Cloudscape 1
March 22, 2022
There’s a compositional rule advising painters that if the sky is the main element in a painting, then what lies below it ought to be kept simple and less important; and, conversely, if it’s the landscape which is the focus, then the sky should be suggested and there merely as a compliment to the rest of the painting. Of course, there are plenty of excellent paintings where this rule has been ignored. I think of Van Gogh whose complexities and intricacies fill every inch, and cause one’s eyes to dance around and be rewarded with a richness of technique.
Personally speaking, it seems better to go by that rule’s wisdom than pretend to be of the calibre and passion of a virtuoso like Van Gogh. Those who, like him, are driven body and soul to express their inner selves via their art aren’t likely to be ones who go by sensibility and convention in life as well as art. Those who, like me, have to screw up their courage in order to even put brush to paper, are appreciative of sound advice and guidance. And so, with this painting, I followed that compositional rule:
watercolour on Arches 140# Hot Press Paper, by Lance Weisser
[sold]
Summer’s Zenith
August 5, 2020
We’ve been sizzling here in British Columbia’s Southern Interior. For the past two weeks, it has been very hot and very dry. This is when all the dirt bikes get loaded on the back of country music-blaring pickups, heading for the hills, bypassing all the slower, fishing boat-toting pickups. And even those pickups bypass the even slower camper trailer-toting pickups, with everyone and their dog all heading out of Dodge.
What’s left behind are solitary scenes of empty pasture, sun-weathered farms, the occasional horse. And not a lick of shade.
We’re at the apex of Summer–the zenith–with a high today of 35C (95F). And tomorrow? Well, tomorrow marks the slow slide into September, with showers and a high of only 23C (73F).
So today we pretend we’re Texans, and tomorrow that old familiar tinge of an early Fall brings us all back to where we really are and love to be.
When it’s all about sky….
August 1, 2020
Lately here in Kamloops, British Columbia, we’ve been treated to cloud Cirque du Soleil. Each time I step out on our deck, there’s another stunning performance in progress:
As a student of watercolour, the challenge of painting skies on location doesn’t come from the medium itself because all it amounts to is sloshing water-tinted pigment over paper.
It doesn’t get more immediate than that.
Clouds are suspended water vapours being moved about by the atmosphere and wind. So a marriage made in heaven–immediate subject matter matched with an immediate medium, yes?
Um, well, maybe for some…. It takes a lot of confidence, deftness and elan to nail a quickly changing sky, and those aren’t exactly my gifts.
What helps move my senior’s ass is panic-induced adrenaline, like the time I brought all my equipment down to Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver. Perched in my umbrella-shaded lawn chair, sipping iced tea, leisurely sketching the Vancouver skyline, I noticed the sky dramatically changing from a fluffy blue to an angry charcoal.
After lugging everything from the parking lot to the shore, I wasn’t about to give up my precious spot for a little weather. Prudence did step in, however, and whisper in my aging ear that I had only minutes to accomplish what I’d been taking hours dallying over.
And then the rains came down, bruising the top of my umbrella, the beach crowd scattering, wind whipping the waves. As the saying goes, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’, I finally found my spine and went for it, drops pelting my paper, gusts throwing up sand.
Cloud Studies
July 21, 2020
Sometimes there’s a need to trample on whole bunches of internal dos and don’ts, accumulated over years of anal retentive watercolour practices.
‘Don’t premix washes–glaze one pigment over another right on the paper’; ‘Don’t soak the paper in the bathtub and then stretch it on a stretcher–it removes the lovely sizing’; ‘Don’t get obsessed with detail–be expressive’; ‘Don’t use opaque white’; ‘Don’t use so much masking fluid’; ‘Don’t be so timid’; ‘Don’t paint today–you aren’t centred’.
Lordy. I went to the sink, grabbed a kitchen sponge and some dollar store poster board.
For all who might be equally plagued by a mental build-up of watercolour dos and don’ts, have a look at this example of watercolour exploration and artistic daring:
Sky Positioning and Treatment II
July 1, 2020
Just as choosing to place one’s subject matter in front of bright sky produces remarkable effects as in the work of Joseph Zbukvic, so also can equally-remarkable effects be achieved when making the sky itself the subject.
An almost unparalleled master is a lesser known watercolourist than the celebrated J. Zbukvic, but a truly exquisite painter of both sea and sky, the Russian Sergey Temerev:
Here is a video of him at work:
Now, those are clouds.
