For some reason I have a desire to illustrate objects that are falling. I’ve done a few over the years. This one, ‘Shape lll’ is one of the most recent.

For some reason I have a desire to illustrate objects that are falling. I’ve done a few over the years. This one, ‘Shape lll’ is one of the most recent.

It’s worth the drive to Oakville, Ontario to see The Howard Ironworks Book Arts Show this next weekend, Sept 28, ’24. There will be Engravers, Papermakers, Bookbinders as well as Demos, Museum Tours and Workshops. The Museum itself is a treat.

A nice time of the evening, the mosquitoes and black-flies are gone, the fireplace is glowing and the islands are disappearing into the darkness. Shortly everything it will be so dark there will be no islands, just one big, black shape.

This is from a sketch I’d done years ago. The background seemed boring so I kept the trees and added moon, hills & water. The title ‘The Nearness of you,’ was from a song I heard while engraving. Easiest title ever.


This isn’t really a winter scene, in my mind at least. In the early, early spring you can’t see much evidence of snow melting in the bush, but it is melting and the water finds its way down into creeks like this and turns the snow darker.
As I write this it’s -16C outside so the image is, at this point, just wishful thinking.
Another of Southern Ontario’s iconic Bank Barns, so named because of the earth banked up on one side as a ramp leading to the second floor. The ground level at the back leads into the stables with the second floor overhanging to give some protection to outside animals. I drive past this one often and wanted to do an engraving and now, having done this small one, I really want to do a large one with much more detail.

Both entries submitted to Insights, a juried show in Southern Ontario, were accepted. Especially nice because there was a lot of very good art in the show.
An extra treat was that one of my submissions was an ink wash painting that I’d worked up from a sketchbook. It was the first painting I’d ever submitted, anywhere….except maybe a cow drawing submitted to a Fall Fair when i was six. I’ve improved over the years :- )


I’ve always been fascinated with corn, it grows soooo fast and has been hybridized for a plethora of growing conditions.
The downside is that it’s height is inversely proportional to the amount of summer left. The higher it gets the closer the cold weather is.


An oldie from a drawing looking out to Georgian Bay from the Thirty Thousand Islands, an archipelago on the east side of the Bay. A very peaceful place to sit and sketch.
Early on in the year I did a B&W, 4.5 x 5, covid inspired print titled ‘Passing Storm’. As we know the ‘storm’ has been what the weather folks would call a ‘very slow moving disturbance.’
When effective vaccines were announced I did a more hopeful, 5.5 x 8 print I’ve titled ‘2012, the view from here.’

Hopefully a bright, cheerful addition will be warranted very soon :- )
I love the incredible solids that engraving allows and I have a ‘thing’ about prints showing falling objects. With this print I indulged myself on both accounts. I named it ‘Night Fall.’
Something new for me. Rather than an engraving, a lithoprint using a ‘Pronto-plate’.
This was a 2 colour trial print titled ‘Shoreline’. Still lots and lots and lots to learn.
A favourite Christmas print, my youngest daughter’s first limited edition. She drew, dad engraved and we pulled a proof. She coloured it in, dad engraved plates for the colours then we printed.
Santa has grown chubbier since then; dad, not quite as much. She’s still quite cute!

It was all happening on paper inside while the cold and storm was happening outside!
One morning I canoed out into a thick fog and down a wide channel towards open water. When I left the channel and headed towards the shore islands slowly began to appear out of the fog. It was quite magical.
This is a 27×14.5 cm, five colour reduction print.