Winking Toad

Swamp Treasures

2011-05-18T21:03:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I visited the Marsh-Marigolds (Caltha palustris). They belong to the radiant family of Buttercups. A goldfinch crossed my path moments after I left the flowers, and by comparison, the bird seemed almost drab.
I feasted on a plate of fiddleheads today, fresh from Goulais Bay. Mmmm … Thanks, Jack!

The most alive is the wildest. - Thoreau

Snowshoe Snowflake

2011-02-26T23:01:00.001-05:00

This was made with wax resist and a swirl of Prussian blue watercolour with mica fragments for sparkle. A visitor to the studio said they resemble sand dollars.
The Book of Kells was decorated with crushed oak apples (galls), lapis lazuli, and beetle's wings.

City Life

2010-12-31T17:36:00.000-05:00

Tip-Toeing in Good Luck

2010-06-05T22:59:00.000-04:00

Back again.
The yard of this old house is famous for its four-leaf clovers. Yesterday, the little boy next door (who is quite nearly nine) sleuthed out a dozen. All have been duly pressed in a telephone book with a brick on top.

Smiling Winter Rainbow

2009-12-31T13:32:00.000-05:00

It's the night of the second full moon in December, the blue moon.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Clothes Peg Dolls

2009-12-12T22:06:00.000-05:00

Me & Gary as a pair of clothes peg dolls. I sanded several millimetres off my feet so I would be in the correct proportion to Gary's height.

Yet Another Window Ice Pattern

2009-12-12T21:57:00.000-05:00

They do fascinate me!

White Pine Christmas Tree

2009-12-10T16:14:00.000-05:00

It's snowing flurriously, and too fluffy to do anything but delight in.

Window Ice Patterns

2009-12-09T17:32:00.000-05:00

We've been whoomphed with snow. It's beautiful. After supper (which includes squash from the garden now residing in the pantry) I'll go out and shovel the steps and paths again.

Balsam Christmas Tree

2009-12-08T16:33:00.001-05:00

I found this tree discarded at the side of a snowmobile trail after a trail-clearing crew had gone through. It rode home in my backpack. The moon on the wall behind is a calendar.

Holly Winterberry

2009-12-07T21:55:00.000-05:00

Holly Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) glowing rosy under newly fallen snow.

Green Sloth Travelling Long Distance

2009-12-06T11:05:00.000-05:00

Many species of algae flourish in the thick, unruly fur of sloths, giving the creatures a greenish complexion. Perpetual, gravity-forced sloth smiles are a quizzical and engaging feature.
I suspect Dr. Seuss was inspired by sloths when he invented The Grinch.

Window Ice Patterns

2009-12-05T22:53:00.002-05:00

Brrrrr … it's c-c-c-c-c-cold. I regret wearing my two-loops scarf and not my five-loops scarf today.

Cedar Branch

2009-12-04T21:11:00.001-05:00

I decorated a cedar branch one Christmas, trimming a tree that itself was a tree-trimming. Dental floss helped to anchor it.

Blue Flag Iris

2009-12-03T23:22:00.001-05:00

Swamps are exquisitely beautiful places. It is where the wild blue flag iris blooms. Irises photosynthesize on both sides of their leaves.

Breakfast

2009-12-02T23:06:00.001-05:00

A Tree and A Star

2009-12-01T23:52:00.002-05:00

Here is a Christmas tree. It's branches are alive with songbirds, and it is topped in a star.
It snowed last night! This morning I shovelled the front steps and tried building a snowman, but he crumbled apart like soft gingerbread. Sigh.
December has two full moons. The second is the Blue Moon and it occurs New Year's Eve. Tomorrow is December's first full moon. Walking home tonight under the near-full moon I again saw a moonbow, but only segments of it, when wispy scraps of cloud blew across it.

Typing Cat

2009-12-01T23:30:00.002-05:00

Learning to type on a loud, cast-iron, manual typewriter, I used to wonder if I typed fast enough in the dark, would I see sparks fly?

