Well, the pastel picnic tables clashed spectacularly with my lunch this day, but they proved to be the perfect example of why a table setting should include a paintbrush for the first course.
Tag Archives: Nova Scotia
Tagging wall
Who doesn’t love the license plate game? Certainly not the people who own this shed—I think it’s safe to say they win in one fell swoop.
Lurking in doorways
You already know that I have a thing for doors, but I also love sketching through doorways. It’s one thing to compose a scene within the rectangle of a page spread—but it feels like an extra challenge to use the doorway itself to frame a scene within a scene. I find myself doing this sort of thing all the time (scroll down to the second sketch at that link), to the point where I’m always peering through things to see if I can line up an interesting sketch. So if you ever want to come across me sketching somewhere, a good place to start would be to check the nearest doorway.
Black, white and drawn all over
Other times, I do the opposite of what I showed you last time: I skip the color entirely, and focus purely on the line. I wish I could tell you that the reason for it this time was for some lofty, arty purpose…but, uh, no. I skipped the paint this time because I was hungry, and my lunch was getting cold.
(I think I made the right choice. That was a darn fine lunch!)
The last homely house
Now this is a house in its own little world. This tidy little cottage was part of a pair of villages located at the northernmost tip of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia—which for all intents and purposes made it almost the last little house on the whole continent.
Somehow, though, it didn’t feel lonely. It felt like a refuge—especially considering how many hours of driving it took me to get there that day. You have no idea how badly I wanted to just knock on the door and come in out of the salt air.
Plastered with pumpkins
I can never seem to get enough of this season—I love being surrounded by my favorite color, my favorite weather, my favorite flavors. I’m glad there are places like this this little bakery in Nova Scotia, where you can go have a cup of tea surrounded by reminders of autumn in every direction. Otherwise, I’d probably end up going nuts with the fall decorating at home, and ending up buried alive in decorative gourds.
I probably should have done with it and just go live in a pumpkin patch.
Reflecting pool
I really should have a bumper sticker that says something like “I brake for tiny fishing villages.” I know I’m not the only one, either. I figured Blue Rocks would be another Peggys Cove in terms of number of fellow tourists—but I was so happy to be mistaken. That morning, at least, it was just me, my sketchbook, and the mirror-like calm of the cove.
Silent wharf
I’m sure this place is just crawling with tourists in the summer, but on the October evening I was there, it was just me, my sketchbook, and a nice slice of history.
Toddler tug
After seeing this, I would like to propose a requirement that all utilitarian equipment and vehicles also be hilarious.
Water taxi
Now, Texas might be home to an outlandish vehicle or two, it’s true, but at least it was in keeping with the whole Texas theme. In Nova Scotia’s fishing villages, you’re more likely to see boats “parked” behind houses than cars. Since it took me three times as long to drive to this spot as sailing would have done—well, it’s not hard to see why.