1000 Islands Ice Storm, December 2013

Memorial Park

Winter Chill St Lawrence River

Close Up Ice Storm Droop

First on a warmer note is a painting by Lori McCall, from Liverpool NY,  a PAPTIR participant who drives up to paint with the group in the 1000 Islands Area. "Memorial Park", was painted with the Syracuse Area Plein Air Painters in that area. Lori has been one of a group of PAPTIR partisipants who have been in the Adirondack Plein Air Painting Festival (Saranac Lake), for the last three years. In August 2013 she won Paul Smith's College Outstanding Visitor Center (VIC) Award. Part of that award is being the featured artist at the Plein Air Invitational Show at Paul Smith's College VIC in August 2014. Yea Lori!
Next is a studio painting (water media) I did in January 2009, "Winter Chill St Lawrence River". It was  juried into the St Lawrence College (Brockville Ontario) Annual Show that year and came to mind because of the ice storm experienced along the St Lawrence River just before Christmas 2013. The scene is directly in front of our home on the St Lawrence River, overlooking the Narrows and just down river from the US Span of the Thousand Islands Bridge.
 Below it is a photo showing the trees drooping under the weight of the ice and below that a close up where the droop is more visible. While outside, every now and then, you can hear a branch break off under the weight of the ice and a clatter of broken ice pieces crashing into the ice covered snow.
This continues every day and we patiently wait for a warm enough day for some melting to reduce the weight . Like the ice storm of 1998, the tree trimmers will be fully occupied next summer sawing off the "widow makers" and hauling them away. I spent about 7 hours over two days deicing  two vehicles by pouring buckets of warm water on them. I moved Lou's 4 wheel drive SUV to a fresh spot, but my car's four tires are still frozen into the ice.