Art Gone Wild In Ucluelet
Ucluelet is just a quick sail away from the Broken Group. The still, foggy day wasn’t great for hoisting the mainsail, but was pretty good for sketching the little islands we sailed past. Our almost-empty water tanks meant we needed to visit a harbour- plus laundry was calling!
The town is a great access point for the Pacific Rim National Park and the beautiful Wild Pacific Trail. It’s also home to a wonderful catch-and-release aquarium, which gathers sea creatures to hang out with them for the summer before releasing them back into the wild. The guests always seem healthy and happy, and are often willing to model for me.
I was delighted to be able to hang out and draw for a few hours. Oscar the Pacific Giant Octopus showed me his best side, whilst the Grunt Sculpin and Longfin Sculpin seemed to be engaged in a contest to strike the best pose and get my attention. I have to admit to having a special soft spot for the Grunt Sculpin, which walks along on bright orange fins and has the most adorable face. They usually hide in giant barnacles, but this one was intrepid, confident and not about to hide his glory in a mollusc shell!
Most of my critter drawings were done with fountain pen. I kept them small, to help me draw quickly, and surrounded some of the larger drawings with details of fins, eyes and tentacles. I didn’t want to pull out my paints in the aquarium, so I made notes about colours and took a few supporting photos. Apologies to the perch, rockfish and salmon, but I spent most of my time drawing invertebrates and fish who liked to hang out on the bottom. They were slightly more stationary (though the fish were still prone to swim off halfway through a drawing)- and often delightfully weird!
I could probably have spent a whole week at the aquarium, but the great outdoors was calling me too. The Wild Pacific Trail is a stunning day walk (though it can also be done over a few days by those of us who require frequent sketch breaks, and need to revisit certain sections as the light and tide alter).
I last sketched the Wild Pacific Trail in 2018, and returning really brought home the power of keeping a sketchbook! I could remember particular trees, and even identified driftwood I’d seen previously (in BC, ‘driftwood’ can mean ‘enormous old-growth tree trunk’ so this my memory may still be less impressive than it sounds). I spent five days exploring the trail all over again, returning to favourite viewpoints and finding lookouts I’d overlooked before. BC was having a record-breaking heatwave, but my big sun hat, a few bottles of water and well-chosen shady spots saved me from the worst of it- aided by the odd afternoon swim when things got too hot!
Previous posts from our summer adventures: