Today I drove to the Okanagan to meet with my clients. Although I could have taken a relatively new freeway I decided instead to take a different road - a road I knew well from decades past. This was the scenic route.
Back in the late seventies and early eighties I made my living doing detailed pen and ink drawings. These drawings and the limited edition prints derived from them were sold in about forty galleries and frame shops throughout British Columbia. I travelled across the province many times in those years selling my artwork in these far flung places. As I traveled I would take a different route each time, documenting everything I saw along the way. My drawings were based on this research.
One of my favorite places in those days was a spot along the Hope-Princeton highway called Bromley rock on the Similkameen River.
The river is forced to bend around the massive rock and in the process it scours the opposite riverbank in high water exposing the roots of many wonderful trees there. It was good to visit with my old friends once more.
I did a number of drawings based on these trees, one of which still hangs on our wall.
When we were designing the new house I drew reference from these same trees. Janis asked that we make the trees not quite so twisty and knarly and I had no problem with that (as long as we did the trees).
Many other sources also provided inspiration as well.
-grampa dan
