Tag Archives: common

Three Trees and a Rock

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5.5"X7" Pencil & marker in Moleskine

A couple of days ago I was walking on the common and came across this interesting "mashup". It was probably rather a challenging subject for a 10 minute sketch but I wanted to give it a try.

The maple and the locust must have grown up together, because if one had grown first it surely would have overwhelmed the other. The trunks are so close together that they actually seem to be conjoined. The birch in the foreground is about a foot from the main trunk.

I have walked past it many times but never noticed its disparate nature before. Perhaps because of the way that each tree's leaves changes colour at a different rate and to a different hue, it was much more apparent this time.

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Summer Trees

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5.5"X3.5" Watercolour in Moleskine

"Use it or lose it" they say. It certainly seems to be true in my case. I have been drawing and painting so infrequently recently that I find it hard to know even where to begin. I find library books and trawl the internet looking for inspiration, but I am not sure that that is such a good thing. I have so many subscriptions in Google Reader that I can't possibly keep up, so I end up deleting most of them unread. And when I do look at other peoples work I seem to flit around from one enthusiasm to another. I see something I like and think, "I could do that", then I see something else, completely different in style, subject and execution, and I think "I could do that too". I don't mean that I want to copy, just that so many different styles appeal to me, that I still don't seem to be able to settle on one. I have become really bored with working from photographs, although I have only ever used my own photos, they seems stilted and false somehow. Anyway, I am not giving up yet. One day soon, I keep thinking, I will find my muse.
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Lunchtime

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5.5"X3.5" Watercolour in Moleskine

Another of my, previously unpublished, lunchtime sketches. This was a few weeks ago on the Niagara-on-the Lake Common. The April 28 storm took its toll on the trees here too. Many magnificent old specimens were uprooted or broken. Nature will repair itself though and I am less concerned about these than the many boulevard trees, like the one that fell on my house. These will have to wait until the city can find the money and the manpower to replace them.


Solstice

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5.5"X3.5" Watercolour & ink in Moleskine

Not a very good photograph but I was too lazy to scan it (I have to take my laptop into the other room). This is really "Noon on the Common 158" or something, but I thought I would take advantage of the date to call it something else. I found a great spot with my back to the wall of RH1 (the main rehearsal studio, otherwise known as the Studio Theatre for a few weeks of the year). I think that this tree has figured in a few paintings and drawings over the past few years too.
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Noon on the Common Again

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11"X3.5" Watercolour pencil in moleskine

Another view that gets somewhat overdone due to the location of a strategically placed bench.
I remember having a conversation with a friend, someone that I had thought was fairly enlightened, who couldn't understand why the Common was so jealously guarded by the town. It seemed to him that, in a community surrounded by farmland, it was quite unnecessary and should be made available for development. I remarked at the time that people may once have felt that way about High Park in Toronto or Central Park in NY City, and that in a hundred years the people of Niagara-on-the-Lake would be glad that the Common had been protected.

That was about twenty years ago and suburban sprawl is already hemming in the town on the West. There is water to North and East so this pastoral haven to the South is a very precious thing. Long may it remain protected!
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Against Another Day

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7"X5" Acrylic on board

I am still having some difficulty finding my muse. This is from a photo I took a month ago at the same time that I did a sketch. I tried to use the photo, which was a very low-res cellphone picture, just as a starting point. I didn't refer to the sketch either. I am trying to work less literally and to use my memory and imagination more.

I am still struggling with my commission which is a pet portrait, not one of my strengths. It is made especially difficult because I don't have a good reference photo of the two animals together, just a bunch of snapshots, some of which I took myself and some taken by the client. I am trying to come up with a montage that works but I still have deep misgivings.

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Against the Day

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9"X6" Mixed media

Not much of an offering but at least I tried.

I went for a short walk at lunchtime and sat for a few minutes to do this quick sketch. I wasn't helped by the fact that I was drawing "contre jour". It was also a bit chilly and I didn't have my fingerless mitts with me. I did find a great place to sit however, back-to-front on the soccer bleachers. This provided a ready-made table.

I used watercolour pencils, "Graphitint" pencils and three different pens for this. As well as the fountain pen which I use quite a lot, I also used a Staedtler pigment liner and my latest toy, a Pentel pocket brush.

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August Noon

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9"X6" Watercolour on paper

In all things it is almost always the transitions that are interesting. Spring and Fall are generally more interesting than high summer. In high summer the most interesting times are early morning and late evening. The first snowfall is magical but the iron grey of midwinter leaves a lot to be desired.

This has been such a wet summer, at least the grass is still green. By the middle of August all the colours seem tired and the greens looked dusty and grey at noon under heavy polluted skies (here in the "Golden Horseshoe" the ill effects of industry overhang everything).

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