Toronto, Kingston, reunions

I went to my 30th high school reunion in Toronto last week - only a couple years, it seems, after my 25th.  It's very congenial hanging out with people you've known basically forever, especially the interesting group that I went to school with.  The next day, I met up with some Toronto UrbanSketchers at a tea shop and it was also remarkably agreeable, even though I'd never met any of them before.  There's something immediately bonding about the struggle to make meaningful marks on a little piece of paper in a public place.  That and my summer visit to the Portland sketchers is inspiring me to travel more far flung urbansketching locales.

I also went to Kingston to visit my sister and family, and attend a concert by the renowned reverberationalist Liam Fenton.  Before the big event, I went with my brother-in-law to Fort Henry, on a grey late-autumn late afternoon with a bitter wind blowing off the lake.  He ran around like a maniac - a graceful one - in shorts and bare feet, while I sketched frantically to ward off hypothermia.  The water-soluble black ink helped capture the feel of the day.

On the way back to Toronto the next day - a reversion to warm sunny early autumn - I stopped at Lake on the Mountain, which is just that (if you make allowances for what qualifies as a "mountain" in Ontario).  It's a bit baffling how a big lake found its way to the top of a substantial hill.  I drew the view of Lake Ontario, the Glenora ferry and as-far-as-the-eye-can-see of autumn colours.