Monthly Archives: May 2018

Blissful Interlude (19/365)

Posted on May 21, 2018 | Leave a comment

My visit to Pender didn’t last long, but it was heavenly to enjoy the sun, water, beaches, friends and food at the Bluewater Cruising Association rendezvous at Poet’s Cove.

… and the dog, of course! I don’t have any grandchildren, but I sure do enjoy hanging out with my grad puppy Spartacus (Sparty). He’s becoming such a confident little boat dog!

My visit ended with a great potluck! The dinghy rode a bit lower in the water when the time came to shuttle me back to land to catch my taxi down to the other Pender Island (there are two – north and south).

I took lots of photos so I have more than enough reference material to get back to work drawing various things once I get back home.

I even managed to find a bit of time to work on my lines for Romeo and Juliet while hanging gout in the cockpit.

I also managed to find a bit of time to do a blind contour drawing of the Dragon Fountain from Butchart Gardens.

Here’s a photo…

The idea is to not look down at your drawing but to choose a line in the object and follow it without ever lifting pencil from paper.

About to board the ferry now and head back to Victoria for another couple of days before hopping back on another flight to Calgary.

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Quiet (18/365)

Posted on May 20, 2018 | 4 comments

A couple of quick photos from our sleepy anchorage… Poet’s Cove on Pender Island.

Glassy water and painterly skies…

Sea shanties by firelight…

Feasting, fun, friends…

…and now settling into my cozy quarter berth.

Looking forward to lots of fun activities tomorrow (and a more complete report when I have a bit more time).

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Carousel Ponies, Frogs and Nosebleeds (17/365)

Posted on May 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

 

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Dad and Frog (or, toad?)

 

After leaving the hospital for what has become our daily morning visit to ER to deal with ongoing nosebleed management issues, Dad and I headed for Butchart Gardens to gather some raw material for drawing and painting.

 

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I couldn’t make out the signature, but this drawing is stuck to a cabinet in the ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) Room at the local hospital emergency room… It’s the chair in which Dad has spent a fair bit of time over the past several days… 

 

It has been YEARS since I was last at the gardens and I have to say, they really are quite something, especially given the place is also a story of reclamation and rehabilitation. Once an ugly quarry that supplied limestone for Robert Butchart’s cement plant, the gardens were the dreamchild of Butchart’s wife, Jennie who wanted to pretty things up a bit once industry was done with stripping what it needed from the land. What a beautification project!

These days, almost a million visitors a year stroll around the gardens, snapping photos.

As one would expect, there are gazillions of flowers, shrubs, and trees, but there are also fountains, statues, and a carousel. I have always loved carousels and am always a bit disappointed when I’m near one without a child to coerce into riding with me!

A carousel horse statue prances near the carousel, an escapee from the endless drudgery of up and down and round and round. I took several photos, thinking I might be able to draw it later.

 

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Statue of a carousel pony dancing at Butchart’s

Dad gave me a brush pen with a reservoir for use with watercolours and once I got home  I pulled out the watercolour pencils I brought with me and started to experiment.

 

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New toy, must play…

 

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Unhappy with the pole, which looks awful, but I’m thinking that if I mess around with that it will get much worse… As it is, you can tell it’s a carousel pony, so I’m happy to leave it at that!

Of course I’m not the only person to be captivated by carousel ponies…

 

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Carnival the Carousel by Georges Lemmen, early 1890s

 

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Many carousel ponies (and other creatures) are works of art themselves… I’d kind of like one in my living room, to be honest. Maybe even a row of them for people to sit on at the kitchen island… We would need a bigger kitchen island, of course… Photo by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash

That’s it for now… I’m struggling (really struggling) to draw or paint a flower that looks even remotely floral, so you don’t get to see any of that stuff yet. I’m feeling a bit heartened, though, that with practice comes progress, so I’ll keep trucking on and see what happens next…

 

 

 

 

 

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How Cool is This?? (16/365)

Posted on May 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

 

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From the series of images, Ornitographies by Xavi Bou (visit the website here…)  www.xavibou.com (many thanks to Xavi Bou for permission to use the photo here)

Imagine if you could see the patterns made by birds as they swoop in unison, drawing on the canvas of the sky. I’d never heard of the artist, but one of the wonderful volunteers who stayed with us on the farm a few years ago sent a link to an article in National Geographic about the artist/photographer and wow – how cool!

