Category: style

from the big city.

I alluded in my previous post that November had us primed for some travel afar and away, and in as much I had picked up a new sketchbook for that specific purpose. Over the recent long weekend, the family and I flew across the continent from our frozen little Canadian city, to the big city, the big apple, Manhattan in New York. It was a weekend filled with adventure, food, walking, Broadway shows, museums, more

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looking across the river.

Breaking in a new sketchbook is a daunting moment. It’s not as if they are outrageously expensive, but after investing thirty bucks into a new Moleskine watercolour folio, peeling the plastic cover off, and quietly considering how great it was going to look full of lovely urban sketches, I couldn’t help but hesitate to put a first mark on the page. I bought a new sketchbook because we’re going on a plane in about three

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of nature studies and pinecones.

Autumn arrived like an express train, passing between the trees with a gust of chilly wind and leaving behind a noticeable change in the mood. The leaves changed colour with its arrival, folding from a mature, ripe green hue to patterns of orange and red and yellow and brown. These are colours to which I have learned this year to give new names: ochre, umber, rust, and olive. While I spent hours of my weekend

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of curious wildlife.

It didn’t take long for me to become a paper fanatic after I started working on my art more. One sketchbook lead to three or four sketchbooks which lead to a small stack of books, pads, and bricks, each designated for a purpose or a theme or a specific style of art. I have a hardcover sketch book just for drawing people. I have a coiled watercolour pad just for scenes painted from photos. I

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in the smokey park.

The dog wanted to sit in the grass. We’ve been riding a sine wave of temperatures through the last month or two, going from unbearably hot to jacket cool. Today the temperature swung back up to the hot again after a few days of pre-autumn chilly, and the dog, half way through our afternoon, pulled me in the shade of some big old trees in the park and plonked down in the shade in the

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