The tiny musings found below will perhaps provide you an opportunity to pause and reflect on our world and our place in it. You can subscribe to receive posts in your inbox (approximately once a week)! Note: all writing and art is © Christopher Buddle.
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University days
Beginnings.
A place for learning
old buildings, new ideas.
This time of year is about beginnings as so many hundreds of thousands of people start school in early September. At my University the Fall term actually started last week, and it was so wonderful to see so many people on campus. There is such good energy, anticipation, and nervousness. It’s a time for beginnings.
McGill is an old University – and just passed its 200th year anniversary. This is always apparent when I walk through the main gates on the downtown campus and see many of the older buildings. The main pathways up to the University takes you directly towards the arts building. It’s a wonderful building and I appreciate it every time I see it. It has character: it is formidable and beautiful. It has hard edges balanced with a circular cupola.
While I do not normally draw buildings I am often drawn to the arts building, and have drawn, sketched, and done watercolours of this place many times. So much so that I can draw it from memory, and that’s kind of fun. In this post I have depicted two different takes on the building, both done last spring – perhaps you have a favourite!
I wish all the students a successful term!
This is a photo of my watercolour process – sometime I find adding pen after colour is better, especially for urban/architecture scenes. You will see the small travel kit and water brush – I worked on this piece while on my commuter train. (As you may have noticed, this post is not on the usual Monday schedule, because yesterday was a holiday!)
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Colours
Testing.
ochre, sap green, cadmium red
emergent properties
I have been working for well over a year on a very time-intensive watercolour art project (details to be revealed at a later date but <wink wink> it involves biodiversity, paint, and Haiku!). Over the course of my summer vacation, I reached a rather high level of obsession as I worked to finish up a dozen or so pieces. Every day I would set up at a large table, bring out my paints and brushes, and I always placed tester-pages underneath and beside the work I was focusing on.
These tester sheets of watercolour paper (or sometimes I just used mixed medium paper) were used to dab a brush to ensure I was using the correct amount of water, so little drops of paint accumulated on the pages. I also used the pages to test colours, ensuring it was correct and modifying the mix if it wasn’t.
Having tester pages is always part of doing watercolours, but after several hours, or sometimes a day, I would turn over the tester paper or start a new one, and after a week or so, I realized there was an accumulation of these colourful pages. When stepping back and looking at them, I was astounded – they were colourful, magical, messy, and a symbol of a busy artist. When seeing a section with lots of yellows and orangesI was reminded when I worked on a piece depicting a common shelf fungi called Chicken of the Woods. When seeing hues of green I was reminded of splashing colour on the piece depicting an aquatic plant. Every section of the tester papers tells a story. Every sheet has patterns, and reveals something to the observer. Or, maybe I’m overthinking it – they are just messy and that’s ok too.
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Whales
Unseen giants
Our ocean friends of the deep.
– watching, worried.
I don’t live near the ocean, and have not seen whales all that often. But, they are out there, being beautiful, special animals. Whales of all types are to be admired: whether humpback, narwhals, sperm whales, or orcas*, they are all impressive. If you get a chance to see them (even if it’s just a faint shadow in the distance) allow your breath to be taken away. Gasp, shout out in joy, and revel in the moment. Their vast underwater world, like so many others, is under threat. Please keep that in mind.
* technically I realize that Orcas are not whales, but I think of them in that way, regardless. sorry, not sorry 🙂
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Perseids
Don’t blink.
A streaking white line
– gifts from the night sky
We have had a rather overcast and rainy summer so far, but remarkably the past few nights have been clear. This has allowed for amazing star-gazing, satellite gazing, and meteor showers! The Perseids have been at their peak, and I have been able to see shooting stars from my backyard (at a good pace – e.g., 2 or 3 over a space of just 15-20 minutes). They take your breath away.
Looking up at the night sky is always a gift. It’s so easy to do, and so rewarding, especially if you are fortunate enough to live in a region without too much light pollution.
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Clothesline
Socks, shirts, and towels
dancing in the summer breeze
backyard views
I love our backyard. It’s a lush, green place, and sitting at the back property line is a tree-fort that my Dad and I built over a decade ago. The kids did not use it as much as expected, but it’s a delightful little structure nevertheless. Our clothesline stretches across the yard, from the back deck to the old sugar maple tree behind the tree-fort. Clothes and sheets seem extra clean and smell so great after being dried on the line.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Coffee
A stop at the Lion
Caffeine and community
– morning perfection.
I have quite a few rituals in my life, but one of my favourites is stopping by the coffee shop on my way to work – usually a couple of times per week. It’s a fabulous place (called the Humble Lion), located right across from work, and they know my order (A Cortado, which is depicted above in the illustration). I often see a colleague or friend there, and always have a nice chat with the owner or the baristas. These small moments are important, and a local coffee bar is community.
