Vancouver sketch artist captures images of Granville Island

Sometimes the stories behind the stories are better than the stories themselves.

Jurgen, who we met while sketching on Granville Island, can tell you all about it.

He was sketching a sailboat when some workers pulled another boat in front of it. He said that this kind of thing happens a lot. It’s part of the excitement of sketching things.

He showed us a half-finished drawing of a dog. It was half-finished because it walked away before the other half was finished. And then there were the flowers that disappeared from view when a car parked next to it.

Jurgen is adaptable. He has been sketching his whole life. Sometimes still lifes: buildings and bridges, which are stationary, and sometimes things that are not stationary.

When the boat was blocked by another boat, he started on another boat. Sketching in real life requires determination.

And then we saw him and started taking pictures, while he was making drawings.

But then a forklift stopped in front of the second boat.

This isn’t just art; this is a challenge.

“Can you draw that?” we asked.

“If I’m quick,” he replied.

And he’s super fast, so nothing else can happen, right?

Wrong.

“May I ask where you’re from?” asked a security guard on a bicycle.

We showed him the CTV logo on the microphone.

“You’re okay,” he said.

That was a relief. We looked back at Jurgen’s pencil flying across the paper, turning black lines into a forklift.

But the guard came back.

He said we should contact the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which manages Granville Island, given the nature of what we were doing.

“Crazy,” said Jurgen.

We don’t argue. We smile. The guard drives away and we continue to make videos for CTV of a pencil drawing a picture of a forklift with a smiling guy on it, happy to be part of the waterfront art.

“Cool,” said the forklift driver.

And when we left, he went on to draw the second boat, and that was going to be another sketch that would go along with a story – about the forklift, the guard, and us – like the dog getting up and walking away.

The art will open your eyes, but the story will make you smile.