Journey to the past

My career as a visual storyteller stretches back to the 1970s. My distinctive drawing style has its roots in my work as a pen and ink artist.

My fine art has always been infused with a sense of history and locale that is uniquely Canadian. My work depicts the humbler qualities of objects, both real and imagined and, at its best, transports the viewer to a place of wonder.

Although our work as theme artists has kept us very busy for over three decades, I’ve never lost this love of drawing. In my travels, I stop frequently to admire and record what I see - especially the old, rusty relics of days gone by. This past summer, my brothers and I drove back to BC’s Interior to where I spent my formative years. That trip was a journey into my past, and on the way, I discovered I sorely missed the drawing I used to do as a way of making a living. It was an itch that begged to be scratched.

Since then, I have worked up many drawings, starting with the reference material I recorded during our summer trip. This drawing is of an old wagon we saw. My artistic license allowed me to add a tree I had collected from somewhere else.

This coming week, I’ll fire up the laser to create some limited prints we’ll soon be offering. Stay tuned…

Small success

We are experimenting with a wide variety of substrates and techniques as we test the laser and are seeing varying degrees of success. Peter suggested I slop some gesso on a board and fire up the laser to see what might happen. Moth had some gesso handy, and it didn’t take long to dry. While two or three coats would have been ideal, I decided one coat would be plenty for an initial test. I picked an image of one of the sign concepts, and the gesso would allow for brighter colours when I hand-painted it. The image turned out nice and dark, and the laser cut out the sign perfectly. I mounted it to a refinished panel with some spacers and brought it into the house to paint up after supper. It’s been about twenty-six years since I had hand-painted the transparent inks, but it was like riding a bike. There’s nothing quite like hand-painting, complete with missed spots and runs. Even so, the result is magic. There is still some experimenting to go, but the sign series of limited edition prints will most likely be done in this fashion. Stay tuned…

Shutters

While I experiment and learn on the new laser, Peter continues to make the other robotic machines in our shop hum. The current project on the ShopSabre are some very cool shutters for the Copper Crown’s tallest tower. They are routed from 25 pound Precision Board High Density Urethane. They are going to look awesome once they are painted up and installed. Stay tuned…