Every Day Art - Art Every Day

How cool is this!

2012-01-30T22:22:00.001-07:00

I finally tried to fuse some glass this weekend. It was so simple to do. I used a schedule I found online, and it took 14 hours! Rio Grande says I can shorten it significantly, so I will try the easier way next time. There are just so many fun possibilities with fused glass!

2012-01-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

Although I haven't posted in a while, I have been doing a variety of different creative ventures. I finally signed up for the introduction to silversmithing through Bedrock, and absolutely LOVED the course. We learned how to solder, make rings, two kinds of settings (bezel and tube), and pierced metal. It was so great and so inspiring. I signed up for an on-line newsletter called Jewelry Making Daily, and won this book!

http://www.interweavestore.com/Jewelry/Books/Silversmithing-for-Jewelry-Makers.html

This is an absolutely fabulous book. Before I took the course, it would have all seemed quite daunting and mysterious, but now that I understand some of the terms, I can see that this book has such a wealth of information that it will become one of my main references from now on. Each technique has a section providing details about what it is and what it does, and then there are little projects to follow along and try the technique. It seemed small (190 pages in soft binding), but it has an encyclopedia worth of information packed into the pages.

Definitely worth the investment at twice the price.

Fox

2011-07-27T10:57:00.000-06:00

This little fox was in our back yard the other day. Robert looked out the back door, and there she was, lying in the sun looking perfectly content. By the time he got the camera out, she was headed off to look for food, but stopped and posed in this perfectly stacked position, so he could get a nice shot of her structure. Such a beautiful little creature!

encaustics

2011-06-19T20:19:00.003-06:00

Now that my drawing course is done, I finally feel like I can play again, so I dug out my encaustics and painted a couple of pictures of trees. The one above is small - about 8 inches square, and the one below is about 12 inches square. Both are done on claybord.

update

2011-06-09T20:17:00.004-06:00

I have been taking a drawing class lately, so my artwork hasn't really been anything worth sharing. I did this quick sketch of Rhaynie before the class started, because I was thinking it would be a good image for a business card. The whole thing doesn't work too well, because it isn't really the right shape, but a cropped close up of her head might work.

The pictures below are some sketches done in class. They are quite big, and didn't photograph well, but they give you an idea about what has been keeping me busy. I am glad to be done with the course, though, because now I cna get back to the many half-finished projects waiting for my attention.

Thanks for taking a look!

Silver Clay Zoi

2011-04-01T15:24:00.003-06:00

I mentioned to someone the other day that I had purchased a silver clay kiln, and that I wanted to try a 'zoi pin. She asked if I had enough skill to do a decent job, and I must admit I did hesitate before answering. I had to try it immediately, and I think it came out OK. What do you think? It was quite a bit larger before I fired it, but this is a nice petite size. I'm not sure it is worth the $60 in materials, though. And so far it is just a flat image of a 'zoi - I still don't know how to do silver solder, so it doesn't have a pin back yet. Next lesson, silver solder!

chain mail

2011-03-20T18:23:00.004-06:00

I have been learning to make chain mail. This is a necklace made using the byzantine weave and very large rings (14ga and .5 inch diameter). The weave kind of falls apart without being stretched, but it stays in place when it is being worn.

I have also been learning how to use my metal clay kiln. The clay is really strange texture - slippery on the outside and hard and dry inside - so it is difficult to work with. I made this ring, and as it was drying, it cracked at the join, so I syringed a bit of clay over the crack and pushed in a tiger eye bead. I thought that the clay would cover the hole in the bead, but it shrank enough that the hole shows, and the bead turned red. It needs a bit of sanding, which I should have done before firing, but I didn't know what to expect, and everything I have read suggested that the dried ring would be really delicate and would crumble if I touched it. The ring shrank one size, as expected, and fits perfectly. Not bad for an experiment!

2011-02-15T21:38:00.003-07:00

I was trying to copy an antique Egyptian turquoise faience ring using polymer clay. It took me five or six tries before I got one that fits, but I think it turned out pretty close. These are my examples:

Here is the original:

update

2011-02-13T21:03:00.003-07:00

I managed to get a couple of things done this weekend - in addition to the normal cleaning. It was beautiful weather, so we also got a couple of long dog walks in. It feels like spring is on the way, and even though I know it will get cold again, and likely stay cold for at least another month, it was wonderful to take a moment and feel the warmth of the sun baking though the window.

I thought I would try making red hearts for Valentine's day, using the basic recipe for elephant ears with a bit of red food coloring. The recipe is really simple: just roll out puff pastry, dusting the curface with sugar instead of flour, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over the top, roll and slice. I mixed some red food coloring with the cinnamon/sugar mixture and this is what happened:

They aren't very romantic, but they taste just as good as the original. I thought they would be good Halloween cookies, since they look like bleeding hearts. Or maybe they are good Valentine hearts for those who are hurting and need some sweet consolation.

I also managed to get a few paintings completed this weekend. This one was failing, and the colors were all washed out, so I added a bit of alcohol inks on the top, and viola!

The next two were started with alcohol inks on clay board, with a coating of wax on top:

Fly trap

2011-01-26T19:06:00.003-07:00

I bought this venus fly trap in the fall, and left it sitting on the kitchen table, fully expecting it to die like they always do. I had been reading about them, and discovered that they need to go into hybernation, and when they do, they look dead, so most people throw them out. I figured if I left it in the original container, it might have a better chance of survival, even though the container is rather tacky. To my amazement, not only did it continue to thrive, but it started to flower just before Christmas, and had flowers for about four weeks.

This is a close up of the flower.

Catching up

2011-01-09T20:07:00.004-07:00

I know I have been very quiet, so I thought I would finally post a few images of what I have been working on for the past several weeks. These were all completed in 2010 - the new year has been such an awful series of unfortunate events that I am starting to worry about what is coming next.....

I found a couple of these sweet little baby mermaids in tiny rocking shells: and captured this brownie alive in an old candle lantern:

And I finally managed to find some display cases for the mummified dryads we collected in the late fall this year. The frames are from Ikea, and they work perfectly as specimen cases for these dimunitive creatures. Well, dead bodies really, but you know what I mean.

Acer Saccharinum Sylvanii

Populus Canescens Sylvanii

A Beautiful Day

2010-12-05T20:37:00.002-07:00

We finally had a semi-free day, and took the dogs for a walk. Although it was still a bit chilly, we had a great time. The dogs were so excited that they pulled and strained almost the whole way, and they are so worn out from the walk and run that they spent the next few hours out cold on the couch.

Unicorn

2010-10-27T20:58:00.004-06:00

We captured this unicorn running around in our garden last night. We didn't have a princess to lure her in, but she was hungry and walked into our trap for candy glitter.

Halloween

2010-10-07T20:34:00.004-06:00

I had made plans to work through all the half-finished projects laying around on my worktable, but got distracted by the all Halloween projects online. I found some nice small plastic skeletons at Michael's, so I got to make a mummified elf corpse. I had tried one last year, but the skeletons available weren't very good. I think he turned out OK, although I'm not too sure I like his clothing. I may have to play with it a bit to get it to look more natural.
I also made a few blood jars. I found some battery-operated tea lights, and they look really nice and warm in these jars (although it doesn't look like it - I don't really know how to take pictures in the dark, and these lose their creepy quality in the light.

Encaustics and stitches

2010-09-12T20:08:00.007-06:00

A few years ago, I was reading a book about Galileo, and it mentioned a book he wrote called A Discourse on Floating Bodies. I loved the title, and thought about what the cover of such a book would look like. This is the first attempt:

A Discourse on Things that Float, I

encaustic on board

This is the second attempt:

A Discourse on Things that Float II

Encaustic on Clayboard

Rhaynie and Igor were playing around in the yard last night, and Rhaynie crashed into a bush. A branch stabbed her in the side, and cut a hole about 1 inch long. We had to take her in to get three stitches:

I think it probably looks a lot worse than it is, but it sure looks gross. She is very tolerant, and hasn't complained at all.

Halloween

2010-09-09T13:48:00.003-06:00

Hallowween got me thinking about vampire and werewolf hunting kits again, and I decided I would tackle one this year. I was trying to find just the right antique container, but I could wait forever for that, so I am going to make one and age it myself.

I made this basilisk tooth a while ago, but I think it will work quite well as a werewolf tooth. I have it stored in a small wooden tea box, with a bit of raffia for padding. The tea boxes seem like something that would be used to store specimens in a museum. They are made from very soft wood like balsa, so it is easy to sand off the label, and they have a sliding cover.

encaustic

2010-09-09T13:43:00.003-06:00

I have been playing with the encaustics again as well. I bought a new iron (my old one caught on fire) so I finally managed to get back to learning how to use the medium. I haven't quite got the hang of making it smooth or rough where I want it, and of course I am going to blame it on not having the right equipment, but it is getting closer to what I am aiming for. This is a mountain view by where we go camping (between Banff and Jasper). It is a 5x7.

