Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Feb 2, 2022.

I have been thinking about a few ideas for my sketches recently. Today looks like it’ll work to try one out. I begin by sourcing the thinnest watercolour paper I can find—I need it to fit in the printer—and print almost 20 of my Christmas Eve oranges. Next, I need some usable watercolours—I am sure there is a stray paint set in the crafts cupboard. Nothing. I ask Violet if she would let me use one of her kits. Nope! Apparently, I am not responsible enough . . . I didn’t return her set the last time. To the local art shop I go. This feels exciting. When was the last time I purchased a paint set for myself? Have I ever? All this leading to an afternoon of painting.

I lay out each orange print. My vision is simple: one colour per orange. Despite a desire to paint them all in one sitting, I am relaxed and content with a brush in my hand. I am caught with how colour changes each one. How the brush strokes add depth and life. So much better than painting a wall!

I tell each family member that these are orbinges not oranges. I am harkening back to an early pandemic Sunday cafe I would run called “Himiney Orbinge”—we needed something to mark the weekend. They are moderately interested. Violet wants to paint her own. How can you not want an orbinge?

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Jan 26, 2022.

With all the cold and snow, it's tempting to think that everything is hibernating and that there's no life to be found. Where can I linger with a living organism? The kitchen is a good place to find my muse: a red pepper!

I settle in to bring it alive on the page, surrounded by sounds of piano practicing, the buzz of homework, and clamours in the kitchen.

I outline the pepper domes and rough in shading to get a sense of the depth on paper. It's been a couple weeks since I sketched, but it's all coming back to me. After a few passes Violet chimes in: "It looks good, Daddy. I'd probably stop there." She's got taste! But, I'm determined to make the highlights stand out. I move to my 2B pencil to blend and speed up the process.

Nothing like sketching a pepper with Violet watching over my shoulder to break the mid-winter slumber.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Jan 12, 2022.

It’s cold outside and in the house. I’m in the basement working with my winter jacket on. I check the windows to make sure they’re completely closed. That’s when I spot the fly in the window frame. Yes! It’s big and very dead. I need to sketch it—as part of my journey to emulate Robert Hooke. I bring the insect over to my pad and pencils. I fiddle with it and it falls over on my page, upside down and at precarious angles. Finally, I get it where I want it. It has only one wing and fewer legs from my adjusting, but it’s still drawable. Delicate things—these flies.

I start sketching and immediately it becomes clear that I can’t breathe or the fly will pulse with my breath. No problem, I’ve practiced for this with my foray into yoga. Nothing a little Wim Hof breathing can’t solve. As I draw, the difference between the precision of the wing—its crisp lines—and the shaggy hairs of the head and body, are stark. The long hairs stop at the abdomen, almost as if it were wearing a furry bomber jacket. See, we both need our winter coats.

My time off for Christmas was successful, my body has forgotten the stresses it carried two weeks ago. So as I begin to pick up again what I had put down, I am trying to do it with intention. I want to guard against the strain of too many tasks too fast.

Somehow as I ponder my reentry I am reminded of the trees out west in Tofino, where we have spent many summers. Each tree its own ecosystem, lined by fungus, moss, lichen and a variety of symbiotic plants. I search for an image in my notebook, something I sketched a couple of years ago. I was enamoured with a particular tree and returned to it over a few days. I worked to transcribe each of its ripples and scars. I imagined the tree as an apartment building for different species, each one vying for space to grow.

How do I chose what to pick up and what to leave on the ground in 2022? I need to be careful. My body—the ecosystem.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Dec 31, 2021.

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you are well and enjoying the season. I will be posting everyday this week to ensure my days are purposeful and reflective. Join me! Let me know what you are doing to slow down and just be.

I am up early to review my year. Nothing big or organized, just a quiet walk. I take stalk of the horizon and see what catches my eye to sketch. It’s a barren landscape right now at the end of December, but when my eyes settle I find some surprising things: ripples in a small stream, bird prints in the newly fallen snow. And then a few deer frolicking in the field a hundred feet away. A wonder.

Funnily, I choose this dried weed to sketch. I am drawn by the protective cages the sprigs create. I emphasize the closer branches with dark lines. Each crumpled bloom reminds me of fireworks bursting to protect the inner sanctum. What’s in there? What’s the precious cargo?

My thoughts turn to what resides at my true centre—ideas, loves, fears, regrets. I’m puzzled at why I protect my fears. I decide it is a mix of knowing oneself or not, overcoming this fear of being known and letting go. A constant work for the coming year—to learn and release.