Cloud study
June 21, 2020
The problem is, clouds can look terribly dark, yet the prevailing wisdom by learned painters is the caution that regardless of how dark the sky might appear, it is the lightest component of any landscape painting–except in rare cases like snowscapes, or some seascapes.
The temptation, at least for me, is to go about trying to recreate that memorable sky full of drama by mixing up a bucket of what might best be described as ‘peat bog grey’ or ‘burned frying pan umber’ and sloshing it onto the top of the picture.
The end result is a landscape where anyone deigning to walk would be greatly at risk–paintings where interspersed throughout should be little yellow triangular signs reading: WATCH FOR FALLING CLOUDS :
The other prevailing wisdom by a great many worthy painters, is that if one’s painting is featuring clouds, then whatever else is depicted ought to be kept rather simple and relatively free of detail. Conversely, if the focus is on whatever is happening below the sky, then the sky itself should be left unassuming and merely supportive. The above painting is a good case proving that point.
visual metaphor
March 28, 2020
When I look through past work for one which visually sums up how things feel internally during these protectively distant and very strange strange days, this is the one….
watercolour, arches #140 cold press paper, 14″ x 11″
by Lance Weisser
SOLD
Here in the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, our Interior Health Authority’s policy is to refrain from revealing the precise location of any pandemic cases. This causes a certain incongruity in our city of 97,000, where there remain no official instances of anyone at all having contracted the virus.
Interior Health will only generalize by revealing ‘x’ number of cases in the whole of the Interior as new ones come to light. So citizens speculate as to which of our cities, towns, and rural situations are being most affected, or, possibly being affected at all. No one really knows.
This has created a two-meter-apart sharing of rumoured cases: ‘did you know ________ isn’t well?’; ‘they say __________ senior’s residence is under lockdown’. Yet when I stand looking out our front window, all I see are neighbours doing uncharacteristic, and very fastidious yard cleanup–and couples and dogs I never knew existed strolling in isolated threesomes, as though on holiday.
For all our apparent imperturbation, there’s a newly-felt internal jolt when hearing an ambulance making its way towards our nearby nursing home–something not unusual, something not out of the ordinary–but now, in these times, a jolt nonetheless; an unexpected, yet telling one.
Our dog groomer phoned to say she’ll still do our bichon, but to call first and then put him outside the door. I put $50 in a note of thanks, inside an envelope. Punching two holes and stringing yarn through and then around Elmo’s neck, I pushed him at her. She waved to me with surgical gloves through the screen–and it came to me how even if I put $50 in an envelope and tie it around my own neck, no one in our city is allowed to groom me.
I learned the art of denial in early childhood. While I labour away at mastering watercolour, when it comes to denial, I soar: that was mastered long ago. Slowly, the onion-skinned layers of pretending and pretension are exposing important vulnerabilities within: that social distancing demands creating innovative intimacies–reaching towards those who have no picture windows, impassionately observing couples walking dogs and neighbours trimming hedges–searching for ways to help others mitigate what is becoming a knot of fear over detecting a problem breathing; wondering if their lost job will be forever lost; literally unable to remain at all calm.
In other words, I either rise to the occasion or I don’t. And I don’t think I am. It’s made a little more difficult when, as citizens, we don’t even know what the occasion actually is. But at least I can donate online to the Food Bank. At least I can consciously stop myself from denying that this is a time to mobilize and discover where help is required and try to fill it.
The above painting is entitled ‘Distant Light’. It could just as easily be named ‘Present Darkness’.
The challenge is for me to help stop the one from becoming the other.
Murtle Lake November
December 30, 2019
Murtle Lake–housed within the gorgeous Wells Grey Provincial Park–about an hour’s drive from our home in Kamloops, B. C.–“is world-famous as the largest canoe-only lake in North America. Set in a pristine mountain valley, the north and west arms are approximately 20 km long, and the lake averages three kilometres wide. . . ” [http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/wg_murt/]
watercolour by Lance Weisser
140# Arches Cold Press Paper [sold]
On the Wells Grey Provincial Park website comes this advice to those who wish to access Murtle Lake for overnight canoe/kayaking trips:
“The outlet of Murtle Lake is the swift-flowing and dangerous Murtle River, noted for its many waterfalls. Visitors wishing to hike to McDougall Falls must use caution in Diamond Lagoon.”
“Murtle Lake is a large lake and subject to gusts of strong wind. The lake often becomes choppy in the afternoon. If moving camp it is best to do so in the forenoon. Never try to out-run a storm; beach at the first available opportunity and wait out bad weather. The Park Operator has emergency communication and a satellite phone link located in the Ranger Cabin on the south shore of Murtle Lake.”
