This delicate graphite sketch, titled Sheppard Avenue, Lansing by Franklin Carmichael, captures a quiet cluster of houses rendered with minimal yet expressive line work. The drawing—dated 1928 in the lower right corner—shows Carmichael’s mastery of composition and rhythm, using swift, fluid strokes to suggest rooftops, chimneys, and tree forms along the rural edge of early Toronto.

At the time Carmichael made this sketch, Lansing was a small rural community centred around Yonge Street and Sheppard Avenue, north of Toronto. Originally settled in the early 19th century, Lansing developed from farmland and modest homesteads into a crossroads village, featuring a general store, post office, blacksmith, and a handful of wooden houses. By the 1920s, it remained largely pastoral—surrounded by open fields and scattered trees—though suburban growth from Toronto was slowly approaching. The area would later be absorbed into the city of North York in the mid-20th century, and eventually become part of metropolitan Toronto.

Though spare in detail, the sketch conveys a sense of atmospheric calm: a winter or early spring landscape with open ground and leafless trees framing a modest settlement. The sparse tonal shading in the foreground and the linear precision of the rooftops reflect Carmichael’s training as both painter and designer, emphasizing balance and spatial harmony.

Sheppard Avenue, Lansing exemplifies Carmichael’s sensitive approach to the Canadian environment—transforming an ordinary semi-rural scene into a lyrical study of form, light, and the quiet rhythm of community life on the outskirts of a changing city.