First Science Lesson

Good afternoon all.

Today I though I would share with you a work in progress.

I began as many artists, using watercolours, but I personally didn’t like using them because I found them hard to control and get the look I wanted. If you have ever felt that way, I would suggest trying acrylic paints. I didn’t get a chance to work with them until high school art class and I’m thankful I did. Honestly, I didn’t know they existed until then, up to that point I had just heard of watercolour and oil paint. Acrylics are cheaper than oils and give you a very similar experience (but they dry faster, so keep your retardant at the ready). Also, be generous with the paint, cover the canvas! If you like acrylics, chances are you’ll like oils.

This picture was inspired by several things, one is by a hike in my local park and the other is my childhood that was often spent outside, both with my parents and on my own with my siblings. We loved wandering for hours in the nearby forest. I feel this is one reason that I do not fear the outdoors and believe that it’s important to protect our wild areas. As a child, the woods was a wild, fantastical place, full of fictional characters that peopled our imaginations. It was also our (free) backyard gymnasium.

Have fun doing your own exploring (if it’s safe to do so) whether it is in your neighbourhood park, your backyard or among your art materials. And have fun!

Here is an excerpt from another of the novels I’m writing:

The rest of the month progressed normally for Erika. Work was work, sometimes busy, sometimes stressful.  Grumpy customers, an avalanche of mail; it was just good to leave it behind for the evening.

She hadn’t heard a peep from Eugene and Kong. She did not see them at the meetings, nor received any explanation for the strange encounter in Kensington Market.

Erika pulled the laces of her runners tighter. “I hope everything is alright.” She fretted softly. “Perhaps they found Calluna and went back home?” As for Justin Baring, she would keep an eye out for him, but she had her life to live; she had to go to work, nobody would pay her bills for her.

She buttoned up her beige coat, she just had to get out of the house, there had been several days of rain and she had an itch to get moving.

Pattering up the stairs and swinging out the door, she breathed in the fresh air deeply. A hint of rain hung in the air and there were cloudy skies above.

She sighed. More rain to come she thought. While the sound of rain was soothing and the snow was pretty to watch as it fell gently, plain grey skies just got her down.

The rains and wind were slowly stripping the trees of their brilliantly coloured leaves, soon everything would be a dull, grey, November wood and Erika would just have to hold on until January when it would start getting brighter again.

She loved descending the steps into the park and down the trail that hugged the slope. From the path, you could just see the back edge of the properties high above, attached to, but separated from them.  The trees cast lovely shade over the trail. Their long branches swept over the path and down on towards the earth on the opposite side, forming a friendly tunnel-like a shield against the human hubbub of the city, ushering the traveller into a warm, grassy meadow along the banks of the river.

The tall grasses were yellowed and the herbaceous plants among them brown as they slowly fell into their winter sleep. She could hear the river behind the curtain of trees and shrubs at the very edge of the bank. It sounded high and fast as it played now you see me, now you don’t around the multihued vegetation. The glimpses Erika did see proved her right, it was high, fast flowing and she wondered if she would be able to go for her jog today.

Ducking under some apple branches, the yellow leaves fell gently to the ground like natural confetti and shone brightly against the dark earth like little golden drops. The bright leaves heartened her and she smiled as she came out next to the creek bank. This little creek that crossed her path, fed the Humber which flowed swiftly to the lake. It too was high, but the stones in the river jutted still higher up above the water. It looked passable still.

Hopscotching to the island in the middle of the brook, she paused looking upstream and smiled at the cafe au lait water spilling over the waterfall and into the creek bed below. To her right she could see across the roiling Humber river to the far bank. At this point she could see a small path that ran vertically up from the river to join the main path. Here in summer, when the water was low, and if you were industrious (as some fellow hikers often were) you could construct stepping stones from large rocks and cross dry shod. It was a great shortcut which she had made use of many times this past summer.

After only getting her toes wet, Erika scrambled up the bank on the far side of the creek under the blazing colours of a sugar maple grove. Here she was hidden from the other side of the Humber as the maples clung to life right down to the water’s edge, holding the banked soil in place.

Continuing up the sloping path, she entered among a red oak grove. There was a particular tree here that impressed her deeply. It was an ancient red oak, almost three feet in diameter which threw out its broad, thick branches horizontally over the path like a person spreading out his arms to fully enjoy the sun on his face. Sadly, beneath the rough bark, it was gradually turning hollow and it periodically shed its massive limbs. Erika had not seen many old trees like this. They were uncommon, if not rare in Southern Ontario now.

She heard a dog bark somewhere and looked for a fellow traveller along the trail ahead. Exiting the oak woods through a lilac grove, she came head to head with him. Startled, she saw a large, tan dog with curly, curly hair and a terrier like face. His size unnerved her even more and she paused, waiting for the dog to move off or his owner to come.

“He’s okay, “a young man trotted up from around some bushes, “he won’t bite.”

Erika greeted him politely, relived and slipped by the pair, continuing on her way. 

Clip clop. Very faintly in the distance across the river Erika heard what sounded like a horse walking across some pavement. Glancing through the trees, curious if it was her friends, she saw nothing and shrugged it off, she must be hearing things.