Three Pines
December 10, 2019
Ponderosa Pine is everywhere in British Columbia, and one of the predominant pine trees across western N. America, including parts of the Prairies and Plains. It was originally named by David Douglas in 1829 because the wood was so heavy, and thus ponderous. Around here, the very long needles which can be found lying shed at the base of these trees are gathered up, washed and used to make pine needle basketry, an art developed by Indigenous peoples all over our region, and wherever this tree flourishes.
‘Three Pines’
watercolour on art board 8″ x 16″
by Lance Weisser
(for sale, framed and matted, contact weisserlance@gmail.com)
A Winter’s Eve
February 23, 2019
It snowed yesterday, the kind which floats down like sifted icing sugar, giving the impression that it can’t possibly amount to much, except it simply stayed that way for the entire afternoon and into the evening. And as I was cooking dinner, I glanced out and saw a van spinning its wheels, barely able to crest the top of the hill just below our house. That icing sugar now lay a significant number of inches deep, making the mule deer tracks under the bird feeders in our red maple appear as quilted dimples, leading off across the whited bedspread of the yard.
The mule deer–a party of three–come down from our backyard mountain ridge and go to town on the neighbourhood’s cedar hedges around four in the morning. Now, I’m not one to get all soft-hearted and nostalgic over having deer around, simply because they dine on just about anything except what mother nature provides in ample supply up beyond our neighbourhood: emerging tulips in the front–all manner of vegetables in the back–and everyone’s cedar. The other morning around five one of them confronted our little dog Elmo in the predawn pitch dark as we did our morning walk. Neither of them moved for a great while until the young buck got bored and sauntered off with its two pals to see what other landscape deconstruction they could manage before daybreak.
The Old Rookery
February 21, 2019
EVERY SO OFTEN I go truant and abandon my blog, but at least this time around it hasn’t (quite) been an entire year (!) I might be alone in this, but my temptation is to spend so much time daily exploring the interesting posts of fellow bloggers that I end up spending less and less time actually painting. My solution to this apparent addiction is to leave my own posts in limbo until enough progress has been made to once again continue.
In any case, thank you for your patience and understanding, and here is my latest painting entitled ‘The Old Rookery’, depicting a scene from my imagination, drawing on the spirit of book illustrators from the days of my youth:
Thank you for reconnecting with me and I hope your Winter is going well for you!
heatwave relief
June 24, 2015
IT IS BARELY PAST the first day of Summer and temperatures here in Southern British Columbia, Canada, are scheduled to climb to 40C (104F) and stay there. It is feared the heat and drought affecting California is heading North, Along with such heat, thunderstorm probabilities rise, and they become fire starters. By August there’ll be what weather reports term ‘local smoke’–a haze hanging over everything–accompanied by the sound of helicopters and planes working to douse flames in affected regions close by.
My favourite month is November. It is both an exciting and contemplative month–exciting because any day, any moment I might step out to feel those fortifying winds suddenly becoming the first snow squall. Contemplative, because the fog rising from the closeby Thompson River mixes with wood stove breathings and the last of the leathery oak leaves falling to join the others, invites thoughts on things ethereal and eternal.
“Logging along Jamieson Creek Road”, watercolour, 20cm x 25cm, (8″ x 10″) Arches Hot Press 140 lb Paper, unsold
As a child, there was nothing more beautiful than what I called ‘purple snow’–that snow which signalled to us that we’d best take only one more turn sledding down Dead Man’s Hill (many years prior, legend had it, a man went down its twists and turns standing on his sled and smacked into a maple–back in the old days, when men apparently went sledding). Purple snow meant dinner. Purple snow meant finally discovering just how cold our digits actually were– thawing under a running cold faucet–pins and needles hot pink cold.
And even now, there is nothing to me more beautiful than purple snow. On this 40C second day of Summer, all I can say is, Lord get us through to November.
weisserwatercolours 