The image is striking: a cougar, illumined by moonlight, prowls along a West Coast beach. It is the work of artist Jan Poynter from Grantham’s Landing, and is the second coin that she has designed for the Royal Mint of Canada.
Her first coin featured cherry blossoms painted during a festival in Vancouver. She was approached by the Mint at that time as they were looking for blossom images. This time the Mint put out the concept in an open call to several artists. The parameters were wide: design a coin incorporating wildlife, moonlight and winter. Although this was over eight months ago in spring and prior to the super moon, Poynter could visualize an idea. She remembered the foot prints in the snow at her parent’s waterfront place in Parksville.
“The huge cat had walked along the shoreline in the snow – so elusive and mysterious,” she said. The mountains in the background and the trees were in keeping with the type of landscape that she often portrays in her work. Her design was chosen.
“I was pleased to be asked and then pleased to have my design selected,” she told Coast Reporter.
The $30 colourful coin was released on Jan. 10 and is part of the Animals in the Moonlight four-coin subscription series. It is two ounces of pure silver, every detail enhanced with colour, plus it uses an innovative glow-in-the-dark technology.
“The hard part is thinking about the scale while rendering the design,” Poynter noted. The coin is small at 54 mm and all the elements – cougar, moon, snow – must be visible. Poynter has the benefit of experience at making “small, round things,” as she calls them, after working at a coin and badge manufacturer in Australia in years past.
“We used to paint by hand in miniature to show the customers. Now I can use the technology to see the design on the screen and print it out at the actual size.”
The limited edition coin (4,000 minted) has already been snapped up by subscribers of the collector coins.