Rock and Sky
May 1, 2018
We live in a very rocky place. Our house is situated just below a mountain ridge that is home to native varieties of cactus, sagebrush, tumbleweed, and the domain of Chukar Partridges, mule deer, black bear, a variety of hawks and owls, and the occasional Cougar.
Painting rocky scenes is something particularly satisfying due to the artistically-geometric shapes which become something of a foil for the full-blown and free-flowing movement of cloud and sky.
This was simply an experiment–discovering where shapes and natural design and configuration would lead–a painting begun without knowing where it might end.
‘The Home Place’, watercolour by Lance Weisser, 14″ x 16″, Arches Hot Press Paper
breakers
July 22, 2015
The depicting of waves in watercolour is particularly challenging when one has decided on being a ‘purist’ by refraining from both opaque white and masking fluid. Â Personally speaking, masking fluid has become so offensive in terms of smell (its natural thinner, in case anyone wonders, is ammonia, which is why it smells so awful–but a little ammonia will indeed thin thickened masking fluid, if stirred in slowly), and damaging brushes (even when dipping them in soapy water first), and causing the hardest of edges when removed, that it’s rarely a choice for me. Â It does make for quite lovely snow squalls when flicked from a stiff toothbrush, I must say–and great fun, too.
‘Third Beach, Vancouver’, watercolour, painted on location, 35.5cm x 23cm (14″ x 9″), Arches Hot Press 140lb. Paper
Breaking waves challenge any student of watercolour (and every single person working in this medium will forever be a student) because of having to leave paper white for crest foam, swash, and the receding backwash effects.  This, coupled with understanding which part of the wave receives more or less pigment, not to mention the change of pigmentation if backwash is curling up and drawing in sand at the same time, comes the added realisation that sky is being reflected off top surfaces the further from shore one looks.
There truly is nothing for it but to get right into the actual physics of spilling, surging, plunging, and collapsing breakers, each of which exhibits its own characteristic properties–ones our eyes are very accustomed to and therefore recognize in a flash when viewing surf–properties a viewer expects to be reproduced in paintings (if the painting is trying to conform to the challenges of representational art, that is).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wave  Drawing each of these examples over and over again makes wave action less of a mystery and eventually becomes familiar and far less challenging.  However, a single line of waves is always backed by more, multiplying the visual dynamics, adding to the confusion of having to depict row upon row of breakers.  Where does foam end and the gathering wave behind it start?  For this, it is very instructive to carefully observe photographs and again draw over and over how this actually does look.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wave)  Only then, personally speaking, do I find painting on location not as daunting, for stopped action is easier to analyze than sitting in front of actual pounding surf.
Painting water is a dedicated pursuit all of its own. Â There is a painting friend of mine who includes water in every single piece he does because he is dedicated to the depiction of water, whether in the form of rain, surf, river, lake, stream, waterfall, because in each case there is a lifetime’s worth of challenge.
…..carabao
July 11, 2015
MY PARTNER RAUL is from The Philippines, and we’ve been together now 12 years, married (with my sister officiating) in 2008. Â We met online in 2003, and a month later I flew to Manila where he met me at Aquino International Airport. Â My sponsorship of him as my ‘conjugal partner’ brought him here in 2007, and Raul is now an LPN, whose specialty area is Geriatrics.
The small Barangay of San Jose, Plaridel, Bulacan, features rice fields whose rhythms set the tone for the annual life cycle of villagers and livestock, including the stolid and dependable beast of burden, the Carabao.
“Bulacan Dawn”, watercolour, 43cm x 74cm (17″ x 29″), Arches Cold Press Paper 140 lb
Water buffaloes are well adapted to a hot and humid climate. Water availability is of high importance in hot climates since they need wallows, rivers or splashing water in order to reduce the heat load and thermal stress. They thrive on many aquatic plants and in time of flood will graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. They eat reeds, giant reeds, bulrush, sedges, water hyacinth and marsh grasses. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabao)
There is something so completely humbling about how humans are graced with the educational presence of massively-strong animals whose disposition is nonetheless docile, coupled with a willingness to be put to work with little being asked in return. Â My three stays in The Philippines of some 6 weeks each, allowed me to learn from the perfect symbiosis of rice worker and carabao, whose calm partnership in the tending of the greenest of green fields was both reassuring and a powerful living metaphor.
painting pickles
May 7, 2015
CAMPING ALONE along the Oregon Coast–that fantastically alive strip of ocean wonders–provided many outdoor painting pickles. . . .
