Big Blue

"Big Blue" is the pride and joy of the harbour at Britannia Yacht Club, or at least my pride and joy as the Harbour Master.  It's a 5000 kg. hydraulic stationary crane that can lift all but about a dozen boats in our fleet.  Before we bought it, we had to bring in mobile cranes and basically launched about 175 boats with three cranes in one day.  If you missed launch or haul-out, or had to pull the boat out for a repair, it meant you had to bring in a crane and pay the minimum hours charge - very expensive.

Tiny Perfect Library

 I have a great little library just down the street.  Its free - no library cards, fines, or need to be quiet.  I first saw one of these on Toronto Island and attributed it to the Islands' strong cultural identity, but have learned that Little Free Libraries have been springing up all over the continent.  I check it out on the way by on my various dog walks and have slowly left two boxes of books that I've been carting around for decades.  There is always something of interest there and it's rarely depleted.

The other thing I appreciate is the design.  I've never talked to the owner, but clearly the cabinet was designed by a professional - an industrial designer, I'm thinking.  Very thoughtful detailing and skillful fabrication. Kudos to the designer/builder.

sketch-toon

I consider one of my strengths to be the ability to synthesize.  Maybe that's what's behind this sketch/cartoon I did last weekend, while helping out at Wintergreen.  Wintergreen is a retreat centre which offers a quiet, natural, place to go a little deeper into whatever your "community of interest" might be.

So, last week end as I chopped vegetables and washed dishes, I listened into  a group from a local church taking the Alpha Course on Christianity.  I took a few minutes, between runs to the compost pile, to do this sketch and then added the captions back at home.

I sent it on to the group and hope that they see it as intended - a sort of blurred time-frame snapshot of their session.

This aligns my life-long desire to be an editorial cartoonist and attraction to urban sketching as story-telling.  I think I'll use this device again.