(This post was intended to appear yesterday.)

Florentine Iris

2009-11-29T19:43:00.000-05:00

2009 is my third year of gardening. In a jumbly garden, on a rainy day in early June, my first iris unfurled. It grows beside spindly roses and rambunctious oregano.

Willow

2009-11-28T21:34:00.002-05:00

This drawing was done on black scratchboard, using a utility knife to scrape and scratch out the white bits. The black ink chips off in specks like finely ground pepper. The result is it sounds like I'm blowing out birthday cake candles (to clear the dust) when I'm working with it. Scratchboard drawings can resemble engravings.

Scratchboard is made from poison ivy leaves and causes frantic itching. Although that last sentence is a fib, it does sound plausible.

Old House

2009-11-27T21:19:00.001-05:00

On a sunny, bird-happy day this past August, I took my umpteenth photograph of an old house. This one, on St Joseph Island, is encircled with daisies and long grasses. It would look spooky in moonlight.

Bean Skiing?

2009-11-26T19:25:00.002-05:00

Pen & Ink with a splash of watercolour is a classic technique. This was reduced considerably from the original drawing and printed on paper embedded with coloured flecks for pizzaz.
Pole beans make the best skiis.

Ice Fir

2009-11-25T23:57:00.001-05:00

A photograph of ice patterns on a window, flipped upsidedown resembles a tree.

Cinnamon Roll Snails

2009-11-24T21:22:00.003-05:00

Cinnamon Roll Snails in Atlin, British Columbia. These fearful, sticky creatures are sometimes served in fancy restaurants as escargot, and should technically be on the dessert menu.

Frowning Smile

2009-11-24T15:45:00.001-05:00

(This was the posting intended for yesterday, but I didn't have computer access.)

Seed Pods

2009-11-22T22:23:00.002-05:00

A drawing done for practise of the dried seed pods of Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis), still attached to the crisp stalk on which they had bloomed. There were still a few cinnamon-brown seeds tucked inside like a delightful postscript at the end of a long, scrumptious letter.

Silent Landscape

2009-11-21T10:26:00.001-05:00

There is no snow yet, although we expect it soon. There's a feel of cold, quiet, waiting. I discovered a Johnny Jump-Up blooming beside the front steps today, and peered closer to confirm it was genuine and not a plastic flower blown off a pair of flip-flops.

Canadian Bananas

2009-11-20T19:24:00.001-05:00

Cucumbers are unripe bananas. Canadian banana crops have failed to date owing to a short growing season.

Praying Mantis

2009-11-19T00:51:00.001-05:00

Praying Mantises ought to wear berets, and clutch bouquets of battered paintbrushes.

The Beanius

2009-11-18T22:50:00.002-05:00

In second grade we collected empty jars of baby mush, patted them to brimming with soil, and were issued a regulation bean seed to sow wedged against the glass. While other aspiring bean parents fussed over their jars, I ignored mine. With a snarl of beans tangling up the garden at home, I wistfully planted it hoping for a marigold. Soon my bean was winding its tendrils around the rings of Saturn. The other 23 jars on the windowsill contained fuzzy, mousey-grey, has-beans.

A show-off bean is a curse when you're so shy your only friends are imaginary, and suddenly teachers are congratulating you at recess and asking for gardening advice. The bean was a legend with my name on masking tape stuck to the bottom of its jar. In maniacal desperation to eliminate the cause of my unwanted fame I attempted a beanicide, hoping to poison the bean with icky paint water. It only grew more.

Spruce Cones

2009-11-17T19:12:00.001-05:00

Long November walks in shoes are impossible to resist. A long stride and light step is the finest way to travel. While in the forest I sometimes twist my long brown hair around a bough of balsam fir to scent it. It makes me smell like a Christmas tree. The tree in the photograph is a cone-barnacled spruce I met on Friday's adventures.

