Shopping with the Locals at the Banff Farmers Market

Posted on by Thor

Banff‘s park near the Bow River was the site of a Farmer’s Market on the weekend. Terry and I stayed in the town long enough to start discovering the spots where locals tend to hang out. A farmer’s Market is the perfect spot to meet locals as they shop for locally grown produce.  Locally hunted meat was packaged as sausages and they was an amazing variety of fruits and vegetables.A photographer had a tent set up and he took some interest in what I was doing. He is a wildlife photographer and there is no shortage of subjects in the Canadian Rockies.

One day Terry and I stopped at a lakeside resort to stretch our legs. It had been raining all day but it had finally cleared up a bit. We found a spot on a small wooden bridge that offered a clear view across the lake. We noticed a couple hiking along the far shore. Then above them in a clearing maybe 5o yards up the hillside, we saw a grizzly bear. The bear was foraging for food. Just as the couple entered the clearing, the bear disappeared form view back into the woods. Someone standing next to us said, “They better have bear mace.” The couple kept walking around the lake towards us. When they were close, we walked up to them to let them know how close they cad come to a grizzly bear. They hadn’t noticed the bear and didn’t have any protection. Most hikers were small bells that make noise constantly warning any bears that they are approaching.

At a highway rest stop, a bear walked right through the parking lot. Terry drove up to the crowd of tourists taking pictures and got out to get a shot herself. Tourists stood within 10 yards of the bear taking selfies. The bear then walked towards the crowd and they scattered. He walked right past my passenger door so by staying in the car, I got extremely close to the bear. All this took place in a very short time span. I didn’t even think to sketch. I just watched in amazement. Some roads right outside of Banff were closed down because several grizzly bears were competing for territory. Driving down the parkway there were many “Bear Jams” which are crowds of cars pulled of the road so tourists could take photos of bears seen from the road. We stopped at every bear jam. I however didn’t sketch because bear jams can be momentary and break up the second a bear wanders away.

Free Beer!

Posted on by Thor

At the Audubon Park Community Market, Shipyard Brewing Company had a small SUV set up with beer taps sticking out of its side. Allison Stevens and master brewer Ron Raike were at the taps busily filling small plastic cups full of FREE beer samples. I walked around the truck several times trying to find a comfortable vantage point from which to do a sketch. Terry had come down to the market to meet me but I didn’t see her anywhere. Distracted, I gave her a call. She was across the street at an Italian restaurant having a salad. A bit of a power struggle ensued. She wanting me to sit and have dinner with her, while I wanted to get started on the sketch with the few hours of daylight remaining.
When I got back outside, the sun had just set. As I sketched, the scene grew progressively darker. Terry joined me for a bit and then Craig Marris walked up to talk. The two of them talked as I rushed to get some watercolor washes down. Across the street, Kevian Acosta began singing to the crowd. When my sketch was finished I decided it was time to get a beer sample. I went up to the Shipyard booth and asked Allison for a sample. She poured me two and thanked me for a blog post I had written about the Shipyard Brewery and a fun conversation we had when we first met. Terry walked up beside me and announced, “I am Mrs. Thor!” She and Allison had a quick exchange and bumped fists.
The beer was smooth and light. I sipped it with my pinky in the air and sat down to watch Flammable Babylon Percussion perform. The pounding and rhythmic drum beats helped calm my nerves. I simply sat and watched the first piece. Then the urge to sketch took over again and I rushed to get something down. I knew they wouldn’t be performing much longer but I had to get something. I liked the way the belly dancers would relax, off stage with their belly fat proudly overlapping the waste line of the dress. When they danced, others in the crowd would join in; some worked their hips with the hula hoops.