Pumpkins

2010-09-08T09:12:00.003-06:00

It has been a rough spring and summer, but I think life is gradually returning to normal. Our house still needs some furniture, my organized studio is a mess, and the dogs leave the house covered in mud every day, but those are relatively normal events that are easy to deal with, given enough time.

Now that fall is here, with cooler weather, earlier dusk and Halloween just around the corner, I am also feeling much more inspired to play. Not that I have a lot to show for it, what with all the cleaning (I shampooed the carpets twice on the weekend!), but I got a bit of time to play with some polymer clay, and made a bunch of tiny jack-o-lanterns. They are about an inch and a half including the stems.

Reborn Jaden

2010-07-03T20:38:00.005-06:00

I finally decided to try making a reborn doll. I don't usually like to do kits, and this one was more than $200, but she is a really beautiful doll. I am really happy with the painting, and she looks so lifelike it is almost creepy - I feel like I am neglecting her if I leave her alone in a room. However, I was really not happy with the hair. I couldn't get it rooted so it looks natural, although that may have been caused by using dark hair instaed of light. I think I will try a very light alpaca hair on the next one (yes, I was happy enough with the results that I think I will do another one). And maybe I can find some blond eyelashes as well - all I could find was black, and it didn't look very realistic.

I put in real hair eyebrows too, and they ended up a bit scruffy, and the hairs are too thick, so the alpaca might be just the right texture for the next one. I chose Jaden because she looks like Gwen, but of course Gwen's hair was very short and she more bald than anything, so adding hair made Jaden look quite a bit different.

2010-07-02T20:13:00.002-06:00

I was making a captured fairy for my sister as a birthday present, and got into a bit of a rush to finish. I put it in the oven before it was fully heated, and the broiler came on and burned the hands and feet. I am going to have to start all over, and won't be able to deliver it as planned.
He kind of looks like he was digging in the dirt. Or maybe an oil slick off the gulf coast....

Best in Breed!

2010-04-22T20:31:00.002-06:00

Rhaynie won best in breed at the show on the weekend, despite my inept handling! Woohoo!
Now I just need to learn how to do this properly so she can place in the group again!

update

2010-03-14T20:46:00.004-06:00

I seem to have hit a creative block, and can't get past it. I think it is this art doll I have been working on - I made the head, hands and feet at Christmas, and then put it all together in January, but now I can't decide how to finish it. I made the body using a technique recommended online, and it has resulted in ridges all around the body that will show if the clothing material is too thin. I wanted to dress her in something mossy, with black hair with white steaks so she looks very earthy, but I'm having trouble finding the right material. I think perhaps she has become too precious, and I am getting too stressed about getting it right. I guess I need to make the clothing removable so I can change it later.

I put all my art supplies away over the Christmas break when I cleaned up the studio (I use my art table to serve Christmas dinner because it is the only table large enough to seat that many people). I thought that a bit of a change might help me get back into the creative mood, so I dragged all my encaustic materials out of storage and made this encaustic landscape. Of course, my iron caught fire before I got halfway through and I had to find alternative tools to get it done, but I think it worked out OK in the end. The little encaustic iron is such a vital tool, and I had become a bit dependent on it, so it helped stretch my skills a bit to be forced to work with a different set of tools. Encaustic Landscape

cradled 8x10 Claybord

self portrait

2010-02-03T20:58:00.005-07:00

I apologise for being absent for such a long while, but it is mostly because I have been so very busy with my new job that I am exhausted at the end of the day, and can't summon the energy to do much. However, I was surfing on the weekend, and got inspired by an image on a website, which of course, I didn't record so I can't give credit where it is due.

This started with a plaster cast of my face. It was going to be mostly white, with some aging techniques to make it look like old marble. It was a bit boring, and I thought that a bit of color might make it look like an earth goddess image. It ended up looking more like a moldy cadaver (it isn't quite a pretty in real life). So I guess this is a self-portrait as a zombie. ;-))

Pod creatures

2009-12-13T20:14:00.004-07:00

I took an online course from Pattee's (Odd-Dolls) Ning site. It was a lot of fun, and Pattee did a great job of demonstrating all her techniques. It was fascinating learning how other people put together a face - she used a really unique approach. I got carried away and made four, and haven't even used the eyes she sent with the kit. This was great fun!

