ST JOHN'S - There will be tens of thousands of photographs and hundreds of hours of video and live streaming chronicling the 2025 Canada Games but look closer and you might find the intriguing work of 26 volunteer artists who are providing their own evocative, romantic interpretation of the action.

   You probably have not noticed these men and women with their magic markers and pencils but from Hally Baly Country Club, venue for the golfing competition to Pippy Park, site of mountain biking, they have been there producing a body of work that will be exhibited at the Arts and Cultural Centre after the Summer Games closing ceremony.

   "I think it is a first time in an any Canada Games," said 83-year-old Gary Smith, busy packing up his magic markers and heading to his next event. "We approached them (2025 Canada Games organisers) months ago.

   "It is all volunteer; you got to love Newfoundland.

    "There may be some people that want to buy the pictures but they will have to deal directly with the artist. We aren't allowed to sell them here or the Arts and Culture Centre."

   The artists are all St. John's based and part of the Group of 77, founded in 1977 at 77 Gower St and a homage to the perhaps Canada’s greatest collection of artists the Group of Seven.

   Like a photographer or cameraman, Smith, Games accreditation flapping around his neck, arrives at a venue and scouts out the best spot to view his subject.

   One day, as he was on Thursday, Smith could be sketching golfers at Hally Baly, the next at Swilers Park for rugby sevens or up in the rafters of the Mary Browns Centre for the opening ceremony.

   On this day it is mountain biking cross-country at Pippy Park and Smith has positioned himself at the start-finish line, his paper clipped to a board and a kaleidoscope of magic markers laid out on a box at his fingertips.

   As he works athletes, officials, volunteers and curious spectators stop to watch and admire the man with the Salvador Dali-esque mustache do his thing, some asking how they can get a painting.  

  Some days Smith will do as many as 19 paintings, others two but on average he says he has produced nine or 12 a day.

   "My favourite is pastels but we're outside and when it rains, they dissolve so this is the first time I am using magic markers," says Smith, showing off his work. "We are all using different styles, some are using charcoal, some pencil, some pens whatever they can work fastest with."

   Trained in portrait drawing Smith has been fascinated by the opportunity to get such a close look at athletes at work.

   His favourite, so far? Para-cycling.

  "I was into sports as a kid and I was a wrestler, so I'm looking forward to that, because I say anybody that can draw a complicated knot should be able to draw two wrestlers," smiled Smith. "But these athletes, they move fast so it's a challenge.

   "There are competitions here for the disabled, para sport. I had a mother who had polio, so I am very close to that.

   "They were out there racing on these bicycles, unbelievable.

   "I put extra work into those pictures."