231: They're Magically Beauticious

A couple of weekends ago Kerry and I went to Montréal, much like last year; don't ask me why I'm only getting around to this now. But even though the days were drab and grey and nippy and even big-fat-sloppy-flakes-falling-from-the-sky, we found more than our fair share of colour inside the greenhouses at the city's botanical gardens. In particular, on display was a giant room full of flowers and free-roaming butterflies. In the spirit of Lucky Charms, there were...


...blue morphos!


...green caterpillars with creepy false eyes!


...yellow cacti!


...orange monarch-/viceroy-like butterflies (possibly monarchs or viceroys)!


...and red reservoir flowers!

230: Screech

For the past couple of weeks I have been scoping out a certain tree in the neighbourhood, as it was rumoured to be harbouring a screech owl. Friends of Kerry's had spotted it on more than one occasion in a notch of a grizzled tree about two kilometres from our house, but were reluctant to disclose the exact location. Owl hogs.

Luckily, I was able to recognize the tree from the photo they showed. We found it during our frosty walk a couple of weekends ago, but the owl wasn't included. Two more visits by bike this past weekend were equally fruitless, though the ride – my first of the season – was muddy, filthy and tons of fun. Yesterday though, I struck paydirt, and the owl and I had a decent 10-minute shoot before direct sunlight disappeared. It seemed half-asleep, but tracked me with a mean stinkeye (below) as I navigated around with the camera.


I am hoping this is the little fellow's home and not just a hangout; it looks more than suitable. It would be great if I could track its progress over the summer.

229: Subterranean Homesick Owls

Illustration Friday's current theme of subterranean – very specific, which I like – allows an opportunity to display wares from a weekend spree of woodcut-based monoprints.


In January, a friend offered me a couple of small blocks of particle-board and some cutting tools to try my hand at carving, something I hadn't really done since high school (on linoleum, I think we all did this in high school). After a few sessions of trial and error, I carved myself a nice little cut of a burrowing owl (above).


Actual printing went down on Sunday; about a dozen or so decent copies (above) run off on a small but effective homemade press at my friend's place. These I am quite proud of.


For Illustration Friday's purposes I scanned one of the black-ink prints (above) to further the piece digitally, though I hoped to retain the print's sense of hand-craftedness. Burrowing owls are unique among the owl set for nesting in abandoned prairie-dog dens, among other subterranean abodes, and the stark, confined nature of these prints suited an idea I had in mind. Where the concept – and this write-up – takes an odd turn is in the piece's source of inspiration. Subterranean, for some reason or another, made me recall the mining sequence about midway through Dance, a two-minute animated National Film Board vignette that used to fill space on CBC when I was a kid (any Canadian worth his toque should recognize this tune).

Click here, to view the illustration larger (and on black).

228: One Month Check-In

Just over one month of my photo-a-day project has lapsed, and I don't know if I could be more pleased with the outcome. The camera – and my brain – have been getting a workout, the results by and large have been decent, even the usual stark and mind-numbingly cold of February was held at bay. I really can't wait for this thing to inch into the colour and daylight of spring and summer. For now, as seen in the grid above, vibrance isn't a word that comes to mind (with a few exceptions). But I am having fun, and my schedule has been mostly kind.


This is my favourite so far. It was taken in the brilliant late afternoon Saturday sunshine in our living room a couple of weeks ago. I stood on a chair, and Kerry stood very, very still.

Take a look through my Flickr slideshow of the 34 entries to date. And I'll try not to think that I'm only 9.3 percent complete.

227: A Frosty Reception

It has been – and I'll say this now because it's a week into March – an amazing winter. And if it really is drawing to a close (jinx!), then yesterday was truly its crowning moment. Kerry and I went for a walk in the neighbourhood, and on the river, and witnessed the frost of frosts – and there have been some real treats this season in the frost department.


At the end of Dominion Street where we scaled the banks and hopped onto the Assiniboine, we saw this branch…


…and this branch…


…oh, and then this evergreen. It was all around; I was basically pivoting with my camera.


We got off the river at Omand's Creek Park, where it was laid on even thicker. We watched kids on the toboggan hill for a little while, then went to look for a tree that's rumoured to be harbouring a screech owl. We found the tree, but not its denizen.


