Lonsdale Quay - early days, and late

Two lunch-time drawings from Lonsdale Quay - one in early October when there was still summer warmth in the sun, and one from the end of the month when summer is a memory already fading.  The multi-coloured school-kids eating lunch in the sun were all energy and life, but still, you remember what insecurities and jealousies can torment those early days.  The old man sitting alone looking over the grey ocean under the darkening clouds doesn't seem to support much ambiguity.  But still, that red hat!

Granville Island: Bird poop and a super cute stranger

We had a morning meet-up at Granville Island, thanks to Lea, who knows the coolest things.  I was there early, so I went to get coffee at the Railspur cafe, but there was a huge line-up.  I decided to skip the coffee and do my groceries instead - a fateful decision, as it turned out.  I bought my cucumber, tomato, bun and tofu salami-substitute.  I usually like the smells in the market, but today, caffeine-less, none appealed.  Even a super cute stranger passing by didn't inspire me.  I decided to head home and make a sandwich.  When I got there, the misery of my loneliness grew, until, despondent, I headed to a nearby park and threw myself off a cliff into the ocean.  At the last moment, a remarkable delegation of geese, pigeons and crows picked me up and carried me off, leaving me one last glimpse of the lovely hair of the stranger.

Wait, no, that's not how it was meant to end.  I didn't actually throw myself off the cliff, or even go home to make a sandwich.  I decided to find true love and went searching the island for the stranger, super cute as she was.  I even went so far as to look in Woofles, the pet treat bakery.  Alas, the gods of romantic love chose to punish me for perceived past transgressions, and covered me in avian effluvia before I encountered the object of my ardour.  She disappeared.  Resigned to my misery, I decided to flee the island - running right across a busy street.  Remarkably though I went right over the cars, becoming lighter and lighter as I ran, until finally I literally flew home.

~ The End ~

Choose your adventure(s) story courtesy of Active Fiction (http://activefictionproject.com/), at locations around Granville Island during the Vancouver Writer's Festival.

Two more Lonsdale

Another two installments of draw-every-block-on-Lonsdale.  I now realize that there are quite a few boring blocks on Lonsdale.  In retrospect, I should have decided to draw every block of, say, the Champs Elysee.  But, here I am on Lonsdale.  The upper block at St. James featured a west coast house with the obligatory Rona fence panels and dark brooding conifers.  But it was exciting to draw, because the much-heralded remnants of Hurricane Oho were arriving, with gusty wind, rushing clouds and the first rain starting as I finished.  The lower block between 4th and 5th "featured" beige apartment buildings.  I used the desperate move of including a tree branch in the foreground to try to make it more interesting.  The most exciting part of that sketch was when I sat down under the oak tree - in what turned out to be a very prickly shrub.