(oh, also: I’m on vacation for a little while – Happy Summer to you! I may not post as regularly as I normally do)
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Mountain
Kissing the clouds
with summer snow-filled slopes
– beckoning
Back in the late 1980s I took part in a program called “Shad Valley”, in which high school students from across Canada got to spend the month of July at a University campus and learn about innovation, science and technology, leadership, and other fascinating subjects. I attended the program at the University of Calgary and it was a life-changing and very positive experience. The following summer I returned to Calgary to take part in a follow-up project connected to my time at Shad Valley and during that summer I did some mountain climbing. One of the mountains we climbed was Mount Athabasca, which is located in Jasper National Park, along the Columbia Icefields. It is a beautiful mountain, and climbing it was truly astounding. Mountains remind me of my summers in Alberta.
The program mentioned above still exists (called Shad now), and McGill is one of the host institutions. Over the past few weeks I was able to take part in the program, acting as a Faculty Member for a few days during the program. It was really interesting and fun to re-engage with the program and see the energy, intelligence, and creativity among the high school students taking part in Shad. Although decades have passed, the program has retained its very best qualities, and it was an honour to be involved, even in a small way.
Getting involved with Shad again reminded me of those formative summers I spent in Calgary, including the time in the mountains, hence why I decided to draw Mount Athabasca and share it with you. I have been playing around with using coloured paper for some art, so the illustration above is on grey-tone paper and done just with some black ink, light wash, with some highlights done with a white brush pen. I hope you enjoy!
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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chauve-souris
wing beats at dusk
circling above backyards
– mosquitoes beware!
The other day I was delighted to see several bats flying around my backyard. They have had a hard go, and bats in our part of the world are just not that common. I love watching them zip around just after the sun sets. We have a LOT of mosquitoes this summer, and while I am an entomologist, I don’t enjoy the harassment by biting flies! I read somewhere that bats can eat hundreds of flying insects in an hour. They are a terrific natural remedy for mosquitoes.
I used the French name for bats as the title of this post. I like it better than the English common name. The literal translation of chauve-souris is ‘bald mouse’. While bats are not generally bald, they are mouse-like. I’m sure there is a good origin story about the chauve part – perhaps someone can share it. Little flying mice is kind of a nice image though!
Bats do freak some people out, but I have found that people who are scared of bats have, in their past, experienced bats getting inside a house or cabin or cottage. Having a bat indoors is an unusual, frightening affair. Bats are best outdoors.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
art, backyard, bats, chauve-souris, Chiroptera, drawing, ink, Mammals, nature, pen, Watercolor, Watercolour -
Snap!
ancient reptile emerges
green-backed wary warrior.
Earlier this year we came across a snapping turtle crossing a walking path that intersected two wetlands. It was a cool morning, so the reptile was slowly lumbering along, taking the time it needed. These turtles are gentle giants when left on their own but you do not mess with them – they are called snapping turtles for a reason! I have always found it so astonishing to see them swim about in lakes and other wetlands; they appear smoothly and deliberately, and swim with purpose and care. And then on land, they move slowly and somewhat awkwardly.
Here’s another Haiku and art* about snapping turtles:
-what lurks beneath
Swim fast!
When I was a kid they sure did scare me, and I must admit, sometimes I imagine them lurking beneath me when I’m swimming in a lake with poor visibility. I imagine them deciding to chomp by toes or feet, and this causes me to swim a little quicker. I sure hold these turtles with a great deal of respect and admiration. Give them a nod hello, and give them their distance.
Check out this amazing label on a beer from a brewing company in Ontario (the beer tasted excellent too):
* this was done in a notebook that I use for various things, work notes, jotting done things of interest, and sometimes doing quick sketches.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Snag-dweller
Fleeting splash of red
Seeking food and shelter.
Uncommon, scarce, gone.
Red-headed woodpeckers are wonderful birds, but I only know this through photos and stories since I have never seen one*. While their range does get into parts of Ontario and Quebec, they are rare in my corner of the world. These woodpeckers certainly eat insects and drill into dead wood like their cousins, but they also eat fruits, nuts and acorns, and seeds, so they are quite an omnivorous woodpecker.
Red-headed woodpeckers are in trouble: they have been experiencing populations declines for decades. The declines are likely due to many factors – one of the main ones being loss of habitat for their nests: they need dead trees (or snags) to nest in, which has become a limited resource. Their declines may be due to changes in the production of nuts/acorns over the years – whether declines of chestnuts after the Chestnut blight, or the unpredictability of mast years (years of high nut production) or changes in forest composition**. There is also some evidence of (invasive) European starlings kicking woodpeckers out of their nests. The starlings like the holes in snags, but can’t make them on their own. Whatever the cause, the numbers speak for themselves.
Conservation starts with education and awareness. We have to understand our world’s biodiversity, and protect it. So, share this post through your networks! Spread the word about these magnificent birds.
* the watercolour depicted above was done from a reference photo
** here’s a link that delves into the reasons for their declines: https://www.audubon.org/news/the-red-headed-woodpecker-doesnt-make-sense
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
Nature's Reverie 
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