PICKLE #1–mosquitoes and bugs.  Surely some art restoration expert somewhere has discovered kamikaze mosquitoes embedded in the impasto of Impressionist art.  French curses likely filled the air, Claude spending as much time squashing bugs as trying to capture the light.  Imagine the fog of mosquitoes waiting for him up beside those water lilies;
PICKLE #2–the wind.  Big, dramatic, vividly-alive ocean waves are that size because of the wind.  The wind along the Oregon Coast is permanent and robust.  It carries away notebooks, sketch pads, laptop easels, flimsy plastic pallets, kolinsky brushes, art pencils, and tissues.  And, as one panics, dashing after them, fresh water rinse containers are spilled (of course, the nearest fresh water source is at the damn parking lot bathroom), and then (naturally) there goes the lawn chair, too–end over end, heading towards the box kite-flying couple smirking at the Mr. Bean imitation.  Everything rescued, finally sitting, easel anchored with one determined hand, brush swishing about in the water jar, a sudden gust throws sand over everything, and the stupid tilley hat Christmas present (guaranteed to age a person 20 yrs, whether 25 or 55) is seen sailing out towards the surf, the wind carrying away the muttered sounds of ‘good riddance’ along with it.
PICKLE #3…..time and tides.  Outdoor painting (forget this en plein air crap–it’s called painting outdoors) isn’t done in studio time.  It’s done in real live time.  The tides never stay put.  So the grand, thundering waves are either constantly retreating as the scene is being depicted, or–this is nabob of stubbornness–they are approaching at an erratic, yet ever-constant rate, until the-I’m-staying-put painter sees his supplies (pallet, paint box, little stool, brushes, tubes, you name it) suddenly sucked out into the collapsing surf of an unannounced, really big wave–a REALLY BIG WAVE–which is about to be followed by another.
PICKLE #4…..no supplies left…..
cliffs near Newport Beach, Oregon
….. and sketching is suddenly the preferred medium….*sigh*… and geriatric Charlie Brown decides to go find some fish and chips–and a local art supply store.
…..and maybe a therapist. Â or a bar.
The Federation of Canadian Artists’ National Show
April 7, 2015
THE FEDERATION OF CANADIAN ARTISTS had its beginnings in 1941, and had as its goal the unified representation of all Provinces through one organization.  Canada’s premier artists, The Group of Seven, were instrumental in organizing The FCA, with A. Y. Jackson as the Ontario head, and Lawren Harris in charge of the West Coast region.
TODAY THE FCA has become largely a Western Canadian organization with most of its activity within the Province of British Columbia.  The hub is Vancouver [www.artists.ca] with regional Chapters throughout B. C. and Southern  Alberta.  The Thompson Nicola Shuswap Chapter (which I am a member of) has been hosting two Annual Art Shows for many years, with the 2015 National Show being mounted this coming Wednesday, April 8th.
THE NATIONAL SHOW is open to any qualifying FCA member, but submissions for jurying are limited to 3. Â Digital images of a member’s work are submitted to Vancouver and juried by three Signature Artists who use a point system to arrive at which pieces will be accepted and which will be declined. Â Of the 130+ digital entries, only 85 pieces are selected for inclusion into this National Show.
MY OWN SUBMISSIONS (two) have been juried, one being accepted–
‘Approaching Storm, Sechelt’, 25cm x 35.5cm (10.5″ x 14″), Watercolour on board
It is considered an achievement simply to get into this Art Show, while Opening Night, Friday the 10th, will be the occasion when $2800.00 in Prizes are awarded by another set of Jurors for those paintings which stand out as the best of The Best. Â Only once has a piece of mine ever been awarded a prize.
SENIOR MEMBERS OF THE FEDERATION have these paintings being considered for The SFCA Prize, with only one receiving top honours.
NEARLY ALL THE WORK submitted by artists for these Shows is rendered in acrylics or oils, with some pastel, and a few watercolours, and fewer still graphite drawings. Watercolour, generally, is not the preferred medium of most painters. It is considered difficult and problematic because of its demands and limtations.
Painting progression 5
March 16, 2015
THE FINISHED piece–“Abandoned Schoolhouse, Pritchard”.  The rocks needed darkening and definition.  Pines were added.  Spattering of snow was used to unify the whole and add a feeling of movement.
Painting progression 4
March 15, 2015
MORE TREES needed adding. Â The suggestion of rocky outcrop is introduced. Â The aging building is blocked in. Â Shadowing completes this phase…..