Great Mullein

2009-11-16T14:15:00.002-05:00

Great Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) has woolly leaves and many common names. The funniest I've heard is "Tarzan's Toilet Paper."

Hairy Woodpecker

2009-11-15T00:06:00.003-05:00

This male Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus) was so bent on feasting and demolition I was able to sneak rather close to him. In his hunt for juicy insects splinters flew, and I saw him pitch out a chunk of wood nearly as large as himself.

Bubbles & Spots

2009-11-14T10:28:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I went for a 14 km hike and took photographs I'll be posting over the next few days. The colours are subdued so for contrast, here's the lily-pad girl illustration.

Virginia Creeper Berries …

2009-11-13T11:21:00.000-05:00

… resemble ball & stick molecular models from chemistry class.

Fingers Crossed

2009-11-12T20:17:00.000-05:00

Drawing practise is important. While drawing I forget about whatever it is I'm looking at, but I do prefer drawing something that is alive or once was … a tree, my hand, a kale leaf, dried seed pods, pine cones, a plant, George-the-Cat (asleep) … I have a bazillion drawings of my left hand.

Painted Lady Butterfly

2009-11-11T12:41:00.003-05:00

White Pine — Rough Sketch

2009-11-10T00:14:00.003-05:00

This tree is a giant and still growing. My friend Nora and I couldn't touch hands around it. Imagine it's stories.

Liquorice Tea

2009-11-09T23:35:00.001-05:00

Anise-hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) is a robust plant and a bee-magnet. This one grows out by the back porch near the rhubarb and compost bins. It grows in the wild but I grew this plant from a packet of seeds I ordered from Richters Nursery. Plucking a few leaves for a freshly brewed mug of liquorice tea is a toe-curlingly wonderful indulgence. Lemon balm and peppermint are other tasty tea-plants I grow.

Rapunzel at the Steer-Roping Competition

2009-11-08T00:14:00.001-05:00

I drew Rapunzel mounted "side-saddle" style, steering her horse by the ears. If I re-draw it, I'll deck her out in a fancier dress and curly-toed shoes.

A Quartet of White Violins

2009-11-07T10:32:00.002-05:00

These are a few of the violins built by Myrel White. He used to string his new violins out on the clothesline, their fresh varnish glinting in the sunshine, to dry in breezes sifted through white pines. The story I wrote to accompany this picture was printed in the Summer/Autumn 2001 issue of The Country Connection Magazine.

Under the Banana Tree

2009-11-06T14:27:00.002-05:00

I graduated from art school fifteen years ago. At the time I lived in a small cedar-shake cottage beside a clump of gnarled lilacs. The cottage was probably not intended for year-round use and mould ate my mattress, so the floor became my bed. Each night I watched the moon and stars and treetops. One maple created the silhouette of a pipe-smoking man's head in profile. When the wind got up the man in the tree would laugh and swallow his pipe.

November

2009-11-05T13:12:00.001-05:00

With shorter day-lengths and weaker sunshine, November is usually regarded as drab and gloomy. Colours are still found in mosses, lichens, rocks, foxes, and the sky. In the vegetable patch only parsley and palm-trees of kale remain jubilantly green in the cold soil. November is beautiful for it's subtly.

Burning Rubber

2009-11-04T14:35:00.001-05:00

Buttercup-yellow Volkswagen beetles bear an uncanny resemblance to fried eggs sunny side up. Old Volkswagen campers remind me of toasters …

The Boys

2009-11-03T10:28:00.001-05:00

It's time to introduce my gang. Here is George-the-Cat and Gary-my-Husband. Both are grey, mischievous, and have prominent ears. George is trying to do the Picture-Day-At-Kindergarten pose, and I'm tempted to replace the background with a looming bookshelf of leather-bound volumes, or a fake Autumn scene. Gary was posing for some portrait photographs I needed as reference for another project, when I sprang on him, ruffled his hair, and snapped this picture. These two are great pals.

