This past April I had the honor of being the keynote speaker during the Awards Banquet at the Ontario Numismatic Association’s Annual Convention.

A few members of the Waterloo Coin Society, the club hosting this year’s convention in Kitchener, noticed the article about the 2012 Lucky Loonie (and its designer) in the local paper last summer and subsequently invited me speak at the convention.

During my presentation, I explained the steps I take to create coin designs for the Royal Canadian Mint and I showed many of the sketches and drawings that are part of my process. I also included a few slides of coins by other RCM artists whose work I particularly admire (and I could have showed many more, if not for the time constraint).

I’m very grateful to the Royal Canadian Mint for their support, including their blessing to speak about the coin design process, permission to use their intellectual property throughout my presentation, and an opportunity to meet an RCM Project Manager at the convention.

I also thank the Convention Committee for inviting me to participate in the convention; the experience was rewarding. It was a great pleasure to meet the collectors, a friendly and fun-loving group of people who are passionate and knowledgeable about their collecting specialties.