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... ongoing projects
 many additions of photos and correspondence to the on-line parts of Vanishing British Columbia and the correspondence part of Vancouver Remembered. |
 additions and changes to "Explaining Australia," an on-line book project |
... added February 15, 2010
After three years and three months, two book proposals, many oils and watercolours, several fabulous journeys and one almost-complete novel, we have left Australia and our many friends and relatives and moved back to Vancouver. The last postings from down under are two oil paintings of Australia. |
...added January 22, 2010
| A brief article on me and my sketchbook in RAK Today (thanks to Manju, who found my website) prompted by our visit there last February. You can try to find the article by clicking on this link and going to pages 64 and 65; or, I've put facsimiles of the pages at the bottom of my Emirates travel page. |
...added January 8, 2010
...
colours of the Outback...added December 16, 2009
Artwork from the Great Australian Campervan trip,
also linked from my Travel page
...added September 17, 2009
Cascade Street from the top of the hill, oil on board, Winter 2009
| After 2 1/2 years we have left Katoomba and, with all our goods and chattels in storage, headed out on the road for a few months in a camper van. Among the things we will recall is this view we had on our regular route home, from the crest of the hill with the Jamison Valley and Blue Mountains national park in the distance. It never disappointed regardless of the time of year or the weather ... (read more) |
...added September 5, 2009
Black & white brush drawings from around Australia
...added August 23, 2009
 Country storm, from the sketchbook, 2008, one recent time where happenstance made the soaked paper dry the way I wanted it to... |
It's
a rarity to come across a good definition of watercolour
painting that
describes
the particular difficulty in getting an effect and the fact
you have
just one chance at it – there are no corrections possible in
a watercolour. We were watching a French film, L'Homme du Train, which is not about painting at all; rather, it is the drôle tale of a bank robber arriving in a small town who is befriended by an eccentric retired poetry teacher. In one scene, the robber meets up with an accomplice in an art museum and they have a rambling conversation, including: "How was detox?" "It was one big scam. Still, it got me back into watercolours... I'd forgotten it all – the interplay of water and chance." |
...
added July 23, 2009
...
some new paintings of Australia
and British Columbia |
| ...added
July 21, 2009 There's going to be an art auction on Savary Island, BC, on August 8th, to benefit the land acquisition program of the Savary Island Land Trust. A very worthy cause that I've supported in the past: my donation this year is the small oil of Arbutus Island, one of those essentially west-coast places with a few arbutus trees and cedars. It is a tiny spur of rock, connected to Hermit Island by a rocky causeway at low tide.  |
...added May 22, 2009
As I've gone back to "studio painting," a few small oils of ...
 Australia, |
 British Columbia, |
 & India |
...added April 16, 2009
Finally, my Explaining Australia web book, which is inviting submissions and comments, and looking for a publisher...
... added April 15, 2009
My 10-foot long painting from 2007, "Sketch of Lawson to Remember It By," is on display at the Ben Roberts Gallery, 12 Blind Street, Lawson, NSW.
...added March 31, 2009
Travel art from recent journeys to India and Ras-al-Khaimah.
... added December 15, 2008
 |
Australian
Watercolours ... small watercolours of ordinary people done as marginalia for my "Explaining Australia" book project, and some roadside bits from our travels here. |
...added November 8, 2008
 |
In
June, in Vancouver, I was staying at my brother's place in
Fairview
Slopes and one morning walked over to the CityTV studio in
Mount
Pleasant for an interview, passing by on the way these old
houses at
6th and Alberta. They were empty and, it seemed, awaiting
demolition.
The march of the condos, I thought. So I wandered back the
following
morning with my
sketchbook and did this little daub, then continued on
through the
neighbourhood looking for other relics that would soon be
gone. The old
"Vanishing Vancouver" impulse never leaves me.... I was interested to see, in the on-line version of the Sun, that BC Hydro has purchased this site for a new substation but is trying to find a new home for the houses. An example of recycling and reuse, they say. This is good! |
...added October 31, 2008
 I've
posted my
artwork, with some narrative text, from our recent trip
through
Spain and France. This continues the series of
journeys and
travel art that are indexed on my main travel
page.
|
 The other big change is the demise of my blog after almost two years. Anything I'm doing that seems new and interesting will go up on this page, so if you were previously looking at the blog, please bookmark this page, or the home page, instead. |
...added August 15, 2008
 |
I've
put up a pretty major piece of travel painting and writing,
including
some impressionistic verse, about the Thompson
and
Fraser rivers
in British Columbia. I've been painting in
that area for years and years and am trying to craft something
that
would be publishable, either in a magazine or a book, and
would go
beyond the kind of workmanlike descriptive writing that has
been my
métier for so many years. Since moving away from BC, I find that on the visits back I'm trying to focus on and complete work that was always "ongoing" when I lived there. What about paintings, etc. about Australia? There's actually a lot of that going on, but not ready to post or publish yet .... |
... added May 27, 2008
... the final installment of my "Mid-Life Crisis Bus Story" on the Van Ordinaire page.
***