Still

Western art of a vintage Dodge truck in retirement

The third drawing in a series of western art

I  spent over 200 hours researching this drawing including visiting junkyards, archives, farm shows, and for months on end took every opportunity to drive on back roads (straining my marriage in the process).

We were visiting friends in Regina and I saw this photo hanging on their wall. 

“I took it”, said Cole, beaming.

It was perfect and it beat my research cold. I swallowed my pride (eventually) and asked if I could use it in a drawing.

You usually get two main responses to this request; one is giddy disbelief; the other is ‘Ka-Ching!!!’

Which do you think Cole’s was?

Update

Due to gross miscalculation on my part, I’d dropped the ball on that fall’s releases, and I got a call from the printing floor saying that ‘Owen’s catalogues are going to the press Wednesday morning.’

Eep! As it was Friday afternoon, this presented a problem!

I was lucky enough to have ‘Buds’ selected for the DUCKS UNLIMITED NATIONAL ART PORTFOLIO (whoops, caps lock got stuck), but that meant I only had one drawing left for the fall catalogue.

After a family/staff meeting, which usually consists of me approaching The Colonel with hat in hand, I got my schedule cleared, arranged for an extra-large stock of Twinning’s Earl Grey, hauled up my slacks and got to work.

This kind of marathon work is tough, but it’s also invigorating. It keeps you focused. Without an impending deadline, too often you find yourself spending too much time gazing out the window or digging around in your belly button.

Something that couldn’t be cleared from the schedule was the Spruce Grove Ducks Unlimited banquet on Tuesday night. The Colonel was on the DU board of directors, so I had to do a Howard Hughes and freshen up the outer crust and make an appearance.

Lessons learned at The Banquet

I learned a couple of somethings at the banquet …

1) Hard work and isolation creates a strong thirst.

When one is something of a minor notable in the community and a dashed good chap to boot, random people enjoy purchasing tall double vodka/orange/7up with lemon twists and pushing them over to one.

And since one’s desire to be civil and courteous dovetails nicely into one’s pre-existing thirst and desire for the company of one’s fellow man, one doesn’t always realize just how many tall double vodka/orange/7up with lemon twists one is lowering into one, and one finds oneself pretty sloshed by the time the auction starts.

I am happy to say that we are the proud owners of:

• a new pellet gun with a duck head logo on it
• a maple cutting block with a duck head logo burned into it
• a reciprocating saw (little something for the wife)
• a calculator the size of a toilet seat with a duck’s head logo on it
• and a sort of rusty metal sculpture thing that I thought was a duck head, but turned out to be a bear with a fish in its mouth.

2) I learned that while I can’t drive or bid very shrewdly with a blood alcohol content of about 30% I can still draw pretty well.

I stayed up until twenty to five in the morning finishing ‘Still’ – hiccups and all.

But I don’t think I’ll be turning into a soak like Hemingway – I don’t see how the fella could turn out stuff half-corked, because I had a pretty panicky charge down the stairs Wednesday morning to make sure I didn’t ruin the damn thing!

Who can read Hemingway’s stuff anyway? “Hello?! Would it kill you to jot down an occasional adverb?”

Wait, maybe it did …

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