The rental shops along the Santa Monica boardwalk, in addition to their stacks of boogie boards and bicycles, also offer segways. This strikes me as hilarious. Imagine the opening sequence of Three’s Company if it was filmed today…

When I was a kid we had a Westfalia camper, complete with a teeny sink and fridge, a drop-leaf table, and most important, a pop-top with a canvas hammock. Just looking at this van I can smell the mustiness of that yellow-orange fabric, taste the campfire toast, feel the mosquito bites, and see the glowing shapes written in the night sky with a red-hot stick from the fire. It all makes me think of one thing: summer.

It snowed here again today. It’s so not funny any more.

When I did the silhouette view of this beauty I promised to revisit her, and tonight was the night.

It’s funny, typing the title reminded me of when I was a teenager, playing vinyl records on the rockin’ Sears hi-fi, and being stymied by the concept of a reprise on records. It never really made sense to me, having two versions of the same song on one record, often with only slight variations—but I must say, now I completely understand. It’s often all I can do to keep from posting multiple versions of drawings at various stages. But this one seemed to be content to stay black & white, so I fought my urge to add colour and instead just let it be.

Last week I spent some quality time wandering around the nooks and crannies of old New Westminster, and hopped a fence at the river’s edge for the opportunity to snap a photo of this fantastic wee tug idling there. I was with a friend whose father manned tugboats for many years, so this one is for him.

And yes, the teeth painted on the hull are akin to the teeth painted on fighter planes, but they remind me of the muppet Animal’s mouth. Sort of softens the intended effect, doesn’t it?

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Despite the chillier-than-normal weather lately, we can take heart in a few sure signs that spring is indeed coming: the birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and the squirrels have taken their scooters out of storage.

A reminder: if you live in Vancouver, watch the Courier today for an article about my Kingsway project…

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Today while wandering just west of Main Street, I fell hard for a Comet. I took a few photos and planned to use it as my model for today’s drawing—that was, until I wandered a few blocks further and stumbled upon this sexy beast. Poor Comet, it didn’t stand a chance—I mean, how to compete with this? I will definitely do another version of this beauty from another angle, but for today I couldn’t resist the perfection of its oh-so-fine silhouette.

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It was surprising to see a Model A on a downtown street today, but far more shocking was the language that the driver used when a bicycle courier cut him off. Talk about road rage.

Sometimes, when you least expect them, things just spring themselves upon you. Yesterday I was walking in a nearby neighbourhood when what to my wondering eyes should appear but this beautiful beast, calling out to me for immortality. When these things happen, one mustn’t question, but simply heed the request quietly.

As you wish.

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This is one of the first cars I ever drove. Long before I got my license, of course, but we lived miles outside a small town, and I only drove it around the yard (ours wasn’t convertible, so the experience was ever-so-slightly less cool than it could have been, ripping—and by ripping I mean traveling at speeds of nearly 5mph—across the lawn with the top down). What I would give to get my hands on this baby now…

Oddly enough, my most vivid memory of this car is being in the parking lot of a corner store in town, hiding in the back seat with Willow as her mother and my father scolded a kid we went to school with for throwing a candy bar wrapper on the ground. It’s so funny to think back on it now, that little punk completely deserved to be confronted—he’s almost certainly in jail today—but at the time, we thought we would die if anyone saw that we were involved in such an act. Teenagers are truly strange creatures.

Not far from my house I have spotted this old maroon Falcon parked a few times, and each time I think to myself, I have to remember this one for a drawing. Recently I was walking nearby with my camera and thought I should go check if it happened to be there. I crossed my fingers and felt so fortunate when I turned onto the street and could see it up ahead—it felt like a stroke of good luck, like I was destined to draw this lovely old beast today. Of course once I got close enough to see that the inside is rotting into itself and it likely hasn’t moved in a decade, the whole thing felt a wee bit less fated…