Tag Archives: niagara

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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Bridged

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3.5"X5.5" Pen & Graphitint in Moleskine

I got "bridged" on the way home from work the other day. This always seems to be the busiest time of year on the canal, the lakers all hurrying to reach their destinations before the ice closes the St. Lawrence Seaway for the season.
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Bridged Again

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5.5"X7" Pen & Ink in Moleskine

As I am not finding time to paint I am determined to try to sketch more regularly. So, in an attempt to find some inspiration, I bought some new drawing pens last weekend: Faber-Castell sepia and a Copic sepia sketch pen.

I got caught again this morning. Double-bridged this time. The Carlton Street bridge is right next to Lock 2, and sometimes there is a boat waiting to enter the lock as another leaves it. When this happens they leave the bridge up until the two boats have changed places. They move very slowly, especially the one going into the lock.

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Lunchtime River

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Various Moleskine sketches


I haven't been very productive of late. What with dealing with the various household problems (storm-damage to porch & roof, phone, dryer, stove, air-conditioning, printer/scanner) and summer-time guests, I haven't been painting much. Coupled with my scanner not working for a while (see above), blogging has not been high on my list of things to do. I have been sketching though, mostly at lunchtime, and here are a few quick river views. The weather has been so hot recently, that even these tend to be cut short. It is hard to stay focused when it is 37C in the shade. With humidity, that translates to very hot indeed. Last week
 apparently we hit 47C with "humidex" taken into consideration!


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.


River in March

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5.5"X3.5" Mixed media in Moleskine

I haven't been posting much recently. I haven't been painting much either, but I still draw and sketch most  days. I found some old watercolour sketches from the past couple of moths that I never posted, so I will try to put them up over the next few days.

I did this one in March and there was still very little sign of Spring at that time. We have had some massive storms, including one that brought down 800 trees belonging to the City of St Catharines alone, not counting those on private property. It was a city tree that came down on my house, puncturing the roof and breaking the porch as well as taking out 50 ft of fence and part of my shed! That, combined with my dryer belt breaking, my oven going on strike and my phone refusing to work properly for the past couple of weeks, has made my life complicated. Then there is work....
Anyway, I have lots of excuses for not painting, but it doesn't make me feel any better about it.

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February Landscape Abstract

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14"X11" oil on canvas

It is fun to work on a slightly larger scale, still not very big but four times the size of my usual. I also worked entirely from memory here. I tried to soak up the colours as I was driving and remember them.

I am not sure that this one is finished yet. I got a lot more texture into this than I am usually able to. I wanted to add texture into the foreground but it was getting too muddy, that's why I think I will come back later, when it has had a chance to dry. As usual, this was a lot more abstract to start with, but I found myself adding detail.
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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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