Florentine Iris

2009 is my third year of gardening. In a jumbly garden, on a rainy day in early June, my first iris unfurled. It grows beside spindly roses and rambunctious oregano.

Willow

This drawing was done on black scratchboard, using a utility knife to scrape and scratch out the white bits. The black ink chips off in specks like finely ground pepper. The result is it sounds like I'm blowing out birthday cake candles (to clear the dust) when I'm working with it. Scratchboard drawings can resemble engravings.

Scratchboard is made from poison ivy leaves and causes frantic itching. Although that last sentence is a fib, it does sound plausible.

Old House

On a sunny, bird-happy day this past August, I took my umpteenth photograph of an old house. This one, on St Joseph Island, is encircled with daisies and long grasses. It would look spooky in moonlight.

Bean Skiing?

Pen & Ink with a splash of watercolour is a classic technique. This was reduced considerably from the original drawing and printed on paper embedded with coloured flecks for pizzaz.
Pole beans make the best skiis.

Ice Fir

A photograph of ice patterns on a window, flipped upsidedown resembles a tree.

Cinnamon Roll Snails

Cinnamon Roll Snails in Atlin, British Columbia. These fearful, sticky creatures are sometimes served in fancy restaurants as escargot, and should technically be on the dessert menu.

Frowning Smile

(This was the posting intended for yesterday, but I didn't have computer access.)

Seed Pods

A drawing done for practise of the dried seed pods of Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis), still attached to the crisp stalk on which they had bloomed. There were still a few cinnamon-brown seeds tucked inside like a delightful postscript at the end of a long, scrumptious letter.

Silent Landscape

There is no snow yet, although we expect it soon. There's a feel of cold, quiet, waiting. I discovered a Johnny Jump-Up blooming beside the front steps today, and peered closer to confirm it was genuine and not a plastic flower blown off a pair of flip-flops.

Canadian Bananas

Cucumbers are unripe bananas. Canadian banana crops have failed to date owing to a short growing season.

Praying Mantis

Praying Mantises ought to wear berets, and clutch bouquets of battered paintbrushes.

The Beanius

In second grade we collected empty jars of baby mush, patted them to brimming with soil, and were issued a regulation bean seed to sow wedged against the glass. While other aspiring bean parents fussed over their jars, I ignored mine. With a snarl of beans tangling up the garden at home, I wistfully planted it hoping for a marigold. Soon my bean was winding its tendrils around the rings of Saturn. The other 23 jars on the windowsill contained fuzzy, mousey-grey, has-beans.

A show-off bean is a curse when you're so shy your only friends are imaginary, and suddenly teachers are congratulating you at recess and asking for gardening advice. The bean was a legend with my name on masking tape stuck to the bottom of its jar. In maniacal desperation to eliminate the cause of my unwanted fame I attempted a beanicide, hoping to poison the bean with icky paint water. It only grew more.

Spruce Cones

Long November walks in shoes are impossible to resist. A long stride and light step is the finest way to travel. While in the forest I sometimes twist my long brown hair around a bough of balsam fir to scent it. It makes me smell like a Christmas tree. The tree in the photograph is a cone-barnacled spruce I met on Friday's adventures.

Great Mullein

Great Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) has woolly leaves and many common names. The funniest I've heard is "Tarzan's Toilet Paper."

Hairy Woodpecker

This male Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus) was so bent on feasting and demolition I was able to sneak rather close to him. In his hunt for juicy insects splinters flew, and I saw him pitch out a chunk of wood nearly as large as himself.

Bubbles & Spots

Yesterday I went for a 14 km hike and took photographs I'll be posting over the next few days. The colours are subdued so for contrast, here's the lily-pad girl illustration.

Virginia Creeper Berries …

… resemble ball & stick molecular models from chemistry class.

Fingers Crossed

Drawing practise is important. While drawing I forget about whatever it is I'm looking at, but I do prefer drawing something that is alive or once was … a tree, my hand, a kale leaf, dried seed pods, pine cones, a plant, George-the-Cat (asleep) … I have a bazillion drawings of my left hand.

Painted Lady Butterfly

White Pine — Rough Sketch

This tree is a giant and still growing. My friend Nora and I couldn't touch hands around it. Imagine it's stories.

Liquorice Tea

Anise-hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) is a robust plant and a bee-magnet. This one grows out by the back porch near the rhubarb and compost bins. It grows in the wild but I grew this plant from a packet of seeds I ordered from Richters Nursery. Plucking a few leaves for a freshly brewed mug of liquorice tea is a toe-curlingly wonderful indulgence. Lemon balm and peppermint are other tasty tea-plants I grow.

Rapunzel at the Steer-Roping Competition

I drew Rapunzel mounted "side-saddle" style, steering her horse by the ears. If I re-draw it, I'll deck her out in a fancier dress and curly-toed shoes.

A Quartet of White Violins

These are a few of the violins built by Myrel White. He used to string his new violins out on the clothesline, their fresh varnish glinting in the sunshine, to dry in breezes sifted through white pines. The story I wrote to accompany this picture was printed in the Summer/Autumn 2001 issue of The Country Connection Magazine.

Under the Banana Tree

I graduated from art school fifteen years ago. At the time I lived in a small cedar-shake cottage beside a clump of gnarled lilacs. The cottage was probably not intended for year-round use and mould ate my mattress, so the floor became my bed. Each night I watched the moon and stars and treetops. One maple created the silhouette of a pipe-smoking man's head in profile. When the wind got up the man in the tree would laugh and swallow his pipe.

November

With shorter day-lengths and weaker sunshine, November is usually regarded as drab and gloomy. Colours are still found in mosses, lichens, rocks, foxes, and the sky. In the vegetable patch only parsley and palm-trees of kale remain jubilantly green in the cold soil. November is beautiful for it's subtly.

Burning Rubber

Buttercup-yellow Volkswagen beetles bear an uncanny resemblance to fried eggs sunny side up. Old Volkswagen campers remind me of toasters …

The Boys

It's time to introduce my gang. Here is George-the-Cat and Gary-my-Husband. Both are grey, mischievous, and have prominent ears. George is trying to do the Picture-Day-At-Kindergarten pose, and I'm tempted to replace the background with a looming bookshelf of leather-bound volumes, or a fake Autumn scene. Gary was posing for some portrait photographs I needed as reference for another project, when I sprang on him, ruffled his hair, and snapped this picture. These two are great pals.

Rembrandt on a Rainy Day …

… Giving Directions.

This is a monoprint done in three seconds on a thick piece of clear plastic using water-based honey paints and doodle paper. They are cartwheel-inspiringly fun, even if the results look a little peculiar. Sometimes I print decorations on envelopes this way. I went though a phase of printing green bears wearing quizzical expressions on every envelope I posted. 

Palette Turtle

A young painted turtle from a nearby pond takes an artistic detour across my watercolour palette.
Walking home tonight, I saw a rainbow encircling an almost-full moon.