Postcards from the left coast

Last March I was in British Columbia, skiing at Whistler and a day in Vancouver.  It happened that the manager of the St. Clair noticed me sketching and a few months later asked permission to use the sketch as a postcard.  About the same time I was contacted by Dave, one of the owners of the Southside Diner in Whistler with a similar request.

And here they are.

Back to the Redpath

I was in Montreal last weekend and lined up a visit with my friend Marc Taro Holmes.  He's one of the Urban Sketcher ringleaders and is always up to go sketching.  I learn something from him every time I talk to him. This time it was about self publishing companies and software for layouts.

It was grey and cold outside so we headed to the Redpath Museum which is an anachronism.  Its a sort of Victorian curio cabinet with bits and pieces of natural history, dinosaur bones, animals and cultural artifacts. It would make a great location for a movie.

We found ourselves attracted to some of the stuffed animals and birds at one end of the main hall.   We both did about a dozen sketches and Marc cleverly electronically composed his individual drawings into a montage....see what I mean about learning from him?

Sorry, did this before I was told I couldn't

I asked for permission to bring my sketching group to a local climbing gym last week.  The owner prevaricated and asked many questions over several days before just spelling it out that in the past photographers had creeped out the climbers.  I get it, but I am disappointed as it would be a good venue for sketching.  The climbers move fairly quickly, but the positions are somewhat repetitive and with the 20m height of the walls there is lots of scope for dramatic exaggeration of perspective.