Painting progression 3
March 14, 2015
THE MOON and schoolhouse roof were masked, then a wash applied in the sky areas.
Once done, a decision was made to next eliminate the horse, it becoming an unintended focal point if left in. (A lone horse standing at night in front of an abandoned school in bitter cold would be incongruous).
Painting Progression 2
March 13, 2015
TREES are painted in very dark and the watercolour pigment tempered a bit in order to have it resist being completely taken away by an overlay of secondary wash.
Painting Progression 1….
March 12, 2015
THERE WAS an old schoolhouse in the Township of Pritchard, British Columbia, just down the road from my friend Shiela. 
 It was kept on a corner of field by a rancher who had attended it, hoping someday someone would see to its restoration.  Eventually it was torn down, but not before I was able to photograph it.  And I have painted it several times, choosing to situate it where I please….
This is the initial drawing. Â Because the rancher kept horses, I decided to position one for sake of interest. Â The paper is Arches Cold Press 140 lb., stretched stapled and taped onto gater board, approx. 15 x 20 in.
‘The Silt Bluffs II’
February 26, 2012
The landscape of Kamloops, British Columbia, (native word meaning ‘dividing of waters’–the Thompson River divides mid-city to create the North and South Thompson), varies remarkably.
Think of a city at 1132 ft. elevation with homes built in terraced-layers down one mountainside and up another, all finding bottom along the broad Thompson River which attracted the attention of The Hudson Bay Company in 1811. Â Since then Kamloops has become a train hub, a location for gold prospectors seeking their fortunes, and more recently a centre for the forest industry.
It is arid here. Â Summers are hot and dry, and rain is an event. Â Winters are cold, windy, with average amounts of snow, and a major spot for skiers and snowboarders at the highest elevations. Â When I walk the dog at 5 a.m., I always hear owls and sometimes coyotes, and occasionally spot a few deer searching for something in the yards below the mountain ridge we hug up against. Â I’ve also come across black bear in the car port, and seen the evidence of moose.
This painting is of what’s locally referred to as The Silt Bluffs.  They feature hoodoos, free-standing rock formations caused by wind erosion.
'The Silt Bluffs', 5" x 7" Original and signed Watercolour on Arches Hot Press 140 lb. Paper, $100.00 black-matted & framed in gold
The most prevalent raptors in our area are the Red-Tailed Hawk, Golden and Bald Eagles, Osprey, and Turkey Vultures.
Winter Horses
February 1, 2012
The Old Schoolhouse in Pritchard on Duck Range Road was torn down last summer.  It was in a farmer’s field–a farmer who’d gone to it as a child–and though he wanted to see it restored and taken over by the community, no one stepped forward to do so.
For years his horses used the school yard as their private pasture. Â Rain or shine–snow or sleet–anyone driving by would see them, the pair of steeds only momentarily looking up before resuming their grazing.
"School Yard Pasture"
Finally, after numerous appeals to various groups to assume responsibility for the Old School, the farmer reluctantly went about making sure it didn’t collapse and possibly cause an accident. Someone told me it only took a couple of hours for it to be reduced to a pile of boards and beams. Â If one drives by now, the only thing left standing are the horses.
Gettysburg
January 28, 2012
Gettysburg. Â The very name sends all manner of emotion through my heart and out the other side.
I began studying this famous American Civil War Battle (July 1,2,3, 1863) some twenty years ago and then in 2001 I simply bought a plane ticket and up and went there to see the place for myself. Â My sister and brother-in-law met me in Syracuse, New York, and drove me down to Southern Pennsylvania to spend five days absorbing the importance of those hallowed forests and fields.
I’m no fan of war, believe me. Â But having been born an American yet having now lived more than half my life as a Canadian, I study the differences between the two countries. Â Both British Colonies, the one revolted over taxes and the other still has The British Monarch as its Head of State. Â One couldn’t find the means to end slavery peacefully, while the other saw it dissolved once and for all under Britain’s 1834 Slavery Abolition Act.
Having studied in detail The Battle of Gettysburg, and while there in June of 2001, I brought along my paints and did on-the-spot watercolour sketches of the most poignantly-historic locations among those now-peaceful fields.
'The Copse Of Trees -- Gettysburg'
On July 3rd, 1863, on a stiflingly-hot afternoon, after two entire hours of constant cannon bombardment of the Yankee position on Cemetery Ridge, General Robert E. Lee ordered a massive charge across a mile-wide expanse of field. Â This was the concluding, and most desperate action of the horrific three days as tens of thousands Southern troops marched shoulder-to-shoulder into the deadly cannonading of Northern forces.