But we did see more frost.

226: Portrait Of A Metal Duck

A culmination of the past two Monday night Creative Nights – last week: drawing, this week: colouring/styling – this drawing enabled me to get the pens out and work on some hatch-based texturing. This is a roughly one-foot-high welded metal duck sculpture sent to Kerry and I as a gift some time ago, which I situated at my new drawing desk last week and treated as a still life sketching subject; the sketch itself ended up almost actual size, resulting in a pair of stitched-together scans to make the final image in preparation for finishing up tonight. No theme, no reason, just drawn for quacks and giggles. A larger version, with a look at some of the detail, can be viewed here.

225: My Funny Valentine

Kerry bought this vintage Sunshine tricycle at an antique shop near her work a number of years ago. Since then it's been a fixture in our apartment, and now the living room of our house. Every now and then I hop on and wheel around the main floor – which, to date, has yet to fail to test my knees, strain my butt and amuse her greatly. So, in this fancypants digital age, I am now able to wait for her to leave the house for a hot yoga class, set up the tripod and Canon PowerShot, giddy-up/do my thing, import into iMovie, add effects and a soundtrack of The Sadies' "Sixteen Mile Creek" and craftily pop this video onto her laptop. It amused her greatly; a happy Valentine.

224: 365

I'm one week into a new venture, of taking a photo a day for an entire calendar year. The concept is simple and entirely unoriginal – there's thousands of people on Flickr right now in the midst of their own 365-photo campaigns – but one that I hope will result in at least some photographic paydirt. I've thought about doing it for some time, but there was just something entirely random and pleasing about the eventual timing of my dive.


I didn't want to crush under the weight of cheese in starting on my birthday, or New Years, or what-have-you. And there's not enormous pressure behind the concept, but it may certainly force me to realize how many days slipped by in the past where I didn't give the camera even a second glance – especially in the thick of winter. In one week it has already kept me awake and thinking more about ideas, concepts and composition than I can recall.


I'll post the occasional shot from this little project here, but the glut will be housed in this Flickr photo set. Keep checking in. The images shown here are from February 6, 9 and 10.

223: Moom

My friend Kal Barteski – she of Love Life fame – invited me to join herself and a few others in a spontaneous creative bout this past week. Operating in the vein of Illustration Friday and other creative of-the-week themed concepts, the GO/venture is far more open to interpretation, offering participants the option of providing output ranging from sketches to photos to written word submissions. The theme of the edition I took part in was permanent. I was initially excited at coupling a piece with Illustration Friday's theme of clumsy – but clumsiness prevailed in the end; turns out that was last week's theme.

This piece was drawn quickly over the weekend, then dressed in Photoshop on Monday evening as part of Creative Night. You can click here, to view the illustration larger, and here, to see the Flickr-based GO/venture home base, stuffed with other folks' entries covering a whole wadge of past themes.

222: Falcon And The Snowman

Knowing I'd be spending Monday night Creative Night knocking off the tandem workload of my after-hours Dreamweaver class assignment and a noon-hour presentation for my workplace's winter Wednesday travel slideshow series (I'm presenting on Portugal), I took time out yesterday to work on my sculpting skills. I often state my clumsiness in any artistic dealings in the third dimension. Fortunately, my childhood excitement for wintertime "packing" snow takes precedent. Warm winter days of this past weekend's calibre are so rare in these parts – proven quite effectively by today's harsh, blizzardy contrast.

So, given the material at hand, I sculpted this homage to warmer days. I call it Snowman No. 1, with Frisbee, Beer Bottle and Lawn-Chair. It's a mixed media piece, utilizing snow, a frisbee, a beer bottle, and a lawn-chair (the ballcap was a temporary add-on). Today's sudden temperature plummet has nicely solidified the piece, which will now be on display in my front yard/gallery for the remainder of the winter – global warming, territorial dogs and punk kids permitting. Cost is suggested donation. Plan your visit soon; come April the gallery will be installing a new exhibit, titled Rotting Springtime Detritus.

And yes, that is a Falcon Beach frisbee. I don't mind if that gets swiped.