MacEwan skyline

The skyline of MacEwan University on a beautifully sunny but nippy winter lunch hour, from the comfort of the nursing school building's glass exit stair.

son sleeping

daughter sleeping

library, MacEwan University

I discovered today that the "heart" of the downtown campus is given over to the main library's open stacks, and is conceived as a nave.

365 Things To Draw: Week 4

oranges

 Oranges in a net sack.

365 Things To Draw: Week 3

This week things get harder. The inability to choose the subject begins to pose some serious challenges... and opportunities.

Tawayik Lake, Elk Island National Park

 A bright and warm day presented an incentive to make another trip out to Elk Island National Park, where we spent a few moments soaking in the sun and snowshoeing on the pristine snow at Tawayik Lake. Later we drove up to Astotin Lake, where we caught the last sunlight of the day in spectacular colour.

365 Things To Draw: Week 2

A lot more collaboration and adventure this week...

Deep Freeze Festival, 2014

Sketches at the Deep Freeze Festival on 118 Avenue... a series while warming up at the community hall listening to a very accomplished Franco-Albertan group called Allez Ouest, and a sketch at the Nina Haggerty Centre while watching volunteers from the Edmonton Public Library put on a puppet show for the kids.

persimmons

Working on filling out drawings every day with the "365 Things to Draw" calendar has allowed me to loosen up a little, even if it's the whole family doing the drawings each day. I did some small sketches using the persimmons bought earlier in the week in ways I usually wouldn't, one with coloured pencil and the other as a collage.

lunchtime

Staff and students at MacEwan University eating lunch, socializing, studying.

365 Things To Draw: Week 1

A friend gave me a great calendar, which provides subject matter each day (some quite quirky and challenging). I have been filling it out diligently this week, taking turns with my kids. Today's subject, a backpack, was executed by both the children and since I felt left out, took the cue to do my own. But I was particularly humbled by my daughter's rendition of wine bottles, which have a purity of character I cannot achieve.

Astotin Lake, Elk Island National Park

On this last day of the holidays I managed to squeeze in a short trip to Elk Island National Park to snowshoe with my daughter. One of her requests (surprisingly, and to my delight) was that we have an opportunity to sketch together afterwards, so we drove up to Astotin Lake. We didn't get close to any bison today, but it was still a pretty cool date.

Art Gallery of Alberta

Sketches from an afternoon at the Art Gallery of Alberta, which featured some lithographs by Chagall, a collection of Inuit art,  and an extensive series of Italian paintings, among others.

The gallery showing Chagall's "Daphnie et Chloe"

some Inuit sculpture

A view at the top floor cafe