Rembrandt on a Rainy Day …

2009-11-02T14:59:00.000-05:00

… Giving Directions.

This is a monoprint done in three seconds on a thick piece of clear plastic using water-based honey paints and doodle paper. They are cartwheel-inspiringly fun, even if the results look a little peculiar. Sometimes I print decorations on envelopes this way. I went though a phase of printing green bears wearing quizzical expressions on every envelope I posted.

Palette Turtle

2009-11-01T22:37:00.002-05:00

A young painted turtle from a nearby pond takes an artistic detour across my watercolour palette.
Walking home tonight, I saw a rainbow encircling an almost-full moon.

Pupkins

2009-10-31T11:57:00.003-04:00

Eerily close to Halloween in 1989, a prestigious Ottawa kennel reported a theft or perhaps only a comical if unauthorized trade. An expensive Golden Retriever puppy had vanished. In its place an enormous radiant orange pumpkin was found …

The pumpkin might have been the pup enchanted … HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Old Stone House — Part Three

2009-10-30T14:08:00.002-04:00

… and on September 10, 2003, the local fire department burned it down as a training exercise. The house stood 120 years. Several trees, including a giant white pine nearby, were killed. With a borrowed camera (a 35mm SLR), but no tripod, I braced myself against a window frame in the house across the road. At the height of the fire I had just enough light to take some photographs. I snapped five, but this was the only one that wasn't blurred. Shortly after the blaze, the remains of the house were levelled. The heat was so intense, wafts of smoke rose from the site well into the new year. In 2008 the photograph was used on the cover of a mystery novel titled Muskoka Bound & Betrayed by Brad Hammond & Liam Dwyer.

Old Stone House — Part Two

2009-10-29T18:54:00.001-04:00

After the old man died, all of his treasures were removed from the house …

Old Stone House — Part One

2009-10-28T22:25:00.009-04:00

This was my favourite house in Huntsville, Ontario. It was built of stone in 1883. An old lilac trimmed the lane, and a clump of rhubarb grew in the backyard. On June 9, 1998 (I write an ink & paper diary) I was allowed a peek inside by the owner, who also gave me permission to draw it. Inside was home to a family of raccoons, three upside-down treadle sewing machines, topsy-turvy tables, and a jumble of wounded wooden chairs the old man hoped to restore. Propped under an upstairs bedroom window was a magnificent flexible flyer sled. The kitchen floor had given way so the cellar was filled with sand brought in through the tornado door (which can be seen in the Autumn photograph). The house had been abandoned for many years, but had been in the man's family a very long time. His ancestors were United Empire Loyalists. In a future post, I'll show what happen to this house, and what happened after that …

Planners Planning

2009-10-27T00:59:00.003-04:00

Snatched from a sketchbook.

Sandhill Cranes

2009-10-26T00:59:00.002-04:00

Sandhill Cranes are flourishing this year. I accidentally startled this pair into flight over Goulais Bay, Lake Superior. Their voices are not musical.

Luna Moth

2009-10-25T00:03:00.005-04:00

Luna moths (Actias luna) reside in hardwood forests, their caterpillars especially love butternut, yellow birch, and beech trees. They are members of the giant silk moth family (Saturniidae) but unravelling a cocoon for silken thread would doom the chrysalid. The true, domesticated, mulberry-leaf-eating silkworms of China belong to a different family of moths. Luna moths lack mouths and digestive tracts, and live for only a week on wingspans of 10cm. They fly only at night. The moons on their wings are believed to resemble eyes and used to intimidate predators. It is like a treasure to know "chrysalid" derives from the Greek word for "gold."

Chippewa Falls

2009-10-24T00:11:00.002-04:00

The water is gold and turquoise-green. This is a small detail of a much larger, exuberant, waterfalls.

Cross-Country Skiing Chickens

2009-10-23T11:52:00.004-04:00

Every chicken has a secret. For some chickens it's eleven different herbs and spices. For cross-country skiing chickens it's double-sided suction cups.
I miss the clap and sigh of skis underfoot, and gliding through forests of slumbering trees. But, Winter is near … I'm working on drawings subcontracted from the North Pole.

