Photos from Bruce County

I spent last week out in Bruce County cottage country where my brother-in-law and family lives… with their newborn son! (more importantly, my new nephew)

Here are some photos of other, far less interesting (un-baby) things that caught my eye when I wasn’t too busy mooning over sweet Mr. Nephew McSquishy Pants.

Beautiful stones in shades of rose and tan, olive, jade, slate, and every combination speckled and sparkled in granite.

Smooth stones, rough stones, chocolate bon-bon stones, precious pearly stones, tiger striped stones, stones that look like they’re bleeding (iron oxide, i suspect). fleshy looking stones that could be earths unknown organs:

Stones *shlocking* and *clucking* and *tunking* , tumbling in the surf… (one of my favourite sounds of all time)

And fossils:

(honestly, i think every single stone out there must be a fossil of some kind.)

And then there was the sky, playing a duet in colour with the landscape:

And down on the beach where you’d never expect it, I found a little insect friend sunbathing:

And farther down the way, some milkweed growing, and this little (big!) guy having a munch:

If you don’t recognize him, that is a monarch caterpillar.  Monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed – easy to identify although this is the first one I’ve ever seen outside of a book.   I didn’t take a photo of them – really, how could I manage to capture the magic of it? – so you’ll have to take my word for it that the air at the cottage was blessed with monarchs fluttering about; sipping nectar and dancing graceful zigzags in the pollen-dusty breezes, totally oblivious to their own velvety orange goregeousness. Oh.

I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about butterflies in the last few weeks, and monarchs in particular… I think this is a post of its own though, so for now I’ll leave you with this painting of one I made at the farm a few weeks ago:

Vision - watercolour and acrylic ink on paper

And oh, I’ve done a little shop update, where this new painting, Vision, and many others are now available as lovely 16×20 inch giclee prints. I will be listing more prints and my new greeting cards and postcards in the coming days, so have a little look, won’t you? I am so pleased with how everything turned out and it’s very exciting to now be able to share these works with you.

ciao for now my friends,

Anna