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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Bones of the Earth - Capstan Island Battery

Bones of the Earth - Capstan Island Battery
Oil on Canvas, 11 3/4" x 15 3/4"

detail: Bones of the Earth - Capstan Island Battery

No matter how ancient and impressive the geology might be, there are times when it is outstripped by the fleeting drama of the clouds and the transient character of the foliage in a scene.

Each of these natural processes take place in its own time frame and with its own cycle of activity. That's a lot to think about when you are looking at a painting!

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Preliminary Drawing: The Battery 1

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series
"The Battery" - Capstan Island, Labrador
Graphite on paper, 7" x 14"

The weathered cliff face of "The Battery" rises to a height of over 900 feet above sea level on the Labrador side of the Strait of Belle Isle in eastern Canada, between the communities of L'Anse au Loup and Capstan Island.

This astonishing formation is made of layers of different types of rock which settled at the bottom of a primordial ocean thousands and thousands of years ago. Nowadays in the summertime on this headland, we can see green and brown stripes of vegetation clinging to the hills, and in the winter, we can see blue and white stripes of ice and snow blown into crevices.

That we get to see anything at all is because of geological forces which pushed this mass of rock well above sea level as part of the Appalachian mountain chain, and because of weathering forces which have eroded this ancient peak into its present rugged form.
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Preliminary Drawing: Littoral 1

Preliminary Drawing for "Bones of the Earth" series
"Littoral" - The Strand, Red Bay, Labrador.
Graphite on paper, 9" x 11"


At the same time as I am having fun observing the erosion effects of the rocks in this area, I am also having fun with the technical names of the features I am portraying.

The word "Littoral" relates to a shore, especially the sea-shore, and most particularly in a coastal region, the shore zone between high and low water marks.

I suppose I could have said, "Rocks at Low Tide" but that other word is a lot more interesting!

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Bones of the Earth - Point Amour

Bones of the Earth - Point Amour
Oil on Canvas, 16" x 20"

detail: Bones of the Earth - Point Amour

There are a number of remarkable things to see at Point Amour. One is the lighthouse, completed in 1857, one of the tallest in eastern Canada at 109 feet (33m), and a visible landmark for miles in the Strait of Belle Isle. Another is a burial site of the Maritime Archaic Indians dated from approximately 7500 years ago, which reveals the richness of the marine environment then as it is now.

For me, I was struck by the "terraced beach" at Point Amour. A terraced beach is formed as seabed, that has been weighted down with glaciers, gradually springs back up after the glaciers melt, and creates a new shoreline with the water. Well, the glaciers are long gone, but there are beaches all along this coast whose profile shows the terraced look of their icy past.

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Bones of the Earth - L'Anse au Clair

Bones of the Earth - L'Anse au Clair, Labrador

Oil on Canvas, 16" x 20"

detail - Bones of the Earth - L'Anse au Clair, Labrador

For a long time, I have been fascinated by the rock formations that I recognize driving through western Newfoundland and southern Labrador. In some places there are towers of rock and in other places craggy cliffs or piles of boulders and rubble. Here, years ago, a forest fire opened up the rocky surface, which hasn't yet grown over again. It's as if the broken soil has exposed the Bones of the Earth.

Special Effects in Photoshop - American Toad

Special Effects in Photoshop - American Toad

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Post Process Digital Photograph, 800px x 600px
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Imagine finding this at the bottom of the garden!

As with yesterday's image, the post-processing for this picture involved cropping and reducing the resolution of the photo, setting up an edge mask and applying several filters, and placing the resulting image on a neutral background in another document.

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