Eastern Gray Squirrels — Giclée on Paper Print Size:17.5" x 20" its bill already stained

its bill already stained

with its iridescent green breast

the foreground spruce and bare deciduous trees rendered in deep coloured pencil strokes

The title is deliberately ambiguous — whose close call

Glen believed the background was as important as the subject — that an animal pulled from its habitat and placed against a neutral wash was always slightly false

Eastern Gray Squirrels — Giclée on Paper Print Size:17.5" x 20" its bill already stainedTwo Eastern Gray Squirrels in a massive autumn oak one grey, one black (the melanistic form common in Ontario), both navigating the great forking branches of a tree that Glen rendered with the same attention he gave the animals. This 1984 watercolour is one of his most architecturally ambitious compositions: the oak's bark and branch structure take up most of the canvas, the remaining autumn leaves carefully placed, the squirrels integrated into the