At the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) in Vancouver. Top left to right: The famous wooden roller coaster from 1958, a carousel ride, cheerleaders at “Sportacular!”, the wooden roller coaster again (the best rickety ride ever, I just can’t believe they still allow it to run!), views of the fair, the other rollercoaster, a bit of unscripted horse drama from the RCMP musical ride pre-show, a ferris wheel.
Jeff went out of town for the long weekend to spend some one-on-one time with a good old friend. It’s not a bad thing to have a few days off from one’s partner and get a chance to miss them. So I made lots of plans to see friends and do some drawing.
On Friday night, I had my friend Eman over for dinner and he gave me a show-and-tell of his latest photographic experiments. He brought some amazing hand-made laser-copied and stapled photobooks and ‘zines along. It’s been great to see my friend’s artistic development really take off over the last few years.
On Saturday, I spent the whole day at the PNE, an almost 100-year old summer fair in Vancouver, held annually during the last two weeks of August. It also borders on Playland, an amusement park with roller coasters and other rides. I went there with another friend, Brian, and three of his many nephews, all grown men of age 19 and up. The five of us played like kids, except we had money and no meltdowns. Well, it’s possible that it was mostly Uncle Brian’s money, since I suspect he paid most of the nephews’ way. A couple of times he tried to pay for me too, so now I call him Uncle. A fun day. I did my best to capture a bit of it in sketches during our time in lineups at rides and sitting in the stands at performances.
On Sunday, I went grocery and art supply shopping, and did some house cleaning as a surprise for Jeff (I don’t get around to doing that quite as often as he does, I just don’t feel the same urgency, which means he is inordinately grateful when I do clean up). I did some baking, drew a few cards for friends, planned a few other drawings, and attended an Urban Sketchers meetup in the evening. I will post sketches from that soon.
On the holiday Monday, there’s about an hour or two of work I need to do on a time-sensitive annual report for a client, then a hike on the agenda, then to the airport to pick up Jeff later in the day.
If I ever wonder why this weekend went so fast, I can look it up here.
Read More