Happy New Year!

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Dec 30, 2021.

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you are well and enjoying the season. I will be posting everyday this week to ensure my days are purposeful and reflective. Join me! Let me know what you are doing to slow down and just be.

We step delicately, then jump when the water hits our boots. We are gathering stones, shells and sticks to make a bridge. We want to cross over the winter stream! So far we are winning. Fallen tree branches from the wind storm serve to connect each bank; stones and shells fill in the gaps. The current is fast and our hands sting from the cold. I pocket a few of the zebra muscle casings for later.

At home, I outline the small shell grabbing my 4H pencil to start. The family gathers for lunch just as I begin. Someone bumps the table. They chatter about my sketch. I’m not used to sharing this part. I try to stay open to this new moment. Elsie organizes my pencils. F pencil, please. I am ready to go darker. Not perfect, a few splashes along the way, but a moment expanded. Winning.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Dec 29, 2021.

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you are well and enjoying the season. I will be posting everyday this week to ensure my days are purposeful and reflective. Join me! Let me know what you are doing to slow down and just be.

For Christmas we received a book called The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse (thx AE!). It is a collection of vignettes where a young boy asks his animal friends about how to live a good life. The life experience and insight the animals offer is surprising. Violet and I read it before bed and she immediately observed, “The boy is wise.”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the mole. “Kind,” said the boy.

The message is accompanied by beautiful free flowing illustrations done in fountain pen and water colour. Each scene is an impression that allows the reader to fill in the gaps. I like this sparse collaborative style.

Reading this whimsical book helped me slow down and reframe my day. Thoughts on kindness, family, friends, loving and being loved. Highly recommended. Thank you, Charlie Mackesy.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Dec 28, 2021.

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you are well and enjoying the season. I will be posting everyday this week to ensure my days are purposeful and reflective. Join me! Let me know what you are doing to slow down and just be.

It’s the day after Christmas and everyone is on their devices. I need a break from silicon. Scanning the house I find a dried cotton branch. I remove it from the vase and lay it on the table. I’ve never really looked at how cotton grows, what the flowers look like, how the branching schemes and fibres emerge. Such disconnection from the T-shirt I’m wearing.

I attempt to capture the depth and softness of the cotton. Curved lines. Over and over. I use sharp dark lines to highlight the worn leaves and vestiges of the boll.

The coexistence of the soft and hard in the cotton remind me how intermingled our digital and physical lives are. And how quickly we can be lost or found.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Dec 27, 2021.

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you are well and enjoying the season. I will be posting everyday this week to ensure my days are purposeful and reflective. Join me! Let me know what you are doing to slow down and just be.

Christmas looks more virtual than we expected over here thanks to rapid tests and all that they reveal. Still, I’m excited about Christmas and need an outlet on this Christmas Eve morning.

I see the mandarin oranges on the counter and begin to peel one. And then another. The citrus zest fills my nose and my fingers get tacky. The muse has spoken and I position a few slices in front of me and start sketching. First, I outline the shape, then add dark lines to define the slices. I try hard to keep the empty space untouched and still communicate the juiciness of the orange.

In my contemplation I unthinkingly put the slices in my mouth. I panic and spit them out. Phew, only a slight chew mark. A good catch . . . like our rapid tests. Ha!

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Dec 22, 2021.

Dozens of purple blooms—could it be Lithodora?—cover the ground under a small tree in our backyard. Coco our cat has dampened a small patch with her body. This is where she watches and waits. We call it the Coco garden. This flower finds me, particularly the stark geometric centre. It feels out of place among the fluid lines of the petals. I work with my pencils, layer by layer, constructing the scene. Blending and filling in leaves for context.

I turn this sketch into a card for my father. I wanted to share the quiet refuge our cat had found and hear about one of his.

Recently, he sent a picture of the card back to me, wondering if this was the sketch that sparked Pulling Earth. I think it did…along with a lockdown or two, the discovery of a farm, and my own need to create a little Coco garden in my head.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Dec 16, 2021.

Elsie and I are busy at work. She’s on the couch doing a historical places assignment. She still needs one more location. I’m at the dining room table sketching a succulent, tentatively weighing in when I dare. I’m taking the being-nearby-just-in-case-you-want-to-talk approach on the off chance I can help. It’s a delicate balance and I’m rallying for the right moment. I suggest some music and put on Oscar Peterson Plays the George Gershwin Songbook. She seems to like it. It feels like a win.

