Fortress dating back to the Crusades. Bodrum is a great coastal city with a long history dating back thousands of years.

Antalya is a vibrant city on Turkey’s southern coast along the Mediterranean Sea. It has long stretches of beaches and is rimmed by dramatic mountains. It was a crossroads of many civilizations for millennia, so there are fascinating museums and ruins to visit. This is a quick watercolour sketch I did at a patio overlooking one long stretch of beach.

When I’m travelling my go-to sketch kit most often includes an accordion sketchbook, a small watercolour ‘bijou box’ jammed with paint, and a collapsible travel brush. Then I basically connect to the scene in front of me from whatever vantage point fate has given me. On this occasion, we were parked at a café having some ‘debek’ Turkish coffee listening to a street performer who set up with his portable amplifier, along the shoreline.

Acrylic #portrait of noted #Lebanese theatre and film director, #MounirAbouDebs, founder of the #Ecole #de Theatre Moderne in partnership with the fledgling #BaalbeckInternationalFestival in #Baalbeck, #Lebanon, in 1960, which continues to this day.

When I am about to finish one of my illustrated journals, I try to find the time to do a quick self-portrait, by way of a 'signature'. Every once in a while I try to do something less slap-dash. This is an oil portrait I did a while back of when I was around 29 and residing in a teak cottage in the Gulf of Thailand, based on a photo Greg took. The original photo has me looking upward, but the glance in this painting is direct. Both have their merits.

I tend to shy away from doing ‘practice’ self-portraits, because I fear that the end result will be that every portrait I do will bear a family resemblance to me. Hence, a did a lot of practice on Greg until it just became too easy.

based on a quick cellphone picture I took in the late afternoon. You can detect the sunset glow on his face, but the sun was behind me. Shooting into the sun doesn’t yield the results you dream of anyway, usually. He’s wearing his favourite, heavy flannel Eddie Bauer shirt and the best thing I like about the painting is how the plaid is just hinted at by a few brushstrokes.

This is actually just in one of my sketchbooks. You can gesso a heavy watercolour sketchbook page and use acrylic right on it. Sometimes, it’s a handy way of covering a disaster. I once opened a fountain pen on an airplane and it exploded with permanent ink all over the page and my hands, so I used this solution to cover up the mess.

In this portrait I just wanted to try being bold and gestural, and play a bit with the local colour. My goals when I paint are to be unrestrained and not worry too much about the outcome.

Tracy and my sneaky selfie came about one day when we were puttering around Rainbow Haven, a beach about a 16 minute drive from our place. We met Tracy, who is frequently there on her days-off, catching some rays. She’s a hospital worker and during the Pandemic, she must be applauded for her dedication. I snapped a quick picture of her mirrored sunglasses, and as you can see, we appear in the reflection. So this was the sneaky selfie I did to finish off my sketchbook.

At the height of the Pandemic we still managed to do lots of good hikes around town. This was the last sketch in one of my 2020 journals, based on a quick cellphone shot Greg took of me during a walk alongside Halifax Harbour. I’m in there, somewhere, under all that fabric.

Lake Banook is a great all-season feature of life in Dartmouth. Here it is depicted in February, when the ice is frozen and people are able to play a game of pick-up hockey, (“shinny”) or just skate along casually. Two guys hanging out, in their favourite team jerseys have the paddling Judges’ Tower in the background, and the hill, covered with trees and melting snow. Based on some sketches and watercolours I did on site. Acrylic. 24” by 36”

The city has two bridges spanning Halifax Harbour. The one, the MacDonald, was built in the early 1950s, after which several smaller ferries connecting the dockyards, closed up shop.

every summer Halifax now has a Kite Festival on Citadel Hill, yielding a whimsical scene with kites all over the hill and overlooking the historic downtown core. Ink, watercolour and gouache on a wood panel.

"Death Star" was the nickname my kids gave the Judges' Tower on Lake Banook. They spent their childhood there, paddling and swimming. I love the architecture of the tower, which in its day was ultra modern. Now I feel such nostalgia when I see it. I was walking around the lake during Spring Thaw when I noticed the docks were still on the beach, waiting to be moved onto the lake when the ice was gone, so I took a seat and started to draw. As soon as I had the roofline, I had a picture in my mind of exactly how the drawing would turn out. Some call it 'flow state.'

12" by 6" ink, watercolour and gouache on birch panel.

