We have been back for the past week for the second part of our project. What a difference in the landscape; from blue, white, and black to all the colors of early summer. We've had some sunny days and some rainy days; I will try to keep this brief so I can finish some more sketching before we have to leave in the morning.
Now that David and I have been here in the early summer, the full scope and possibilities of our project have become possible to define.
In my last post I described the idea of pairing representational paintings of each data collection site with a "data painting" showing a visual representation of David's scientific findings.
Well, because it is early summer, we don't have snow/water available in some of the winter collection sites, such as the mountain birch forest. And because the trails through Malla were not accessible to us in the winter, we don't have data from the waterfall and river from the winter. I created the following Venn diagram to more easily sort out where there is and isn't overlap between the summer and winter collection sites:
With apologies for the large photo; you have a better chance of reading my not-so-great handwriting if it's bigger!
What this chart is trying to show is collection sites which encompassed only winter, only summer, and both winter and summer. The winter only sites will each generate two paintings (representational and data painting), as will the summer only sites. The sites that met the criteria for both winter and summer sample collection will each generate four paintings--comparing not only the landscape to the data, but the change from winter to summer. Three sites met this criteria: 1) Birch Forest Transitional Zone; 2) Alpine (Low); 3) Lake (Water no Ice or Snow).
We need to decide which section(s) of the Venn diagram to work on. Long term, we would like to do all of them. Short term, we need to decide what we can finish before we leave Finland in about a month.
I've been working on the winter paintings but am now excited to work on the "quads" from the green area of my Venn diagram. It's clear that this project will benefit from being worked on in sections.
Here's two sketches--a matched pair of the lake in winter and summer. Winter is a bit more zoomed out. Summer needs more green on base of Malla, but I was distracted by the rocking of the boat and forgot to add it! (Thank you David for rowing me out on the lake while I relaxed and made a drawing!)
More soon!