Yet another souvenir plate. This one is made especially for the Hudson’s Bay Company by Johnson Brothers of England, which joined the Wedgwood Group in 1968. I particularly like how this multilayered image succeeds as a collage decades before the Photoshop era. This would also be a fun plate to use for red beets and mashed potatoes. Currently for sale on ebay.

Cityscape by David Lam, from an article featured in the June 1967 issue of Vancouver Life (and Western Homes). The article was titled “The Two Horizons of David Lam; He paints what sells to also paint for joy” and was written by Eileen Johnson. This is not the David Lam we are most familiar with, but a second David Lam who emigrated from Hong Kong in 1965, as featured in this September 2002 Art Preview issue.

Firehall No. 2, a 25’ x 25’ mural located at Main Street and Powell and painted by HiFi Murals in the summer of 2005. From their website:

This mural represents a short history of Vancouver fire trucks. From earlier horse drawn wagons in the background to the modern day “Quint” up front. In the deeper background is downtown Vancouver with the North Shore mountains.

The Chuck Davis’ Guide to Vancouver, a book from 1973 designed by celebrated typographer Jim Rimmer, illustrated by John Robertson, and published by J.J. Douglas Ltd, West Vancouver. Chuck Davis of course went on to publish many more books about the city, including one last immense book due to appear on November 15, 2011 appropriately titled the History of Metropolitan Vancouver. I had the pleasure of working with Chuck Davis on the Vancouver Historical Society production of City Reflections a few years ago. Much of my great respect for the city comes from him! And if you haven’t already perused his immense online resource VancouverHistory.ca, go there now!

Panoramic illustration inked in 3 colours, printed at the bottom of a Gray Line bus pamphlet circa the 1950s. While it makes up a relatively small piece of the page, surrounded by bright colour Kodachrome photography, it does so with class. Artist unknown.

ABSOLUT Vancouver by Douglas Fraser, 2009. On November 12, 2009, Douglas wrote on his blog:

…when I received the invitation to create a city themed, and one of a few special city themed labels, this one for the city of Vancouver, I was very excited. As a west coast resident (British Columbia) it’s was great to pay homage to one of the most vibrant west coast cities on the planet. Vancouver has a very contemporary skyline set against gorgeous snow capped mountains. With classic float planes coming and going, connecting the city centre to communities on the neighboring islands, and up the coast. There are bridges that link the city centre as well to the greater area of the more suburban communities. The city has a great blend of natural beauty with a strong urban character based on access to some of the most spectacular scenery around, plus being the gateway city on Canada’s west.

I developed a couple of approaches, but always wanted at least one of those Canadian classic de havilland beaveresque float planes in the image. I developed thumbnails, thought about the quality of life I’ve experienced in Vancouver. Looking at the typography that Absolut has established. The bottle and it’s clean lines with the clear glass canvas had me deciding that a clean vector would marry well with the surface, and look contemporary. The pop-heraldic chevron shape “V” really stuck in my mind. It was on old Vancouver Canucks hockey jerseys. From finding a direction it was about reducing the elements to their primary shapes, and composing the positive & negative shapes inside the “V”. The blue and gold tie into the Swedish heritage of the company, and the provincial colours of British Columbia. Nature, urban, sun from provincial flag, downtown linked to the surrounding communities by bridges, The trees and running trails are there under the bridge, The Classic float plane connects the urban to the mountains, the “V” shape (chevron shape like two raised up arms) , all inside the area of a bottle label. Also I wanted to see the final art screen printed onto the bottle. The more tonal blending, or loose an image was, the more it would be necessary to develop a sticker label which is not what I wanted. ABSOLUT asked me to sign my work, and it would be printed on the bottle with the label. They showed a great interest in respecting me, and my process…

More preliminary sketches and variants of the final design are available on his blog.

Cityscape, a watercolour painting by Lori Sokoluk. She is also an Eastside Culture Crawl artist, and she has taught art classes locally since 2002 through a number of organizations including Vancouver Parks and Recreation, North Shore Artists Guild, REDSOKIL ARTS, and Art Of Life Studio/Gallery. I purchased this painting at the Harbour Light Salvation Army fundraiser at Chapel Arts in 2009.

Four stamps of Vancouver from Canada Post; #244 Vancouver Harbour 50¢ from 1938, Vancouver Skyline $1 from 1970s, and two Expo 86 stamps 34¢ and 68¢ issued April 28, 1986.

One Love, Vancouver, a tattoo dedicated to the city of Vancouver by Christina Christie. She writes: “Rob decided that he wanted to commemorate Vancouver by dedicating his whole back to it. So after some brainstorming we decided to create a depiction of the Lions Gate Bridge overlooked by Stanley Park.” This particular tattoo began in summer 2010 and was completed in April 2011 after several sessions. More work in progress photos on her site.

More about Christina: “Christina’s introduction to tattooing professionally stemmed from an unlikely mentor: the heavily inked janitor from her highschool. He’d seen her pieces around school and suggested she work for a local shop drawing for the less naturally gifted tattooists. Here she learned how to tattoo, her first piece being a skull with bunny ears.” Christina Christie continued to hone her skills at a local tattoo shop while attending University, and she graduated from Emily Carr University in 2009.

Vancouver Sunrise, 40” x 40” acrylic on canvas by Laura Zerebeski, November, 2010. She writes:

I’ve done variations on this scene before, which is what you see when you’re pulling into downtown Vancouver on the seabus. In this one, I decided consciously use more fiery reds and yellows and fewer blues and greens. I wanted the overall effect to be a bouquet of jewel-toned warmth: sapphire, emerald, ruby, and gold.

As much as I love Vancouver, there are more dull days here than bright ones. You get a lot of mist and an unrelenting monochromatic sense of gray every day when you live in a coastal rainforest: gray days in, gray days out, gray days in-between.

This tribute says that after all the endless damp gray-Gray-GRAY when you get a bright day in Vancouver, it is really, REALLY bright. When you wake up and see a clearing in the rain and feel the sun, it feels like all the Vitamin D in your body sits up and shouts, Booyah!

Note: a smaller version of this painting, Vancouver Core II 12”x12” was stolen October 31, 2010 from the Beaumont Gallery.

Vancouver by Veronika Bekker, as seen at the Basic Inquiry Gallery during the 2010 Eastside Culture Crawl.