Agawa Bay, Lake Superior

2009-10-22T18:37:00.001-04:00

A photograph can't even hint at how beautiful a place this is.

Skunk Fairy

2009-10-21T11:14:00.002-04:00

A cool, damp, mousey-grey day requires a jolt of colour.

The usual fate of my skunk paintings is to be torn to shreds, soaked until as much colour as possible is tickled out, chomped to pulp in the blender, and poured into the mould & deckel to make new paper. These shreds escaped and, with some paste, became a fairy.

Beaver Down Pond Road

2009-10-20T11:39:00.004-04:00

Walking on the left side, facing traffic, as all pedestrians should when there are no sidewalks. There is a second beaver not in this picture, off to my right in a thicket of Joe-Pye-weed. When I politely requested "the nickel-pose," the beaver snorted.

Ornithology Lecture

2009-10-19T00:41:00.004-04:00

Lorrie scolding a trio of pigeons for feasting on soggy cheesies without a speck of nutritional value, dropped by a gaggle of boisterous high school girls.

I have a collection of people-doodles to post intermittently. All are characters I've observed in the world, and stealthily sketched … a sneaky field guide of sorts. I thought it only sporting to begin the exhibit with this jab at myself.

Poison Ivy Berries

2009-10-18T00:09:00.002-04:00

Swamp-green and grinchy poison ivy berries. Just before snapping the shutter, out of habit I muttered "smile." Cold and grim and bereft of leaves, they cling to their stems all Winter. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers eat them, as do migrating birds. Many plants remind me of architecture. This could be a communications tower bedecked with mirrored metallic glass office spheres in Toronto.

Tailpiece Cats

2009-10-17T00:08:00.007-04:00

This pair of scribbly cats I drew as the tailpiece for Wendel Messer's smart book, The Sink: The Last Days of Driving. Tailpieces end a book with panache, like fancy peppermint candies at the end of a hearty feast. More books should have them.

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail

2009-10-16T18:10:00.003-04:00

A male Canadian Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio canadensis) puddling for the sodium in road salt. I snapped this photograph lying on my stomach while humming Bach off-key. Photographing butterflies keeps a person nimble, patient, and not overly preoccupied with tidy clothes.
I walked over 13 km today, mostly in a forest. A whirlwind of golden trembling aspen leaves swirled around me, like a flurry of tiger swallowtails.

Hemlock Cones

2009-10-15T20:36:00.007-04:00

The ghost drawings of hemlock cones are showing through from the other side of this flimsy paper.

Today horticultural staff inadvertently locked me in the Bellevue Park Greenhouse. Luckily I had my sketchbook and pencils, and did not have to eat the tiny, caterpillar-green bananas that dangled from one tree. I must resemble a plant. (Green is my favourite colour.)

Bright Earth & Bright Treetops

2009-10-14T14:58:00.004-04:00

The top three photographs are of the forest floor. The earth glows, as do the trees.

I was grateful today was squinty-bright, as I had to trace a wisp of a drawing onto thick paper at the vertical light table ("window" is the architectural term).

Hornet Trio

2009-10-13T00:07:00.004-04:00

A hornet on a window, waiting-out a rainstorm. It's the same hornet in different poses.

Highbush Cranberry

2009-10-12T00:18:00.006-04:00

Highbush cranberries (Viburnum trilobum, trilobum meaning "three-lobed" leaf, not "three-bummed") are face-twistingly tart. Only after mellowed by frosts do I collected them, toss them in a pot, and simmer them into a sauce, flinging in sugar and straining out the flat hard seeds at the end. Highbush cranberry sauce is a scrumptious concoction. It's rich in vitamin C which prevents scurvy, the scourge of pirates. HAPPY SWASHBUCKLING THANKSGIVING!

Ambiguous Duck

2009-10-11T00:27:00.009-04:00

I met this duck while walking near a pond. It could be a rear view, looking coyly over its shoulder (if ducks have shoulders) as it waddles off, or the duck might be facing forward glancing down.

It snowed! In the dark early hours of morning snowflakes fell, but melted quickly after sunrise. I wore my raspberry-red woollen toque today for the first time this season. I also whisked-up my pet acorn squash from the vegetable patch, fearing it might turn to mush in this cold weather.

False Pixie Cup

2009-10-10T11:33:00.001-04:00

False pixie cup (Cladonia chlorophaea) lichen balancing dew drops and devouring gneiss.

Grandma's Dresser

2009-10-09T14:23:00.001-04:00

I wish I could rewind the mirror and see her again.

Queen-of-the-Night

2009-10-08T23:14:00.006-04:00

Queen-of-the-Night (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) grows in the bay window near a Bay Tree (for both seasoning and humour). If it didn't slouch, it could touch the ceiling. A friend gave me a cutting from her plant, and warned that it's considered the ugliest plant in the Universe. Naturally, I adore it. It has an endearingly gangly aspect and arches over my drafting table like an octopus chandelier. (A stretched-out scarf looped around a sawed-off hockey stick barely improves its posture.) When it eventually blooms, the flowers are huge, resemble a waterlily, and have a warm-spicy-citrus-exotic fragrance. They open near midnight and wither by morning. It flowers at the end of a long curved stem explaining another common, if less-poetic name, Gooseneck Cactus. On August 9th, my Queen-of-the-Night bloomed for the first time, with a second blooming two days later. Inspired, it grew two extra flower buds, which bloomed the same night, on Sunday (October 4th), the night of the full moon. The flower in the photograph is 24cm in diameter. I wish I could post it's fragrance as well.

Unicorn

2009-10-07T00:08:00.004-04:00

Many contemporary representations of unicorns are as squat, bloated, ponies or extravagantly-maned, improbably-coloured thoroughbreds. It's a ghastly way to treat a mythical creature. I conjured up this unicorn from three sources: the horn is a microscopic Radiolaria shell from the deep seas near Barbados, the body I adapted from a deer found on a fragment of stone in Scotland (reconstructed in George Bain's magnificent book, Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction), and the tail ends with an Aldine leaf, as many good tales do.

Old House in Vankoughnet

2009-10-06T12:10:00.000-04:00

This old house is tucked along the Black River Road, in Vankoughnet, Ontario. Beyond the road glides the Black River. Wet Autumn days are perfect for adventures. Rain-polished leaves are intensely vibrant, and the earth smells spicy with newly shed leaves.

Cuke Zeppelins

2009-10-05T14:14:00.001-04:00

Years ago when my Aunt Grace sent me a basket of cucumbers from her garden, I couldn't stop laughing. It flummoxed everyone. So, by way of explanation, I made this drawing.

Spider Web Site Under Construction

2009-10-04T23:55:00.003-04:00

Spider silk was used as the cross hairs in theodolites. Replacement cross hairs were supplied by neighbourhood spiders.

Devil's Paintbrush

2009-10-03T23:04:00.005-04:00

Devil's Paintbrush is also called Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum). On sun-warmed afternoons, accompanied by crickets, they are the smell of Summer. It has long irked me to find this wonderful plant described in books as a weed. One book describes Devil's Paintbrush as "a beautiful but pernicious pest," which is something I've long aspired to being. In Spring I saw shelves bulging with pots of them at the Canadian Tire greenhouse. They were tagged at $3 each. I smiled. Conspiratorially.

Alona Bay, Lake Superior

2009-10-02T22:40:00.001-04:00

Alona Bay is on Lake Superior's east shore. There's a look-off at the edge of Highway 17 (the Trans-Canada Highway). Although I'm bundled in woollens to grizzly bear proportions, I'm shivering as I take this photograph. There's an icy wind blowing off Superior, and I'm grateful for the thermos of tea I packed.

