August is the fastest month of the year. This year, at least in my neck of the woods, it was the month with a bit of a reprieve. The weather cooled down, we finally got some rain, and the fires burned with a little less intensity. Covid didn’t though – it’s still burning through.

With all the turmoil, Lori and I have managed to more or less keep up our daily drawing practice. We’ll also be posting another little “gallery” of new top ten favourites at some point. Maybe.

Here are a couple of recent daily drawings by myself and also one of Lori’s that I particularly like.

An energetic watercolour sketch by Lori Fillo:

And, finally, I actually managed to finish a painting. I’ve been slowly working on it over the past several months. (That’s my mother standing there.)

Alouette Lake, Acrylic on paper, 30″ x 22.5″/76cm x 57cm

I just noticed the date on my first Daily Drawing: January 15, 2020. My, what a lot has happened. Well, not to me personally, I guess, but in the “outside world” it’s been quite a ride. And it ain’t over yet…

In the meantime, in my little world, I reached a milestone – 1 year of Daily Drawings. I don’t think I’ve done 365, but I’m pretty sure I reached 360. This is largely thanks to my Daily Drawing partner, Lori Fillo, who keeps me honest and accountable.

Daily Drawing, Year 2 begins:

Here’s New Year’s dinner (Happy New Year!):

Interesting – both food!!

Lori and I have continued the “Theme” week idea now and again. Most recently we looked at the Group of 7.

Lori worked on pastel colour studies (Can you guess the painting?):

I got a little carried away after looking at work by Lawren Harris and did four 3×3 mini-canvases that are more me than him – 1 each day. Similar palette maybe, but that’s about it. Here’s my favourite:

We’ve sometimes defaulted to animals as subjects. Expect to see more of these. Here’s “Ollie” by Lori:

And here’s a friend of a friend’s cat:

With so many little works by the two of us, I could just keep posting but I’ll stop here for now. It’s been a great practice and without it, I’m not sure how much art I would have really been doing over the past year. I’ve found it difficult sometimes to just get down to it. But I remember this (I think it’s attributable to Picasso): “Inspiration exists but it has to find you working.” Fortunately, with the daily practice, every once in a while I actually do get inspired even in these dull, disturbing times.