It was a dreary day when our sketching group gathered at the local café. The most colourful thing was my oatmeal breakfast bowl.

The arrangement of licianthus was delightful — in hindsight the pen and ink was not the best choice of medium to convey its gentle beauty.

I brought a small sketchbook and a few tools with me on my day trip into Montreal last week. Great coffee at Café Lali and a delicious Irish stout at Brasseurs de Montreal where I had a fine view of a bit of the Griffintown construction.

On recent ventures into the West Island I’ve noticed with interest the construction of a elevated light rail, the REM. The progress of this innovative engineering project has been documented by master urban sketcher Shari Blaukopf on her blog. I had the distinct pleasure of joining Shari this week to sketch at the REM site. Here is my take on a section of the project.