this place by accident. I found actually some lovely shrubbery too. I discovered these old buildings and a waterfall, then a trail. It’s the Slater Mill. It was empty the first time, the second time the parking lot was full – it happened to be the once a month that the historic house has a free tour.

Trees Reflected in Water