The girl from the fourth generation

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In my book, The ‘Starting Out’ Years, the fourth story is about Lisa Browning, a composite character who is (almost entirely) one of my daughters.

Lisa, who was born in Colorado in 1972, is pictured on the left, a drama student at Cawthra Park Secondary School in Mississauga, as she will appear on the book cover, along with the other five girls.  She probably didn’t wear jeans and floppy shirts all the time, but the arts school students sure dressed more casually than we ever did, and may even have been prescient in adopting the 21^st century designer look, sporting holes in everything.

The story of the girl from the fifth generation, Fiona Livingstone, was in my July 2 blog post, Phase 2 of BC’s Restart Plan. Next week I’ll talk about the girl from the sixth generation.

Remembering 2009

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Screenshot of a 3-page Christmas letter

Adobe InDesign™ document

©2020 Charlene Brown

Here’s another Christmas letter, with the addition of some paintings of Peru, including a watercolour titled Rafting on the Urubamba River, a painted postcard of the archaeological site of Sacsayhuaman, and sketches of the Moray Agricultural complex by Nick Klimchuk-Brown (age 10 at the time) and me (age 67 at the time).

The girl from the third generation

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In my book, The ‘Starting Out’ Years, the third story is about Mary-Jean Grayson, who was born in Banff in 1942.  She represents my generation of the family.

Mary-Jean is pictured on the left—a student at the University of Alberta in 1960, as she will appear on the book cover with the other five girls. 

What did you do in 2008? Did you write it down? Here's what we did.

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Screenshot of a 3-page Christmas letter

Adobe InDesign™ document

©2020 Charlene Brown

Here’s another Christmas letter, with the addition of a watercolour painting of Qualicum Beach, here on Vancouver Island and a watercolour sketch of the Temple of Edfu in Egypt.

Yet another of the parts less painted

The biggest cave in Canada?

Watercolour and crayon

©2020 Charlene Brown

Unlike many of the spectacular locations in British Columbia, this is a ‘part less painted,’ giving it a fascination similar to Robert Frost’s ‘road less traveled.’  I’m thinking of combining this painting with other blog posts about spectacular parts of BC that are less often painted until I have enough for a book. This could include the Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed,  Hot Springs Cove, the Burgess Shale, and The Towers.

Besides being ‘less painted’ this very recently-discovered and not yet named cave has the distinction of being much less even seen, despite having the huge entrance pit shown in the painting.  And BC Parks is planning to keep it that way, with fines of up to a million dollars a day for anyone venturing into the area, located in a remote part of Wells Gray Provincial Park.

What did you do in 2007? Did you write it down? Here's what we did.

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Screenshot of a 3-page Christmas letter

Adobe InDesign™ document

©2020 Charlene Brown

Here’s another Christmas letter, with the addition of a watercolour sketch of the Trout Pub at Wolvercote in Oxford, and a painting of Balaclava, the site of the Charge of the Light Brigade, in Ukraine.

The girl from the second generation

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In my book, The ‘Starting Out’ Years, the second story is about my mother, Mary Thomson, the last girl appearing in the book with her real name.

Mary, who was born in Banff in 1910, is pictured on the left, a student at Mount Royal business college in Calgary, as she will appear on the book cover, along with the other five girls.  She probably didn’t wear those strappy little heels to school every day, but she was certainly wearing them in any pictures taken during the late 1920s that I’ve ever seen.

Get rid of one of the 'Heritage' Northern Junk buildings

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The good Northern Junk building

Watercolour and crayon

©2020 Charlene Brown

Eleven years ago when I first started this blog, I read some blogging advice about writing post titles that made bold statements.  So I produced “Don’t Replace Our Bridge!”  I wasn’t really as fond of “our 85-year-old bottle neck” as I let on (and I think that the new bridge that replaced it is beautiful). 

But this time I mean what I’m saying about the Northern Junk buildings.  To the right is my letter to the Victoria Times Colonist published last week.

The good building is the one with 12 windows at about 3 o’clock in the painting on the left. 

The girl from the first generation

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In my recently completed multi-generational autofictional book, The ‘Starting Out’ Years, the first story begins in 1898 in Glasgow, and actually resembles the ‘starting out’ years of my grandmother, Mattie Colquhoun.  The girls in succeeding generations in the book, including myself, become less individually recognizable and are more likely to be ‘composites’ representing more than one person.

Mattie, who was born in 1882 is pictured on the left, as she will appear on the book cover, along with the other five girls.  I have no photographs of my grandmother taken before 1904, so her school uniform is derived from the few references I was able to find on the internet.  She should probably be wearing a hat, but the hats in the internet pictures seemed awfully elaborate, so I just put a ribbon in her hair. 

Our expanded 2006 Christmas letter

Screenshot of a 3-page Christmas letter

Adobe InDesign™ document

©2020 Charlene Brown

Here’s another Christmas letter, with the addition of three watercolour paintings – the fountains at the Summer Palace outside of St. Petersburg in Russia, mosaic tiles at Cyrene, a Roman site on the Mediterranean coast of Libya, and the Berber village of Ghadames in Libya. 

Phase 2 of BC’s Restart Plan

Restaurants, libraries, child-care centres and seniors’ centres are operating again here in British Columbia – with restrictions.  So I’m back painting with my Goward House Wednesday morning group, well-spaced in our large studio with the outside door propped open. It’s great to be back – all I did was mess up the kitchen when I tried to paint at home.

On my first day back, I did six cartoon figures for the cover illustration of my book, The ‘Starting Out’ Years.  The girl on the left is Fiona, representing the fifth generation, whose ‘starting out’ years are in progress right now.  I’ve shown her ‘distancing’ from the others, and I’m thinking of adding a mask.