Husband and wife team, Gerry Cleary and Lara Ripley, are the artists behind the art and apparel company Broken Fog.
The pair work nine-to-five jobs, but in their spare time they create unique art pieces using both wood burning and painting.
Cleary first began wood burning in December and quickly got hooked.
“Once you burn your first wood, the smell is kind of really a unique thing,” says Cleary.
It's a piney smell you'll often find in the apartment where Cleary and Ripley live and also create their art.
“When Gerry took up the wood burning, I immediately gravitated towards painting,” says Ripley.
The pair recently made their company’s public debut at the Halifax Crafter's Market.
“We met on the East Coast, it's where we've started our life and the breaking of the fog for us really represents the opening up of something new,” says Ripley.
The couple works on some pieces together, with Cleary doing the burning and Ripley the painting.
“If he's burning something I'm going to paint, we talk about how big the lines need to be and how big the gaps need to be if I'm going to be painting in between them,” says Ripley.
From drawing, to burning, to painting, and finally varnishing, each piece can take up to seven hours.
“I basically just transfer the illustrations onto wood and the wood burning just kind of goes over that, so it's kind of another medium for drawing,” says Cleary.
Cleary says, when it comes to wood burning, precision is key.
“There's no backing out, once you make a mistake, you've got to work with that and fix it or just try to make it work,” says Cleary.
The duo says their partnership benefits from their individual unique styles.
“I really like drawing women, mostly profiles, and doing big hair. Kind of a unique look that's a bit imaginative,” says Ripley.
“I'm a huge fan of tattoo art as well,” says Cleary. “I just find that the combo and the thick outlines of tattoos really transfer well to the medium of wood burning.”
Cleary and Ripley have already expanded their company to include things like t-shirts and fridge magnets and say they hope their creativity will mean the forecast for their business will be anything but foggy.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Priya Sam
