Drawing Halifax Harbour

A standing joke about my drawing harbour sites goes something like "Dad gets in car studio drives to the harbour. Nothing happens." Sometimes, I think the joke is on me but as I have mentioned before there is always something going on and sometimes it happens while I draw. Often when I arrive on site everything seems quiet and still.

The massive cranes are at rest just before the dance begins. They begin rolling along the wharf and into place and once beside a ship the cranes will move giant sea containers one at a time from one resting place to the next.

To accomplish this task the cranes use a type of suspended car on rails controlling cables that raise and lower the containers through the air to new positions on their journey around the world. One act in a transportation play that hardly seems like nothing. 

This year we also have a huge project underway to replace our oldest bridge deck. Massive preassembled sections are floated up the harbour two at a time by barge before the delicate task of lifting and fitting.  Totally amazing to watch and drawing seems to work at just the right speed. Sometimes fast and sometimes slow.

Just when you think you have it all sorted out a giant ocean container ship enters your field of vision and gets added in to the drawing. The variety of shapes seems endless and one day while drawing under the bridge fog moved into the harbour and everything disappeared right in front of my eyes.

    Hard to believe but true.