I like this succulent. The leaves are thick and smooth and have a deep contrast from light to dark across their surface. Although, I’m finding it hard to capture the round plumpness of the cotyledonary cups. I change my viewing angle to deal with the reflection from my lamp. That’s better. From this vantage point I can see how the leaves seem to embrace the stem completely and touch each other.

Elsie says a few things to me. We are chitchatting now as we labour away. But still, no mention of homework.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Dec 8, 2021.

It’s been a busy week. The final rush heading into the holidays. Everyone around me feeling the uptick in activity and the strain it brings. I need this sketch. Thankfully, our Christmas tree transforms our home – the room is washed in golden light, the familiar objects taking on a cosy feel. Also, the cat has another place to go for water. I sit down and focus on our Fraser fir.

Looking directly at the end of a branch, I start to draw. Each end has a characteristic bulge of twig growth. The needles are flat and roundish, and remind me of an aloe vera plant. Thousands of miniature aloe arms emerging. They protrude from all sides, but then reach up. The bottom leaves curl to see more sunlight. I start breathing deeply in hopes of pulling in the conifer scent. It’s hard to make out. I’m still carrying the weight of a week halfway done, but its hold is diminishing. With every move of the pencil, a few more threads loosing. Pulling earth into the season.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Dec 1, 2021.

I’m hiding inside, in the warmth, peering through the window to sketch today. My subject is a small apple tree. There is snow on the ground and only a few leaves remain. The scene feels barren. Cold. But still, the snow sparkles in the sun. I am drawn to the tree's architecture – so many little branches. They feel whimsical in their multitude, so I try to be whimsical too. With my pencil. Keeping my wrist loose and free. My hope is that the whimsy will overcome my uncertainty about how to sketch this snowy landscape.

My mind wanders to pruning this sapling before me. I imagine thinning out the branches on the page, making room for growth. I enjoy the exercise of shaping and willing this little tree into focus. Then I press my pencil hard on the branch edges. There needs to be some certainty.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Nov 24, 2021.

It’s morning. I’ve been mucking about the farm for over an hour. Violet has spotted me and is sprinting to the barn. We decide it is time to sketch and some milkweed catches our eye. We pull our chairs into the tall grass and settle in. Bec finds us and documents our sketching, as well as her milkweed planting adventure. She is manifesting Monarch butterflies into our life.

I share a precious piece of sketching paper with Violet and the use of my pencils. I outline the pod and begin to focus. Violet does the same. We chat about the elements of her brilliant scene: the drooping grass, the milkweed cluster, the clouds. We debate the addition of a bee given that there isn't one in sight. We giggle about the bird “kokoo" sound her birds make. Just regular work banter. Pleasant.

I capture stripes that coarse across the pod casing. The stem unexpectedly juts inward, curves and then meets with the main stem. Some craggily bits hang on. The pod is starting to open. The seed plume reaching out. We liberate a few seeds and watch them float in the wind. A quiet repartee.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Nov 18, 2021.

I find a leaf halfway down a lavender sprig. I pass over with my pencil many times to replicate the leaf texture. I grab my B pencil to outline the emerging growth. I am breathing full breaths.

I imagine a time series of this leaf; several days collapsed into seconds — it swirls as it tracks the sun, dew drops appear and disappear, and those primordial appendages become . . . I don’t really know. I suspect they are leaves, but looking at the lavender plant I’m not so sure.

I’m reminded of the two nascent sprigs at home. My girls. I have a notion of what they will become, intertwined with my hopes and dreams. Their lives zipping past. Babes only seconds ago. And yet, at the same time I am not so sure.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Nov 10, 2021.

I find myself in child's pose on the basement floor. It has been a hard week and it’s only Wednesday morning. I need a break, some space to breathe and stretch. It's not working, but I am happy for the distraction. Turning my head to the side I can see under the sofa. I see some bits here and there, a yoga mat, my eraser. There is plenty of room for the cat to navigate this underworld. My eyes focus on one of the bits: a kernel of popcorn—a vestige of our Marvel Universe movie marathon we started to cope with covid. Elsie insisted we watch the movies in chronological order. I am proud of our family accomplishment, even buoyed by it.

The kernels remind me of sketching popcorn on vacation in Tofino. I chose two bits of popped corn, one fully formed and one half popped. I remember trying to get the light right, shifting in my seat and moving my pad. How to capture the puffy folds of the puffed corn? I was no longer in the room; my surroundings were more feeling than image. Elsie was winning at gin rummy. A buzz of activity out of earshot. Time passed and my blur was lifted by a commotion in the card game. Half a kernel.

