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Illustrator

Mackinac Island

Joel and I recently spent my 30th birthday on Mackinac Island, in northern Michigan. This island is a very special place, because it is completely car-free (only horses and bicycles ride on the roads) and has been since the 19th century, when the island became a popular Victorian resort destination. Everything on the island is ridiculously picturesque. The Victorian summer houses are massive, beautiful buildings.

Joel and I toured around on our bikes, ate great food, drank nice beer, sketched and generally had an amazing time. Mackinac, we shall be back.

The governor’s summer residence

Sketch of Fort Mackinac

Here is a selection of photos from the trip:

Teaser

What’s on the drafting table today. I’m always so happy with the sketches, then become really nervous when going to final. I guess I’m out of practice.

Meldrum Bay and lighthouse sketch

Joel and I spent the long weekend on Manitoulin Island with the beagle where we visited friends of the family and camped one night in Meldrum Bay, all the way at the tip of the island.

There was an old lighthouse museum near the campsite so we spent an hour sketching it. I feel like I could have done more detail in this sketch but the sun was baking hot and after an hour I couldn’t stand it any more!

Joel and I were also debating what would be better to convert to a studio: a lighthouse or a church? What do you think?

Mississagi lighthouse in Meldrum Bay

I highly recommend camping at the Mississagi Lighthouse campground. If you like smooth, smooth stones and cold, cold water, that is.

Copper Cliff Part Deux

Joel and I had a fruitless search a few weeks ago for a location in Sudbury interesting enough for plein air sketching. We wandered around for over an hour trying to find a somewhat inspiring location and came up with nil. This time, however, we opted to go back to our old sketching stomping ground for Copper Cliff Part Deux.

I’m pretty  much convinced that despite it’s industrial neighbours, Copper Cliff could be transformed into an artsy small-town suburb of Sudbury, if anyone in Sudbury had the imagination to do it (which of course, they don’t). There is a old style main street, a large green park, stately historic homes and an old building that must have been a hotel at some point but which is now an old folks home (what a waste of good architecture). Joel and I are kind of fascinated by Copper Cliff. Of course you would have The Stack constantly in the background, but we think it’s a place that has some kind of charm.

Copper Cliff, ON. We liked the look of this old school barbershop.

Copper Cliff Part Un, almost 2 years to the day in 2009

Mackenzie King Estate

Joel, Peanut and I were in Ottawa for Canada Day last weekend (saw Wills and Kate on a screen, yay!) We decided to take a jaunt over to the Mackenzie King Estate in the Parc Gatineau the next day and these “ruins” were on the property away from the house. Mackenzie King thought it would be fun to salvage various pieces of old houses from around Ottawa and leave them on his property as ruins. A nice place for contemplation, methinks, but not a night because that would just be spooky.

We would have sketched longer but we had forgotten to bring stools with us and therefore had to sit on stones, which hurt our bums. Note to self: always have camp stools handy in the car!

Part of a "ruined" window