It's at the Craig Gallery show at Dartmouth's Ferry Terminal Complex at Alderney Landing, from now until June 26th.

This Eastern Passage boat is called "Strictly Business." Most of the boats at "The Passage" have names that are cheeky plays on words, or evoke "the wife", in the romantic way sailors do... Or some names are very jokey. But this guy wants you to know that he only ever goes to sea so he doesn't have to go sit in an office cubicle all friggin' week long. The seagulls following the boat agree.

6" by 12" ink and watercolour on panel..

I painted this ‘live’ during an event called Paint the Hydrostone, which raised money for summer camp for kids with health problems. I was so in the zone that I didn’t notice that groups of people were behind me live streaming me. I was so absorbed painting the jumping sheep in the yarn shop’s window that I began to ask myself, “What would a sheep think of this?” and then the next thing I knew, I had painted a little lamb, looking up wondering why the sheep in the window didn’t come down to join him/her. It sold before one o’clock in the afternoon, before I was even finished.

The Hydrostone neighbourhood was built to house the people whose homes were devastated in the Halifax Explosion in 1917. This is the neighbourhood “high street’ which houses quaint shops and offices. This painting has Lady Luck, which features art, adorable décor and hats, and Julien’s Pastry Shop with wonderful, authentic French breads and pastries. I painting this on a drizzly Sunday morning, so I named it, “Come in From the Rain.”

You just can’t believe the weather report in Nova Scotia. Consider this: 13 degrees Celsius could mean a lovely Spring afternoon in the park, but add a little humidity and wind and it’s a whole other story. So one day in early April the weather report got me all fired up go out to do some urban sketching. It was just a bit damp and windy, like an impending Nor’easter. I still managed this drawing with my Encre de Chine, on site, watercolouring it later. Too chilly and damp a day to use the watercolour outside, but I was not the only creature who ventured outside in the Hydrostone neighborhood, so I was sure to include Nigel and Maude who were gossiping loudly.

An artistic heart beats in Eastern Passage. Every December, a mystery artist composes an original reindeer out of driftwood, twigs, bits of seaweed and torn off pieces of fishing net. I caught sight of this festive creature when I was walking the boardwalk of McCormack’s Beach on a fine winter day and happened to have my sketch kit on hand to capture it in the flesh.

6”by 12” ink and watercolour on panel.

I’m part of an urban sketch group, who roam around the region looking for everyday scenes of urban life. Since Halifax is a working port, many ships can be spotted along our waterfront. These were two herring boats, known as ‘purse seiners’, registered in Yarmouth, who come to Halifax to off-load their catches.

a gouache scene from Dartmouth’s Shubie Park. The water is so dark near where it’s melting, that it’s almost a black mirror.

Shubie Park is a wonderful urban wilderness park, centred around what remains of the old Shubenacadie Canal system, that cut through the province, from Halifax Harbour, right out to the Bay of Fundy. It has abundant wildlife and flora.

I love how winter turns everthing into starkly contrasting blocks of colour and white. Here I am, endlessly trying to capture winter with a little gouache sketch in my main sketchbook.

Until recently, people were able to put up bird feeders throughout the extensive urban wilderness that is Shubie Park, so they could leave out seeds for their feathered friends, (and Squirrels). A virus lead to this becoming a thing of the past, but a few houses remain. The park runs along the now defunct Shubenacadie Canal that was used in the 1860s to convey goods from deep inland, along a series of lakes, and out to Halifax Harbour. The arrival of the steam engine brought this enterprise to an end, but people still canoe along it.

When the snow starts to melt in Shubie Park, small brooks form alongside the melting ice, making a nice reflected effect. Gouache.

Akumal Bay, along the Yukatan Peninsula, is one of those places where sea turtles lay their eggs. I’ve never managed to see the nighttime swim of freshly hatched turtles racing for the water, but I did have a chance to swim amongst the giant sea turtles. The person in the back in my son, Travis. After a lot of obsessive sketching, my hands were giving me trouble, so as an experiment, I painted this largely with my gloved fingers, using both hands. The fish are just little flicks of the brush.

A sizeable portion of Shubie Park in Dartmouth is off-leash. This gorgeous mutt raced ahead of the ‘parents’ and then stopped, suddenly to look me over, bathed in the golden light of early autumn, as if knowing that it was a pose worthy of a painting.