Back in the present, still in my child’s pose, my breathing slows. I feel a little more distance from the underworld of the week. Gifts from popcorn linked moments.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Nov 3, 2021.

I lug myself to the top of Violet’s loft bed, careful to not scrape my back against the light fixture. I fall onto her covers. It's a cosy space. Nestled beside her is a world of pillows, blankets and stuffies. We giggle because our cat has learned to climb the ladder and joins us. She finds a spot by our feet. Then we choose our book. Violet suggests Sidewalk Flowers. I remember this one. No words, just beautiful illustrations of a girl picking flowers in the city. We fill in the story according to the pictures, flip back pages to see if we missed any detail, and interpret the colour choices.

Contemplating this gentle story, I am struck with the same feeling of calm I find when I’m sketching. Violet is lighter too. We journey together, finishing each others thoughts, settling in for sleep. We turn off the light and share what we are grateful for—we both agree on this moment.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Oct 27, 2021.

I am at the edge of the forest, in my snow pants. The day is wet and rainy and let's just say I'm scared of being cold. I have my eyes on a juniper tree laden with dusty blue berries we passed on our hike yesterday. I outline the branching of the juniper leaf, then do another pass to give it some width. I add in the berries at the top and a rain drop at the bottom. It doesn’t come to life until I put in some cross hatching and add some darker defining lines. I work hard to capture the dying branch to the left, rusty coloured compared to the deep blue-green of the rest.

I am testing out my new pencil set and starting with the 4H. Soon I will move to the 2H, then the B. So many options! I need to figure out my path through the pencils, as well as the sketch. It reminds me of getting a pristine colouring pencil set as a kid, when the pencils started out all the same length, perfect and ready for use. Violet finds me out by the garden where I am sketching. She bounds to me with excitement, smelling my secret. Where did you get these pencils, Daddy? We get her set up with her own pad and we sketch together. Every few minutes I am prompted to use a different pencil. She looks on bemused. We start to discuss each other's progress--how to move slow and add layer by layer. Violet is catching on. We listen to my weird but nice music (Planetarium by Sufjan Stevens). She draws. She adds a layer. She takes a break to twirl. She returns to her drawing. She returns the pencils to their perfect order.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Oct 21, 2021.

Bec is on the hunt for mushrooms these days. She is writing a script about a mycologist and is seeing mushrooms everywhere. She tells me about one out front that must have popped up the last few days. I head out with my pad and pencil and begin to draw.

It's a big, bold mushroom. I get to work capturing the gills, its various textures and the colour gradations of its creamy skin. There are flecks of dirt that litter the fungus, on the stalk and bottom right of the cap. It's taking some time to get it right, and I am visited by various family members as I draw. Everyone seems to have the same urge: to squash the mushroom. I give them tasks to distract them. Pick flowers, find me a rock.

Oddly, as I focus on the shape and texture of the mushroom I am overcome with an urge to chew it. Odd sensation, but not my first time. During my PhD I spent a year working with Caenorhabditis elegans, a small transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives on a bed of bacteria (at least in the lab). To move them, I had to look through a microscope and dab my flame sterilized platinum poker into some of the bacteria. I would use the goopiness to pick up one or more of the tiny worms. As I shuffled nematodes, my mouth would begin to water, and my jaw tighten with that familiar chewing sensation. It had something to do with the texture of the mushroom and C. elegans butting up against the intense focus required to stare into a microscope for hours.

As I draw an ant appears. It is normal size, about the size of the darkest spot in the mushroom centre, but it surprises me. It crawls quickly up from the gills to the top of the cap. It seems to revere the mushroom. How could it not? A reverence we both share. We both want to chew it.

Previously posted on pullingearth.substack.com. Oct 13, 2021.

The morning light reflects off a thin edge on the side of this leaf, most of it covered in darkness. I am out early by the barn, capturing the shadow with my pencil, working line by line. It is a wonder, I think, that this leaf lives. A single point connects the top and bottom of the right side. Despite its wound, it is deep green throughout, which I interpret as pride. I am still here, it proclaims.

As I draw, memories of my mom flood through me. “I don’t want your pity,” she said a couple months before she died. It wasn’t as stark as it sounds now. We were talking about her health and she misunderstood my questions.

Over ten years ago, I was confused by her words. Now I hear them differently, “I accept my path, but barely have enough to hold on. Don’t feel sorry for me. I need your strength.”

Strength is fragile. In these words. In this leaf.