Quilting and other Things

Last Saturday was the fourth of the nature sketching classes and this time it was at Colonel Samuel Smith Park .  One of the fun things with this class has been to go to different places in Toronto.  Some I've been to before and some its the first time.  I walked through the edge of the park last summer when I walked part of the waterfront trail into Toronto and then again in December when I went out with some friends for a photography day. Saturday rained most of the morning but the Humber College student building was near where we were going to be so the class was scheduled to go ahead.  I arrived wearing my rain pants and jacket for hiking but should have had my hat and sunglasses.  Again, it was a lot of gesture sketches trying to capture birds in nature except the owl and the kestrel.  There was a bird festival in progress and one of the places had birds on exhibit.  The owl had been hit by a car and had a badly broken wing.  I'm not sur...

Saturday was the third sketching class and this time we went to Riverdale Farm.  I've lived in the GTA for over 30 years and it was my first visit.  Rather fun.  Our guest this week was a Veterinarian and our subject was gesture sketching using the farm animals.  Rather like life drawing classes were the model changes poses quickly.  Some of the animals moved quickly.  Others held their pose for several minutes or would come back to a similar place as they ate. The vet had diagrams of how arm and leg bones in humans align with the similar limbs in dogs and horses.  I was surprised to learn that what I had thought was the knee in animals is really the equivalent of my ankle!  No wonder it bends in a strange direction. The horse's body stayed relatively still as he ate some hay.  His front end moved a lot but he kept coming back to a similar pose.  The cow was curled up for a while until the other one came over and butted in on he...

This past Saturday was the second of the Nature Sketching classes.  This time we meet at the Toronto Botanical Gardens (Edwards Gardens) and went down to sketch beside Wilket Creek in the ravine. Our naturalist talked about invasive species and how important the ravines are to the ecosystem.  The beautiful grasses that I love to take pictures of are an invasive species -- they grow quickly and with a deep dense root system that really takes over and area.  Since the seeds are so light in the feathery heads, it also spreads like wildfire.  Its not native to this area so nothing or atleast not many animals will eat it so there are no natural predators.  I hadn't thought about plants having predators to help keep them under control.  Invasive grasses (different location) In the last century many ravines were filled in, often with garbage, without thought or understanding of their importance.  Ravines are carved by rivers.  In this case, r...

I saw a Facebook ad for a nature sketching class run by the Bateman Foundation.  It runs for 8 Saturday's between now and the end of June.  The class was s described here:   https://www.naturesketch.org/naturesketch-club/adult-naturesketch-club-toronto/ As is my custom, I debated for a while then decided yes I did want to sign up so registered on Thursday.  Yesterday was the first class and we met at Allan Gardens in downtown Toronto.  I'd never been before and will need to make a return visit.  The class was in the children's greenhouse.   The talk this week was about cacti and succulents.    The first exercise was to study a plant for 30 seconds then go back to the table and draw from memory for 3-5 minutes.  The 30 seconds seemed long but when I went to sketch, I found that I'd studied the shape but not counted the leaves or looked closely at how they related from one round to the next.    Mine turned ou...