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sketchbook
Dear Dog Owner, our garbage bin is not for your dog’s poo.
Dear Dog owner,
It’s nice that you own a dog. We really, really like dogs. But we’re not a big fan of dog poo. As poos go, it is one of the worst. And it’s extra disgusting when it’s left in the wrong place.
Since you own a dog, you also own its poo. And since you own its poo, it is up to you to take care of its disposal, not us. Our garbage bin is not in the lane very often but when it is, it is not there to receive your dog’s poo. Since we do not get to enjoy the joys that come with the ownership of your dog – the unconditional love, the sloppy dog kisses, the long walks in the rain – it stands to reason we shouldn’t have to deal with the downsides.
Beyond the obvious rudeness of it all, when you put your dog’s poo in our empty garbage bin it lands at the bottom. Garbage bags get put on top over the course of the week and your nicely knotted bag then squirts poo into the bottom of our bin resulting in a lovely dog poo smell every time we open it.
Now don’t think that just because we’d like to keep our bin poo-free it means that you can drop it on the ground by the fence or anywhere in the lane either. If you have enough energy to walk you dog off your property so it can do its business, you have enough energy to carry its bag of poo home with you and get rid of it properly. Its not like you’re walking an elephant.
We have seen you drop poo in our garbage bin but haven’t yet been quick enough to get out there and catch you. Please don’t let it come to that. Please be a polite and responsible dog owner.
Many thanks.
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Of course, this isn’t directed at all dog owners… just the one or two taking liberties with our garbage bin. Most people who walk their dogs around our house are very conscientious about taking their baggies with them.
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The Burden of Youth
My studio overlooks the street and I can watch all the comings and goings throughout the day while I work. Outside, flocks of crows dot the lawns and boulevards like so many black-shrouded gremlins, busily flipping over leaves or tormenting squirrels. At least a couple times a month one of the toddlers en route to the play school down the street will evade its keeper and make a wild dash down the sidewalk toward the intersection. Much yelling and frantic arm waving results. Often a much smaller child is abandoned in its stroller while a frantic adult tries to run down a turbo-charged 16 month old. There are also the daily dogs, walking their owners. Among them is the seemly-benign blonde cocker spaniel from down the street who never fails to lure in a victim with his deceptive cuteness before going all Hyde with snarls and snaps. Finally there are the kids walking to and from school. They are all shapes and sizes, girls and boys, fashion conscious and not so much, traveling by bike, foot, and skateboard. But they have one thing in common. They are more often than not burdened. Burdened with great huge walloping backpacks and all the things that come with school – with being a teenager. And because of this they all seem to have a distinctive forward stoop – back rounded, upper body angled forward. Their gaits are gangly, sort of loping – the product of uneven growth spurts. As they slouch by through my peripheral vision in jostling groups, awkward twosomes, or singly, this is the impression I get.
I remember those days – the bruises on my shoulders caused by my backpack during the daily transport of physics, math, chemistry and biology textbooks (the weighty sciences) between school and home. The weight has long gone and with it most of what, if not everything, I learned in many of those classes.
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Drawing Snug Cove, Bowen Island
Snug Cove, Bowen Island
Pencil
5 1/2″ x 7″
Sketched while waiting for ferry crew’s 7pm dinner break to end – good thing I rushed down there to catch the 7pm sailing back to the mainland. darnit! I never remember about that hour long break in the evening… Or the dangerous cargo sailing on Wednesdays.
When one has got nothing to do but wait, one may as well relax, sit by the water, listen to the sailboat rigging clink and rattle while the boats rock back and forth, and watch the sunset stain the mountainside on the other side of the sound.
There are red, undulating jellyfish in the inky water under the dock and as the cormorants fly in to roost in the cedars across the cove the island begins to settle into evening. The hour passes quickly and the trip back to a city busy with Saturday night begins.
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Painting on Location ~ Todos Santos, Mexico
The Profesor Nestor Agundez Martinez Centro Cultural, Todos Santos, Mexico
Pencil & watercolour on Arches cold pressed, 140lb, 7″x 10″
August 2007
I spent an hour or so at the Centro Cultural in Todos Santos. It’s a real gem, this place. I wish I’d had more time to spend there.
The building that surrounds the courtyard is broken up into rooms that house the town’s museum. Some rooms are full of photographs of Todos Santos in the 1930’s, others are covered with artwork from past and contemporary Mexican and local artists. On open shelves and glass cases there are artifacts and objects from the town’s history – human and animal bones, early tools, old typewriters, masks, dolls, farm equipment…all accompanied by hand written descriptions.
[Photo by Darren]
Two ponds at one side of the square reveal fish in the murky water. Chickens scratch in the dust around a small house behind the ponds.
When I first entered the building though the main entrance I thought that there was a live band playing Mexican music – but it was just the acoustics of the place, amplifying the sound system. The music soon changed to what I could only guess was the ‘Ghost’ soundtrack.
