A Nova Scotia artist has drawn inspiration from veterans and is incorporating them into his art.
Wherever Jim Fraser goes, his sketch pad is never really far behind.
“Basically, I dabbled in water colors and oil paintings and air brushings and stuff like that there, but I've always gone back to the sketching because it's my first love, my first favorite,” says artist Jim Fraser.
Fraser uses photographs to draw his sketches, which take anywhere from a few days to a week to complete. His goal is to bring as much detail as he can to the portraits.
Fraser says he's drawn to what he calls “those who've lived a hard life.”
“I do a lot of elderly people, mostly because their story is right on their face, right, with the lines. They've earned every line in their face. From an old farmer to an old fisherman, to maybe somebody that is homeless, that has had that type of hard life,” says Fraser.
Fraser decided to use his talents to honour veterans.
“Mostly because I know what they've done for us. I know what they've sacrificed for us,” says Fraser.
Dennis Chipman is the recreation therapist at the Northumberland Veterans Unit in Pictou, N.S. He says Fraser's work is another way of keeping the veterans' legacies alive.
“The artist is so talented to, you know, draw a veteran, encapsulate what it means, what remembrance means to our veterans, and the symbolism behind all that. I think it was a very powerful thing,” says Chipman. “He had told me that he's after doing sketching of veterans in the past, and that he would do a couple, at no cost to us, and he'd have one drawing in particular done before Remembrance Day.”
That portrait will be unveiled Wednesday at a Remembrance Day service at the Northumberland Veterans Unit.
Fraser says he plans on doing five more veteran sketches and they will be ready in time for Remembrance Day next year.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Dan MacIntosh
