Sketching Photoblog

My friend MB and I are going on a cycling trip in June, so we thought we better get going on our regime. This past Wednesday we cycled along Lake Ontario from one small town to the next and back again. Spring has finally arrived in Eastern Ontario and it was a perfect day for a ride. Now it was into the wind–but we really were not pushing ourselves too hard– stopped half way to sit on a patio and visit an art gallery where I was lucky enough to find a Kolinsky sable pocket brush which my cousin, John, recommended. Before the ride, I started this sketch of one of my favourite houses there, (the porch lights are really bright pink) and then added paint with my new brush when I got home.

The new tote made of black antique wax canvas and toffee leather is close to finished. It has a large double pocket on the front and a slip pocket pictured here on the back, a leather bottom and adjustable shoulder strap. It is just awaiting its canoe canvas lining which will have lots of compartments for computer, passport etc–and should show up in the shop by the end of the week.

Like many other people this week, in the wake of the announcement of the Nobel Prize for Literature, I have been reading Alice Munro stories. First I revisited some of the stories I had in the house and found them even better than I remembered. And then I purchased her new collection, Dear Life. I am midway through this volume and find these new stories as heart-stopping as ever.

Yesterday I was driving home from Kingston when the CBC replayed a 1996 conversation between Peter Gzowski, legendary CBC host, and Alice Munro. I highly recommend you listen to it. I was riveted–so when I came to Napanee where I had an errand to run, I stayed in the car, pulled out my sketchbook and paints and began sketching this building on the main street while I listened. I cannot think of a better way to spend 40 minutes–listening to two Canadian icons clearly enjoying each other’s conversation and sketching a lovely old piece of Eastern Ontario architecture.

The New Yorker came today and I see that they too have a reprise of an earlier Munro piece–her story published there first in 1999, The Bear Came Over the Mountain, the story that was the basis for Sarah Polley’s film Away From Her. That will be tonight’s reading. In typical New Yorker fashion, there was no fanfare, no mention of the Nobel, but the photo by Bryan Adams which accompanies the story is of Munro herself. And after all, the New Yorker has been championing Munro for a long long time.