[Photo by Darren]
I don’t like painting or drawing in front of people. I’ve never been able to do it – to the point where I often did nothing during class time while I was college student and waited until I could go home and work in my studio in peace with no fear of anyone looking over my shoulder. I had minor slivers of panic when I filled in for one of the life drawing instructors at the same college a few years ago and needed to give a demo to the students. I’ve avoided drawing and painting in public because it seems to be a natural magnet for curious people so I was initially disappointed when my sketching caught the attention of a young man with a large sack slung over his shoulder. He came over, extended his hand and shook mine. He beamed, pointed at my page and made a drawing gesture.
“It’s just scribbles right now”, I said.
He moved to my right so he could look over my shoulder and nodded and smiled. Then he motioned to his ears and shook his head, opened his mouth and pointed to his tongue and held his thumb and forefinger a little apart, then flattened his hand and rocked it side to side. He put down the sack and pointed to himself, then pantomimed sweeping, then pointed to the sack and made like he was lifting, then gestured around us to the buildings and plaza. He looked at my drawing again and smiled, pointed to the plaza in front of us. I pointed to the edge of the garden and the rusting white iron chairs in front. I picked up a piece of cardboard with a rectangle I’d cut out of it to isolate my composition. I held it up for him to look through – to show him the part of the garden I was drawing.
He nodded, smiled, pointed to me and then to his head and nodded, then to his own head and shook it, picked up the sack from the ground, slung it over his shoulder and continued down the steps onto the path, turning around every so often to smile, make drawing gestures, point to me, then his head and nod.
A little while later he came back, the empty sack slung over his shoulder. We had a further, silent conversation and I learned that he had a young daughter. He pointed to the invisible child he had indicated by placing his hand flat a waist height, then pantomimed exasperation. Then he smiled, waved and went back to work.
I wanted to ask him his name, and if he wouldn’t mind posing for a photograph. But I didn’t see him before I left.
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Painting on Location ~ Waterton National Park
Waterton National Park
Watercolour and pencil on Arches hot pressed, 140lb 7″x 10″
June 13, 2007
Back in June, after completing the MS Bike Tour, we headed over to Waterton National Park for a few days of camping, hiking, sketching and cooking in the open air.
Both of us had managed to catch colds so our days tended toward the more relaxed of the activities. Our hikes were easy and took us along a winding river cut into bright red and orange rocks, painted with the most violently green lichens I’ve ever seen and up gentle mountainsides to alpine lakes, past nodding wildflowers.
Everywhere we looked it was beautiful – not pretty – breathtakingly beautiful.
Waterton is windy, making for exciting skies – huge bruised clouds sweep over the peaks and sunlight constantly changes on the slopes (reminiscent of our trip to Scotland). And then there’s the tent-wrenching gusts, tossing tent-pegs asunder and slashing through windbreak tarps.
I intended to sketch and paint a lot on this trip, but the wind just wouldn’t cooperate and neither would my cold.
Photo by Darren
I found one calm morning to do a small watercolour sketch in the meadow behind our campsite, close to where a cinnamon coloured black bear sow and her two blonde cubs had been the morning before. They appeared shortly after breakfast in a small hollow between two stands of trees. They stood up, looked around, saw us and disappeared down the bank again. We saw them a couple of days later, eating grass on the slope on the other side of the road from the turn-off to the campsite. My photos are quite crummy – it was a bit too dark out and they were a little too far in the distance for my lens (though still close for being bears and all).
Black Bear Sow
Pentax k1000 | Kodak Max 800
larger
Black Bear Sow and Cub (those brown spots between the trees, above the bbq)
Pentax k1000 | Kodak Max 800
larger
Painting on Location in Mexico
While on a trip down in Mexico at the end of April, I had a chance to do some colour studies on location as well as shoot a bunch of reference photos for larger paintings in the future.
Part of the time was spent babysitting time-lapse cameras and it gave me a chance to sit down and do some studies of the view.
I really loved the desert and wished I’d had more time to spend out there painting. Maybe next time.
Playa Palmilla from the Mirador, Los Cabos, BCS, Mexico
Watercolour and pencil on Arches cold pressed, 140lb 7″x 10″
April 13, 2007
This is the view from the Mirador down over Playa Palmilla. We had to sit out of the sight range of the cameras and so this was the view we got.
I’m horribly rusty, but improved slightly as the week went on.
View from the Mirador, Los Cabos, BCS, Mexico
Watercolour and pencil on Arches cold pressed, 140lb 7″x 10″
April 13, 2007
This is the view from the other side of the Mirador. After we sat for a while [me painting and my friend reading] the lizards started to come out from under the cactus – large dark striped grey ones, paler grey ones and small ones with bright blue tails.
Rocks at Playa Palmilla, Los Cabos, BCS, Mexico
Watercolour and pencil on Arches cold pressed, 140lb 7″x 10″
April 13, 2007
Erin on Playa Palmilla Beach, Los Cabos, BCS, Mexico
Watercolour and pencil on Arches cold pressed, 140lb 7″x 10″
April 13, 2007
We had an hour or so to sit at the beach.
I usually work from photo reference when I’m working on assignments due to time/size/space and logistical reasons but nothing can replace working from life. I’m inspired to do more on location sketches this summer, if only to get me out of the studio once and a while.
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Kirsti Wakelin 