Brutus was adopted out of a shelter after he had been left with a diagnosis of cancer. His new daddy, (a dear family friend), filled his last days with tender loving care. This is his memorial portrait. He was a good boy.

Seagulls of Martinique Beach feast on shellfish and other sea creatures, swooping in like dive bombers. They look so much more graceful here than in the city, picking through the trash.

A canine Ernest Borgnine, this handsome brute was adopted after a few unfortunate events left him missing an eye and with part of his front paw severed after a run in with a bear trap. Despite his traumas, he’s a ball of furry love and soulful looks.

The tiny Cuban island paradise of Cayo Largo del Sur is bit of a Robinson Crusoe experience, where visitors welcome the natural environment, rather than expecting it to be obliterated in favour of luxury accommodations. The island has an abundance of sea turtles, (some crocodiles at the extreme eastern end), and lots of iguanas. This particular one would hang around the beach all day waiting to be given treats of boiled eggs or pineapple chunks.

I actually had a little video clip to work with when I did this painting, and the entire time, Daisy’s tongue was excitedly waving back and forth. We love dogs because they bring out the best in us.

Sam was a good boy. He was so excited to see me that he would climb up next to me on the coach and put his big head on my lap, since obviously the entirety of him wouldn’t fit.

acrylic on canvas

View of the bay in Huatulco, Mexico

commission for a son to give his father as a memento of their trip to Bulgaria, his father’s homeland. Acrylic on board.

You don’t have to pay for a luxury cruise to get a good look at Halifax Harbour. Just a shade over two bucks will get you a ticket on a ferry from several of the ferry service’s terminals. This one if from Woodside. I like to call it “The Romantic Harbour Cruise.”

A good two days of paddling across Keji Lake and then up the West River before we reached this point, the National Park is a gem deep in the interior of Nova Scotia’s backcountry. Acrylic on canvas. 24” by 30”

An ink and watercolour sketch I did seated on a camp stool facing the amazing fall colours of the West River, so full of tannin the water is a rich, inky Burnt Umber/Black except where it reflects the shoreline like a perfect mirror. At this point, we had just finished an entire day of paddling and felt like we were in complete solitude. Bliss.

This is where I got to show my 30-year-old son what I was made of: This view was the reward after a 6.5 km hike on rough terraine, rising 20 stories high, (according to my phone app), which then opens onto this dramatic basin that is filled by the Bay of Fundy’s highest tides in the world. He was concerned it might be a stress. When we got to the top, everyone else just laid around, “chilling” but I pulled out my portable WC kit and did a series of quick watercolour sketches from which this 24” by 36” acrylic painting was made. Then we hiked another 6.5 km back. Huzzah!

300,000 years ago, The Bay of Fundy was a lake of lava, and the dramatic rock formations were made of basalt thrown out of the lava. This is the most dramatic stretch of coastline, accessed through a trail on the road near Tiverton

I wanted to play with orientation and perspective with this. One of the best flowers I ever put in my garden, with a powerful scent.

We can tell if it’s an early or late summer by the day our magnolia blooms. If it starts before May first, it confirms that global warming is hard at work. If it’s after the sixth, we blame it on a wet spring. The flowers stick around for about three weeks before the tree has leaves, so it’s quite the display, but hard to paint en masse.

Boris Nemtov was tailed by Putin’s FSB hit squad. They shot him crossing the Bolshoy Bridge in Moscow, hours after appealing to people to protest the previous war in Ukraine.

Viktor Yushchenko is a former president of Ukraine, who survived Dioxin poison, which left him horribly disfigured. He was deposed and replaced by a Putin puppet who was eventually driven out of Ukraine and back to his Russian masters by a popular revolt.

Alexei Navalny is a Russian anti-corruption campaigner and lawyer who Putin had thrown in jail on trumped-up charges for embezzlement. Then Putin had him poisoned with Novichok nerve agent. He flew to Berlin for treatment. On his return to Russia, he was arrested for violating the conditions of his parole, and thrown in prison, because he had failed to report to his parole officer twice per months because he was busy being poisoned by the big boss. While in prison, he is now being tortured.

The long arm of Putin reaches all over the world. Here is Alexander Litvienenko, an ex-spy who was unsuccessful in escaping Putin’s grasp. He was poisoned with Polonium -210 and died a miserable death over the course of several weeks. When you watch Servant of the People, the Ukrainian show, they joke a lot about being served Polonium tea by Putin.