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My friend Kent Crawford has finished his painting of Routeburn Creek on the Routeburn Track, Southland, New Zealand -- I've followed it's progress in two previous posts: October, and November 2013.

At right is the 6" by 9" sketch Kent did  in New Zealand back in April. Below is the finished painting. Click the images to enlarge them.

[caption id="attachment_6133" align="alignnone" width="497"] Kent taking it easel; getting ready for a bike ride, in fact.[/caption]

Yesterday I visited my friend Kent Crawford, a local Vancouver artist. His landscape painting are quite the thing -- straightforward realism at first glance -- on closer examination the detail resolves as a multitude of jigsaw puzzle-like bits of solid colour. It's not exactly pointillism, but the tiny shards of solid colour similarly blend together at a distance. I like his painting a lot, and happily encourage people to check out the galleries of his work on his Web page, Which I admit I've had a hand in building.

I swear, when I saw this item in the morning paper; saw the words "Google," "online," "globe," "balloon," and saw the photo, reproduced below, I definitely had a distinct first impression. I read how Google was using the balloons to bring Internet access to the poor, souls living in Christchurch, New Zealand -- How poor are they Johnny? They're so poor, their church is made of cardboard [snare drum roll] -- I still think it looks like a photo of some kind of life-size Google Earth location pin.

[caption id="attachment_2200" align="alignnone" width="497"] Just a helium balloon? Au contraire!. Associated Press took the photo. I took the liberties.[/caption]