Icicles and Crayfish
Here is another view from the studio window, on February 16, interrupting me with breathtaking crystal wedding of ice and sky as I laboured with watercolour details of a crayfish. ....yes, the top photo is flipped vertically to join the horizontals. And here is a fairy fantasy detail of the tips.... Now I'll show you the scene of my painting. The crayfish Orconectes limosus , an immigrant to Quebec from the northeastern US, is making progress westward in the St. Lawrence River toward Ontario. This is the final watercolour of my series of 10 Ontario crayfish species, originally painted for the fishing bait identification book, "The Essential Bait Guide" and now being used in a crayfish identification guide to be published this spring by the Toronto Zoo. Fred and I have designed the layout, and will soon finish editing the penultimate draft. You can see the poster I designed a couple of years ago, propped up on the left as a comparative reference for my work. Jean-Fran...