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This shows a traditional maple sap gathering scene. A team of horses pulls the sleigh on one of the routes between trees which are hung with sap pails. A child rides along on this exciting activity. In the background the sugar shanty is already showing billows of steam as the man inside stokes the evaporator.

This painting was commissioned by the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival to celebrate their 50th anniversary. I tried to include many aspects of the traditional gathering experience as this piece will continue to be used for their poster.

This is still a familiar sight in Mennonite country. A farmer with his team and wagon accompanied by his dog roll along a rural road. In the background a Mennonite farmhouse altered by each generation to suit its needs provides a colourful backdrop. This is an ideal scene with a small stream through the pasture providing water for the Holstein cows.

This painting was started as a performance piece at Paintertainment, a fundraiser for Drayton Entertainment, at the St. Jacobs Schoolhouse Theatre. In the weeks after the performance I sent updated versions to Drayton Entertainment who in turn passed them on to the people who had attended the show. The painting was won at the event by a woman from Cambridge as the door prize.

Painted partially on the site of this historic farmhouse near Ayr, at a fundraiser for ALS, this painting was a great deal of fun. Over the years I have done many paintings in the public and find that each time I do, I wonder why I don’t do it more frequently.

This is a created scene to extol the Grand River. Hung in the foyer at the Grand River Conservation Authority, this image has been used on their canoeing guide cover.

Subscribed Reproduction 18″ x 24″

The people who commissioned this painting bought the right to have me paint a subject of their choice, sight unseen at a charity auction for KidsAbility, one of my favourite causes. They decided on a piece that showed their property that included their dog, Wellington, who, during the painting, went to doggie heaven.

For many years I have been a fan of monuments. Although this art has recently turned from representational sculpture to a more modern mode which I find much less appealing, how fortunate for me that St. Jerome’s has for many years stood as a background behind a superb sculpture of Father Funcken, its founder. This old fashioned rendition captures both the ideals of the school and the history.

After 125 years Kitchener’s St. Jerome’s High School closed. They commissioned a painting to pay tribute and raise funds by selling limited edition reproductions.

This historic recreation from 1900 shows a scene near the original K-W Hospital. A horse-drawn streetcar ran between Kitchener and Waterloo. My models in this painting were the winners in a draw that was held as a fundraiser for the renovations of the emergency room at the hospital.

My attempt in this piece was to show rural life in the 1920s and 30s. Because of the national character of the Agricultural Institute, it was necessary to make the location non-specific.

Family Day, a re-creation from the 1930’s, features lawn bowling. I wished to capture the socializing that accompanies the actual game. I felt that it was important to include cars of the era as well. This image springs from my childhood memories of the lawn bowling club on Erb Street East, not far from my gallery. The backdrop of this piece is a Guelph area Sanitarium.

When the Shand Dam was completed on the Grand River upstream from Fergus in 1942, the resulting Lake Belwood flooded the Canadian Pacific branch line running between Elora, Fergus, and Cataract. Consequently, the tracks near the hamlet of Belwood were diverted around the lake, and crossed the river on the deck of the Shand dam itself. Cataract rail corridor is a cooperative project of the Credit River and Grand Valley Conservation Foundations. With the rails now removed, this portion of the old rail corridor can provide an important connecting link between the existing Grand Valley Trail and Bruce Trail. Steam railway enthusiasts will be pleased to know that CPR steam engine #1057 has been preserved for future operation at the South Simcoe historical railway in Tottenham.