Wild Apple

2009-10-01T16:09:00.003-04:00

Rendered in watercolour pencils, which are fun for sketching, but are not lightfast enough to use for permanent artwork. I ate the model.

Autumn Colours

2009-09-30T13:56:00.003-04:00

Elm in a scarlet tangle of virginia creeper, nestled in grasses and the golden leaves of meadowsweet.

Dancing Tree

2009-09-29T14:56:00.005-04:00

This linoleum-block print was based on a sketch I made of a pine near Parry Sound, Ontario. It grows in a fissure of the time-smoothed, earthworm-pink rocks on the shore of Georgian Bay. I collect scraps of flooring, discarded wooden roof shakes, and assorted treasures to cut designs into, and print by hand. I've been trying to invent a good, non-toxic ink, but to date all the recipes I've brewed have stunk (both literally and figuratively).

Northern Leopard Frog

2009-09-28T18:04:00.004-04:00

I took this photograph September 28, 2003, near Cann Lake in Huntsville, Ontario. In 2009 the trees have been hacked down, destroying the forest and the exuberant wealth of life it supported. Bulldozers, trucks, and chainsaws now flourish in this area. The land is scraped to bare earth, scarred and levelled, prepared for the construction of the University of Waterloo Environmental Research Facility. The frog is gone. So am I.

Grampa Portrait

2009-09-27T22:12:00.000-04:00

Grampa always wore a formal, reserved smile when photographed. I studied how he smiled, and relying on memory and a few stiff snapshots, drew this portrait. He was my Grampa-by-association, and he told stories with panache.

High quality 4B pencils are my favourite, they are soft and glide across the paper, almost drawing by themselves. In pencil-jargon H is hardness, and B is blackness. Except for a trail of dents, 9H pencils don't leave much evidence behind. 9B pencils are so smudgy, they cause more sneezing than ragweed. It was an HB, the regulation, standard-issue, chrome-yellow (to match the school bus) pencil you probably used in elementary school. I've cut through paper with the sharp bits in graphite of junky pencils, so avoid using them. I wield Faber-Castell and Derwent pencils, but there are many excellent brands available. A pencil holder is a clever contraption which attaches to the end of a whittled-down drawing pencil, allowing the artist to draw them down to stubs. I also use an erasing shield (they used to be more associated with drafting supplies), a kneaded eraser, and a Sanford "magic rub" eraser (it vanishes instead of the paper).

Toadstools as Furniture

2009-09-26T11:03:00.000-04:00

Storybook toadstools (fly agaric mushrooms) are often depicted on Christmas cards. They are either orangey-yellow, or orangey-red, and are spattered with warts that resemble lumps of porridge. Being somewhat heavier than a toad, I would squash them bookmark-flat if I dared to sit on one. Instead, I use them as tables ... and that is your Martha-Stewart-Hint-of-the-Day.

Venus Reading

2009-09-25T15:51:00.000-04:00

As I waited to retrieve my first-ever pair of glasses, I chanced to hear a song on the radio titled I Want A Girl With Glasses. The late Matt Osborne both wrote and sang it, and the final line was "... a girl wearing nothing but her glasses." So I decided to give Botticelli's Venus, standing on her scallop-shell raft, something to read. Thanks for the song.

On the Road to Meat Cove

2009-09-24T16:08:00.000-04:00

Perched on a hill, overlooking the North Atlantic, once sat a ruined castle. Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. 11 August 1991.

Toad Quartet

2009-09-23T22:23:00.000-04:00

A small toad swims in a dish of rainwater. Draggin' toad features the same model. While photographing and drawing the toad I was reminded of Eadweard Muybridge's photographs. Animals In Motion is a book I have frequently inter-library-loaned. Although fascinating, as a gnu striding past is, the book sadly lacks swimming toads.

Autumn Equinox

2009-09-22T23:10:00.001-04:00