Outside the wind chill makes it feel like -30C. I’m back inside now, huddled over my mac for warmth and wondering why my ancestors paid good money for passage from England to this frozen real estate when they could have just stolen a loaf of bread and been given a free trip to warm, sunny Australia.
I spent a (much warmer) day last March wandering around a bush near here sketching the aftermath of a snow storm. This three colour print is from one of the sketches.
No matter how nice an air mattress I drag along when I’m camping I wake up about 4:30 – 5:00 am then turn from side to side to side like a rotisserie, trying to get comfortable. I never do so I get up. The upside is that I have lots of drawings done in the early morning calm. I liked the tree in this sketch and so, pining for the north, so to speak, engraved it. It’s 6.5×9 with five tones of grey ink on Stonehenge paper.
There’s a voyeur aspect to train riding that I like; mile after mile after mile of backyards. If you were on the right train you’d see mine. I did the drawing last summer but changed it to a winter scene to cover up all the stuff that was scattered about and to spare me the pain of engraving tree leaves. The lazy way to clean up a yard.
As you move away from the mainland to the edge of eastern Georgian Bay the pines give way to cedars and vast expanses of rock ground smooth by glaciers. I spent a few days canoeing, enjoying the sun, doing ink washes of cedars and trying not to scratch multiple spider bites.
This print, The Oregon Chronicles ll, is in a show at The Elora Centre For The Arts as a prequel to ART IN THE YARD, a great outdoor show that occurs on July 5 & 6, 2014.
Here’s a great show to catch if you’re in the Guelph/Wellington area. It features juried art from all disciplines in a great old building, The Wellington County Museum between Elora and Fergus.
My print ‘Shape ll’ was accepted. It’s part of an ongoing fascination with creating a tension between static and falling objects. 17 ” 22″, printed in 4 colours on Stonehenge.
The ubiquitous Georgian Bay cedar. This is a three colour engraving that attempts to juxtapose the permanence of the rocks with the impermanence of the life around them. 
A beautiful, simple design by my friend, Maria. These berries are the most colourful things in the bush during the winter; they seem far down on the birds’ menu. And, as the tittle suggests, they are a reminder of summers past, and future.
Last summer a friend and I canoed the 250 km from Lake Nippising down the French to Georgian Bay then south to Pointe au Baril. This is my memory of a set of rapids on The French that we shot through all too quickly.
The pic is a mono print, essentially a painting done with a printing press
This could be the shoreline of a lot of lakes or rivers but was done on the Middle Naiscoot, a river flowing into Georgian Bay.. The river is being choked up with silt and plants because of both falling water levels and sluggish water flow caused by the beaver dams that plug both ends. The beavers’ handiwork is supported by the duck hunters because still waters allow wild rice to grow which attracts ducks which aforementioned duck hunters then shoot.
The print is a 16″x6″, single colour engraving printed on Stonehenge paper.
Georgian Bay is the place to go if you like drawing rocks, a landscape of rocks ground smooth by the glaciers then cracked over millennia by ice and heat.
This ink wash was done in the Bustard Islands but could have been done anywhere on the east side of the bay.
A quick oil as the sun was going down. This was in The Outer Fox Islands, a beautiful collection of islands on Georgian Bay.
Love the name ‘Outer Fox Islands.’
One of a number of ‘falling’ shapes that I’ve engraved. This image on this one is 15×22, printed in three colours on Stonehenge paper.
The far shore always looks so impenetrable but, when you walk in past the edge of it, it can reveal a giant cathedral of trees. Or, of course, it can be impenetrable.