Dad, of course, was immediately intrigued and asked if I had seen the images as they relate so well to what we’ve been talking about in our ongoing lines and patterns discussions…

 

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Birds in the Clouds by Georges Braque, 1960 

 

So many artists have explored the image of birds in flight it’s hard to know where to start with examples.

 

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Twelve Birds by M. C. Escher, 1948

Line, pattern, repeating shapes, and negative space all fuse in this work by M. C. Escher.

 

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Lucian Freud takes a different approach in Landscape with Birds (1940)

Da Vinci tried to freeze the movement of birds with the naked eye…

 

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Drawings of a bird in flight by Leonardo da Vinci (1500s)

 

 

Leonardo had an ulterior motive, I think – hoping to learn how to fly himself. The challenge kept him busy for years…

As for me, I’ve been having enough trouble trying to draw things like a coffee cup sitting on the table in front of me and that, so far, is more than challenging enough!

For the moment, I’m happy to enjoy the work of others when it comes to this subject, but perhaps at some point, I’ll take up the challenge and try to capture movement in the ethereal form of birds in flight…

 

 

 

 

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Going Dotty for Dots (15/365)

Posted on May 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

I arrived on Vancouver Island for a visit only to find Dad having a bit of a medical issue. A wicked nosebleed that refused to stop has meant four visits to emergency rooms in two different hospitals over the past 36 hours or so. Don’t worry, Dad is ok – but he has, as a result of his leaking blood vessels, spent a fair bit of time hanging about in waiting rooms.

 

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Magnifying Glass by Roy Lichtenstein (1963)

 

What does one do under such circumstances? Talk about dots, of course…

And, spots… like the many, many paintings featuring coloured spots by Damien Hirst.

 

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Valium, by Damien Hirst

 

According to Hirst’s website (www.damienhirst.com) there are more than 1400 of his spot paintings out there. The spots range from teeny tiny and thousands upon thousands on a single canvas to larger works with fewer, much larger spots. Assistants have helped paint some of the canvases, which are meant to look like they could have been painted by a machine.

This next painting by Bonnard is lots of fun and features spots in a different way. The combination of playful dog and the woman’s spotty dress make me smile!

 

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Woman in a Polka Dot Dress by Pierre Bonnard, 1890s

And here’s one by the French/Chinese artist, Sanyu that features one of my favorite subjects, horses.

 

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Two Spotted Horses by Sanyu (1950)

 

 

This conversation about spots and dots, of course, led back to my own dot experiments and then Dad piped up with “… what about dominoes? You could do something with that… ”

Which is how I wound up searching for domino images on Google while trying to ignore the steady stream of walking wounded moaning and groaning their way into the emergency room…

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I had my daytimer with me, so I started doing some quick sketches of the basic domino shape… and was just getting warmed up when Dad got summoned to go in for treatment and we had to stop chatting and put away our pencils.

It’s an intriguing idea, though. I can imagine adding colour… and multiple dominoes, and patterns of falling dominoes… Who knows where this may lead?? It’s late now and it’s been a very busy day with a great meeting with my editor about the medically-assisted dying book plus the next project about civil disobedience, presenting to students at Royal Oak Middle School, having a chat with my accountant, and searching for ground lamb (there are plans afoot for a weekend away on my daughter’s boat and rather elaborate preparations are ongoing as Dani puts together a rather spectacular menu), so I’ll leave things there for now.  Can’t wait for tomorrow to see where the spots and dots and dominoes may take us next!

 

 

 

 

 

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