When you are waiting for the light to change at a street corner, do you look around… I mean, really look around?

I have to honestly say that before I became an artist, I wouldn’t have. Like many of my fellow city dwellers, I’d be rushing to my next appointment or work with my primary focus on how to get there most efficiently (dodging and weaving) and safely (not stepping into traffic). Now I’m constantly on the lookout for painting compositions, and efficiency and sometimes my safety go by the way. However, a simple walk can definitely be more interesting now!

For example, on a recent trip into Toronto to our favourite Thai restaurant, we spent a few minutes before our reservation walking around downtown at dusk. While standing at the corner of King and John Streets (which I’d done dozens of times) waiting for the light to change, I paused and took in this amazing composition. It had all the elements I love about Toronto – the CN Tower, the mix of old and new architecture, the old Red Rocket streetcar. My husband had his phone in his hand so I said “Take this picture quick!” When we got to the restaurant, I reviewed the picture and loved the funky angle of all the elements reaching skyward! It would be a terrific, albeit difficult, new subject for a Mini painting.

This is now one of my favourite “Mini Vacations” paintings I’ve done of Toronto! It reminds me to continually seek beauty in the everyday.

#74 – King and John Streets, Toronto – sold

(2.5″ x 3.5″ ink and watercolour; in studio photo)

(Original sold but there are many more for purchase at my Etsy Shop, ArtWeWonderful)