Vegan Bake Sale at Stardust

Posted on by Thor

On my first day back in Orlando I headed out to Stardust Video and Coffee (1842 East Winter Park Road) for the Audubon Market where I knew there was going to be a vegan bake sale benefiting animal rights. I arrived at about 6:30PM and some of the vendors were still setting out their wares. The sun was getting low on the horizon but it was still baking hot so I was immediately on the look out for a shady spot to sit and start sketching. I looked at the goods in all the booths and then was stopped in my tracks by a tall man with a flowing gray beard who was selling poetry. I was fascinated by his strong features and I know I need to seek him out some day to sketch. He handed me a slip of paper with a poem about Independent American Patriots. I started reading as I walked away. I heard him shouting behind me something about buying American Savings Bonds. I later found out that he kind of expects some payment if you read his work. Whoops, I thought it was a free sample.
It is hard to settle on a definite spot to sit down and start a sketch when you are faced with a space filled with tents. I didn’t want to just sit in the midst of what might later be a high traffic area. I found myself standing near the music staging area and noticed a woman diligently writing texts on her iPhone. She was sitting on a retaining wall which looked like a comfy spot to sit and the spot offered a view of the whole outdoor market. I sat down beside her and started sketching. She seemed very focused so I didn’t want to interrupt her. She looked up while I was sketching and commented on how cute the dogs were. I glanced over at a large poodle that had been recently shorn and put him in my sketch. We introduced ourselves and she was kind enough to compliment me on the early stages of this sketch as I was still blocking things in.
Her name was Allison Stevens and we talked as I continued to sketch. It turns out she was there to sort of survey the event since she would be setting up a booth the following week. She works for Shipyard Brewing Company of Portland, Maine. She informed me that Shipyard is going to set up a brewery right here in Orlando and next week she will be offering free beer samples at the Audubon Market. Her job seems to be to market and help spearhead this new brewery. She said the brewery will offer many local jobs and it is also inviting local brewers a chance to use the facility to craft new tastes. I had tried several glasses of Shipyard beer several weeks ago at a late night comedy club. I had picked the beer for the simple reason that I liked the color of the tap handle. Craig Marris walked up with his hair ablaze. He and Allison spoke for a while while I continued the sketch. When he discovered what she did, he shouted out that he loved Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale which comes out in October. I perked up since I had tasted this beer last year and really liked it. Allison got out her iPhone and pulled up a photo of all the Pumpkinhead Ale that was sitting stacked high on pallets in a warehouse like the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Allison started telling us a story about a student named Taskar Divine, who used to sit outside the girls dorm every day with a sketchbook. He had a mad crush on a girl and he sat there every day hoping she might notice him. All the students thought he must know everything that went on in that dorm and his sketchbook must have been full. It was later discovered that he never once did a sketch nor did he jot down a single note. He had sat idle and never got the girl. The story made me wonder what strange thoughts might be running through people’s heads about me as I sketch them every day.
Then Travis Blaise stopped over. He said he was going to get a beer and Allison waited with baited breath to find out if he was getting a Shipyard beer. He ended up getting an impossible to pronounce German beer that came in a tall beer stein. Alison made a comment about how some people pick a beer based on how tall the beer stein is.
It turns out Travis and Craig are working on character designs for a film they are working on. Travis and Craig both pulled out their sketchbooks and started whipping out amazing sketches of demonic beasts for the film. They would show each other what they had worked on and then they discussed which features worked best for the film.
Robert Johnson took to the stage and warmed the crowd up as the sun set and the night grew a bit cooler. I quickly worked him into my sketch. Craig Marris talked nonstop so this sketch took much longer than expected. It was nice however to find out about how some of my fellow Disney artists had fared over the years. As I was dashing color onto the sketch the second musician took to the stage named Matt Kenyon. His cover songs of Simon and Garfunkel and the Beetles were familiar and comforting. As he sang “I am a Rock” I felt my own sense of isolation. It was a solemn way to end the night, but Terry called and told me I had been sketching for too long, and I should come home. I had spent too much time talking and laughing. She missed me, because we had just been on vacation. To finish my sketch, I put a leash on the dog, packed up my supplies and left.