Clothes Peg Dolls

Me & Gary as a pair of clothes peg dolls. I sanded several millimetres off my feet so I would be in the correct proportion to Gary's height.

White Pine Christmas Tree

It's snowing flurriously, and too fluffy to do anything but delight in.

Balsam Christmas Tree

I found this tree discarded at the side of a snowmobile trail after a trail-clearing crew had gone through. It rode home in my backpack. The moon on the wall behind is a calendar.

Cedar Branch

I decorated a cedar branch one Christmas, trimming a tree that itself was a tree-trimming. Dental floss helped to anchor it.

A Tree and A Star

Here is a Christmas tree. It's branches are alive with songbirds, and it is topped in a star.
It snowed last night! This morning I shovelled the front steps and tried building a snowman, but he crumbled apart like soft gingerbread. Sigh.
December has two full moons. The second is the Blue Moon and it occurs New Year's Eve. Tomorrow is December's first full moon. Walking home tonight under the near-full moon I again saw a moonbow, but only segments of it, when wispy scraps of cloud blew across it. 

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.

Ice Fir

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

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.

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.

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.

Bright Earth & Bright Treetops

The top three photographs are of the forest floor. The earth glows, as do the trees.

I was grateful today was squinty-bright, as I had to trace a wisp of a drawing onto thick paper at the vertical light table ("window" is the architectural term).

Autumn Colours

Elm in a scarlet tangle of virginia creeper, nestled in grasses and the golden leaves of meadowsweet.

Dancing Tree

This linoleum-block print was based on a sketch I made of a pine near Parry Sound, Ontario. It grows in a fissure of the time-smoothed, earthworm-pink rocks on the shore of Georgian Bay. I collect scraps of flooring, discarded wooden roof shakes, and assorted treasures to cut designs into, and print by hand. I've been trying to invent a good, non-toxic ink, but to date all the recipes I've brewed have stunk (both literally and figuratively).