Don River pumphouse, Toronto

Something old and something new for New Year's Eve - an old stone pumphouse (I think?) on the Don River in Toronto, with a new coat of paint.  My guess is that the building will outlast the graffiti, which is already fading away.

St John's church on Christmas Eve

I went to church on Christmas Eve - that's "to", not "in".  I sat outside St. John's York Mills in Toronto where I was visiting my family, and sketched the church.  It was a bit of a challenge, drawing after dark at mid-winter.  The church itself was well-lit by floodlights, but I could only really see the page I was working on by shining my Blackberry screen on it.  It was also below freezing and exposed to the north wind, so everything from my wrist down was frozen, including brush and paint.  Shadows were tricky too, with several spotlights pointing upwards.  But it is a lovely old (1845) building, and a fine way to spend an hour on a winter evening.

9570 YS

My old truck Sally finally gave up the internally-combusted ghost.  She went out with a bang, not a whimper, involving broken valve stems and rocker arms.  In addition to long-lasting transport, she was also a hotspot of biological diversity (in part because the fan leaked water into the cab from day 1).  Even the license plate had a variety of fungi, algae, a moss and at least 3 species of lichen.  Unfortunately, you're not allowed to keep your licence plates here when you take a vehicle off the road, even when they have a thriving ecological community.  So all I have left is the drawing...

Figures on mylar

Three recent figure drawings on mylar - charcoal and black pastel from 20- or 30-minute poses on the front, acrylic paint added later on the back.

St. Eval

This is the St. Eval, a British tugboat now owned by Dennis Washington, who owns, essentially, everything. (At least, everything visible looking east from Lonsdale Quay).  The St. Eval started life in the 1920's working with the last of the cargo sailing ships, spent the war rescuing torpedoed ships in the English Channel, and served as a tender ship for an America's Cup yachter, before being bought by the owner of SeaSpan, moved here and refurbished.  It's an elegant boat, brightening up a cloudy dull day at the Quay.

View west from North Vancouver library

The third-floor balcony of the North Vancouver library seems to be reserved for social pariahs - smokers, cell phone users, and people who draw in public.  But it has a nice view of Stanley Park, the Lion's Gate bridge, an industrial area, and an awful brown and white 3-storey apartment building (the drawing doesn't do it justice).  Ro and I braved the cold wind on a damp December day, watching the light fade by 4pm.

Howe Sound view and cypress snag

The Cypress ski area reported that they had 151cm of snow, which means there was actually 30cm.  Their exaggeration factor is 5 in the early season, but it declines to about 2 later in the winter.  The snow was frozen solid after rain last week, so I walked to the Bowen Island lookout and to the Howe Sound Crest trail carrying my snowshoes.  It was warm in the sun at the lookout, until the bank of fog seen in the distance here swooshed in.  It was paint-freezing cold in the forest when I drew the huge cedar snag, so I left it uncoloured.  A sapsucker was working the hemlock tree I was sitting under.  He apparently thought I too was frozen solid, so he came within 6 feet of my head.