Picking Redberries - Digital Drawing

Picking Redberries
Digital Drawing - 600 px x 600 px

In other parts of the world, these berries are known as Lingonberries, or Partridgeberries, or Foxberries. Whatever they are called, these berries are appreciated for their tart, rich fruity taste and for their health-promoting nutrients. Around here, people simply call them Redberries, and they get out their recipes for redberry muffins, jams, puddings, cakes, breads and steaming spicy redberry teas.

I had the good fortune to go wilderness berry picking several times in the past few weeks, and besides bringing home buckets of these bright red beauties, I also brought back a store of ideas of images and stories that I want to illustrate.

I will be experimenting with my digital graphics tablet and from time to time, you will get to see these explorations. And if you have some Redberry muffins or Redberry tea at hand while you are following my explorations, so much the better!
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Elizabeth's Walk - Climbing - Final Layout

Elizabeth's Walk - Climbing - Final Layout

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Graphite on paper, 3" x 5.5"
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This is the final layout for the linocut I mentioned last week, one of a series depicting an annual springtime cross-country walking expedition by Innu elder Elizabeth Penashue.
If you compare the two preparatory drawings, you will notice that the trees on the left and right sides are in the same positions, but the small tree in the center foreground is gone and the climbers are spread farther apart enhancing the diagonal movement in the drawing.
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Elizabeth's Walk - Climbing

Elizabeth's Walk - Climbing

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Graphite on paper, 3" x 5.5"
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I am working on a folio of linocuts depicting a springtime cross-country walking expedition by Innu elder Elizabeth Penashue , with members of her family and guests. I want to change the composition of the photograph I am working from, and this is one of a series of sketches to try out different arrangements of the scene. As I was drawing, I could see more and more possible solutions, and ways of adding visual elements or taking them away to come up with a sense of balance as well as a dynamic feeling of movement in the image. This may not be the final arrangement, but I'm getting close!
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Trees on the Point

A page out of my sketchbook, looking out over the riverbank and the ice on the Churchill River.
Every day a new image for the month of April.

Dome Mountain from Burnt Point - Ice Fishing

A page out of my sketchbook, looking across the ice on Terrington Basin toward Dome Mountain.

Every day a new image for the month of April.

Three figures on the ice

A page from my sketchbook: Three figures on the ice.

Every day a new image for the month of April.