5.5"X3.5" Pen & WC pencil on paper

To be "bridged" is a local term which refers to the state of being delayed at the canal while a laker makes its way through one of the lift bridges. Such was my condition this morning.

Instead of playing the guessing game of trying to decide which alternate route to try, which often results in the state of being "double bridged", I decided to sit and sketch the boat as it crept towards me. These boats are often as long 260 meters (850 ft)but no more than 24 meters (78 ft) wide. This constraint is imposed by the size of the locks through which they have to pass.

10″X3.5″ Pencil on paper

The giant lakers moving up and down the canal are an unending source of fascination for me. Here is one just coming out of the lock. Because the land is so flat around here, many of the landscape views would work better as panoramas, I think. I am going to try some more on this scale anyway.

5″X7″ WC Pencil on paper

On a clear day you can see right across Lake Ontario to Toronto. In bygone days it would have been much clearer because, even so early in the year, there is a haze of pollution on the horizon. Of course they didn’t have the CN Tower and the downtown office blocks, so there probably wasn’t much to see! In reality it is about 50 kilometres (30 miles) so I have enlarged things a bit to make it more interesting.

7″X5″ Water-soluble Pencil on paper

It is always a bitter-sweet moment when the Welland Canal (part of the St. Lawrence Seaway) opens to marine traffic at the beginning of the year. On the one hand it is a true sign of Spring and the boats really are magnificent. On the other hand it means that we have to be prepared to get “bridged”, a local term meaning stuck at the bridge for up to twenty minutes at a time. Or else we play the bridge-hopping game, similar to supermarket queue-hopping and subject to the same sod’s law.

As I have to cross the canal on my way to and from work every day I get lots of practice at this guessing game. If I could just remember which local station it is that gives updates on the progress of the boats through the canal (and bring myself to listen to their selection of banal elevator music), I would miss out on some of this fun.

I have tried to remain pretty seasonal with these paintings, at least since about my tenth post. If I am not actually painting from life or from a photo taken within the week, I have tried to use references that were taken at the same time of year. This is a little out of order. Although this picture was taken in March, it must have been quite a bit later in the month because the canal isn’t open yet and right now it is hard to imagine that it will be soon. Although we had a Spring thaw yesterday, it froze again overnight and tonight we have an ice-storm.
I am starting to lose patience with the Graphitint pencils. They are very good for muted low key drawings, but for bright colours and for true darks they fall down. Although the darks do look better in reality than they do when they are scanned. The scanner seems to reflect light off the paper behind the pencil (does that make sense?). As soon as the weather warms up I am going to try to go out at lunchtime at least a couple of times a week, then I will probably use my watercolour pochade.