They were instructed to aim for an inconspicuous, yet noticeable ‘copse of trees’, dead centre in the Union Line. Â Only one hundred or so made that destination, the more than 20,000 others suffering an indescribable onslaught of cannon and massed rifle fire.
After painting this little painting, I solemnly walked the distance to those trees. Â It was a sobering, awful, respectfully-difficult-yet-important mile-long journey through the wind-blown grasses of a place now very hushed and calm. Â I’ve never been quite the same before, or since.
What an enormous difference between two neighbouring countries, all due to differing attitudes to being deemed ‘Colonists’.
Rainy Day Study I
January 23, 2012
Golden Ears Provincial Park is one of the largest in British Columbia (over 62,500 hectares;1 hectare=2.47 acres) and features the pristine Alouette Lake. It also has three campgrounds and hiking trails through extremely rugged terrain.  Vegetation is typical of the coastal western Hemlock forest of BC and the mountainous backcountry is not only rugged but has–almost annually–proven fatal to the unprepared.  Those who go off are cautioned to understand what they’re getting themselves into.
Normally, Alouette Lake looks just like this . . .
Alouette Lake, Golden Ears Provincial Park (courtesy of Parks B. C.)
But the day I attempted to paint this scene, it started out very foggy, then changed to drizzle, then showed some promise of clearing-up.  I was in the camping area that was the most primitive, and of course only when I decided to begin painting did it actually start to full-out pour.  By then I was so into it that I had to keep going, even though drops were falling directly onto my work-in-progress (though I did have a make-shift tarp).  But to this day, this is one of my most favourite paintings because even though it has its distortions, I didn’t give in and stayed until I finished it . . .
'Alouette Lake Study'
I can still smell the coleman stove coffee and feel the warmth of the mug against my numb fingers as I celebrated by putting my brushes away–and swearing I’d never paint another #%$#!@# watercolour again in my life.
Mount Peter
January 21, 2012
To look up the face of Mount Peter–Â (the sibling of the larger Mount Paul), the signature mountains overlooking our city of Kamloops, B. C.–is to look upon the core of a mountain. These are mountains so ancient, all that remains are the inner cores–their souls. Â Time and erosion have scarred and left them displaying a beauty it takes the eye a while to appreciate.
The roads about their base feature yellow diamond warning signs cautioning drivers to watch for Big Horn Sheep.
Big Horn Sheep (courtesy Wikimedia)
As a watercolourist, it took me a good two years before I attempted the challenge. Â They are unusual subjects, and not easily rendered. Â It was wise for me to wait, simply because I was so accustomed to the forested peaks of the Coastal Mountains that I regarded these as ugly. Until they finally become beautiful to the newly-arrived, these ancient and weather worn heights are probably best not attempted at all by art enthusiasts like me.
'Peter's Face'
Third Beach
January 19, 2012
Ten percent larger than New York’s Central Park, is Vancouver’s Stanley Park–1001 acres of enormous cedars, Totems, hidden pathways, creeks, ponds, ocean views, as well an amphitheatre and The Vancouver Aquarium.  It was named after Lord Stanley, the Governor General of Canada in 1888 (and also the person who donated the famous Stanley Cup for the emerging hockey teams of the day to compete for).  Lord Stanley became the first Governor General to visit British Columbia when the Park was being dedicated.
This painting was done on location within the Park while sitting on one of the many available sand-encased logs. Â The spot is known simply as Third Beach, and looks out towards a very distant (not always visible–and not in this painting) Vancouver Island.
'Third Beach, Vancouver'
It took most of the day, and while there a baby seal washed up on shore. Â Being tied down to all my spread-out gear, I called out to those closest. Â Mobile phones weren’t as prevalent then as now, and it took the gathering crowd quite a while before attendants from The Vancouver Aquarium came to rescue the little guy. They have an adoption program which results in a release later on after the animals have matured.
High Country
January 9, 2012
Within the Kamloops city limits lies The Lac du Bois Grasslands Protected Area, Â dedicated to preserving native grasslands and the sweeping vistas of this special region. Â Old time ranching and a culture of horses and cattle survives.
This is a region of British Columbia with wide open spaces, with sagebrush and cactus and Ponderosa Pines. Â It’s a land of Eagles, Hawks, Owls and Ospreys. Â Through it winds the North and South Thompson Rivers and above their winding, watery ribbons is high country.
'High Country"
weisserwatercolours 