In May and June of 1978 Bloore taught a summer course at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. While it was not a vacation from teaching, it would at least be a pleasant holiday from Toronto.
↑ ↓ ↑ ↓
June 3 1979, ink, graphite, oil on paper, 46x61cm, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina
According to the notes on the working drawing above, it was the basis for two full size, 90 by 120cm, panel paintings. The painting below, now for sale at the Rumi Galleries, is the first of those two. The triangle at the upper right is indicated as having eight layers of oil paint. The last layer is a mix two different Grumbacher whites, one of them containing titanium.
↑ ↓ ↑ ↓
1979, July 4, oil on masonite, 91 x 122 cm, Collection of the Estate
As in holidays of the past Bloore expected to draw and sketch in his idle hours on heavy watercolour paper blocks. But there was a new angle on this pursuit this time. In May 1976, deep into his more than 74 work Byzantine Lights Series, Bloore had done some oil painting on block with both brush and knife with positive results, two examples of which hung in the Bloore / Lochhead show of 2021.
Then in 1977 Bloore completed the major painting reproduced and discussed at some length in Ted Heinrich's article in the May/June 79 issue of artscanada. It represented, as Heinrich wrote, a major shift “redefining in new terms his 
unique fusion of spirit and substance.” The field in this image has gone from looking like a support of sculpted form to a ground behind represented forms. There is an appearance of space.
So in 1978, in New Brunswick, Bloore approached his paper blocks as containing space. At first he regarded this stricktly as an intellectual exercise. His new compositions were arrangements of completely amorphous forms in completely ambiguous space.
↑ ↓ ↑ ↓
June 3 1979, ink, graphite, oil on paper, 46x61cm, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina
At the bottom left of the drawing above, are two dates, one for the drawing, the other for the painting below. This is fortunate because the date is NOT anywhere on the painting itself, a common problem with Bloores.
↑ ↓ ↑ ↓
1979, June 8, oil on masonite, 91 x 122 cm, Collection of the Estate
In dramatic contrast to the pair of works at the top of this page, the next pair are diferent in many ways. Firstly, and perhaps most understandably, the colour scheme is completely changed. And secondly major compositional forms are elided and altered. But most startling of all, a multitude of Egyptian five pointed stars has descended over the left side.
↑ ↓ ↑ ↓
April 7 1979, ink, graphite, oil on paper, 46x61cm, The painting based
on this drawing, May 16 - Aug 15, is at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina
The first known example of Bloore gridding up a working drawing. This became the regular process in the 1990's as shown on the Working Drawings page here.