I think this one is my favorite: and one peeking out of a shell:

head - work in progress

2009-12-05T16:42:00.003-07:00

I made this head while I was waiting for a video to download the other night. I didn't have any eyes on hand, so I tried making some using black and gold glass paint on the back of some of the flat glass marbles that are used for displaying cut flowers. The glass paints are permanent once baked, and the gold turned out much better than the dark blue I had on hand. I was also hoping that the eyes might work like the portrait eyes that follow the viewer around the room. The trick Disney uses is to make the eyes concave instead of convex. It occurred to me that if they look like they are following the viewer, it wouldn't be so difficult to set eyes. I often get crossed eyes, because the position seems to change during baking and shrinking, and it ruins a lot of work.

Anyway, the eyes were much too big for the foil ball, which meant that he developed this rather mean expression on his face (of course, I helped along a wee bit!). He might have made a good Scrooge, but he said he was much more trollish.

tea cup fairy

2009-12-02T20:56:00.003-07:00

I love making these little fairy babies. They are relatively quick and if they don't turn out the first time, it is easy to squish and remake. I made two of these as Christmas gifts for some friends. I sure hope they like them!

lack of posting

2009-11-15T18:16:00.004-07:00

I have been somewhat negligent of late, so I just wanted to give you all an update and an excuse.

I started a new position and it is a bit overwhelming. It's not that I think I don't have the skills to do the job, but it is a huge job just to learn about the way people do things in a different organization, and to learn who all the people are that I should be working with. All that while trying to figure out what my job is, and actually produce something that I can be comfortable signing my name to.

I haven't been totally neglectful of my artworks either, although that has slowed down a bit. I made a number of things for Halloween, including a bunch of little glow-in-the-dark ghosts, a basilisk tooth in a box, and a few 'things in jars'. The things in jars are a lot of fun to make, because it doesn't take a lot to make them look quite real. In fact, when I showed one to my brother, He thought it was real and wanted to know what kind of animal embryo it was. They are quite difficult to photograph, so I haven't managed to get any good pictures, but I will try again when I have some sunlight.

Art Doll

2009-08-24T19:50:00.005-06:00

I was inspired by many of the doll artists who participated in the Art Dolls Only Four Elements challenge, and decided to try some of the techniques they were using. I thought I would try the puppet body style on this doll, as well as trying a new medium (paper clay). The clay is very soft and creamy, but it is really difficult to make hands and feet that have any lyrical movement. I used straws to make sure that there was a nice smooth hole to string the limbs once it was completed, and used wooden beads for the ball joints. I was going for Tree Nymph, so the skin is painted with a kind of generic wood grain. Her dress has a ruffle on the front, and a long train at the back, and is made entirely by wrapping (no stitches). She is about 8 inches high.

Storm clean up

2009-08-09T18:18:00.004-06:00

I haven't had a lot of time for art work this last week. A terrible windstorm blew through our area and broke twenty or so of our large trees (and many littler ones beside them were crushed under the weight when they came down). All the trees that fell into the yard have to be chopped up into logs and the branches and brush have to be raked up and burned. Some of the trees look like they were twisted where they broke, although the storm wasn't officially labelled a tornado.

It is hard to tell from the pictures, but most of these trees were at least 40 feet tall.

This one barely missed hitting the house. There were a few branches on the roof, but nothing was damaged, apart from the tree and the little cranberry bush it fell on.

This little pile of fallen trees was just one of many, and it took us two complete days to clean out the path.

We still have many days of clean up to do - we have only tackled two of five piles.

Although we lost a lot of trees, we aren't complaining. Nothing hit the house, and there was no significant damage. The storm continued on to Camrose (about 30 miles east of our house), where it killed one person and injured dozens who were attending an outdoor concert.

Earth Goddess

2009-07-17T17:35:00.004-06:00

I made it! This art doll represents the earth element and was completed for the Art Dolls Only Elements Challenge.

This is my Earth Goddess. She is wearing a snow white gown and a spring green cape. She likes to keep her feet bare, so she can feel the grass between her toes, and she needs a crystal ball to learn the future of her planet....

Hand, hand, fingers, toes ...

2009-07-16T17:24:00.003-06:00

...eyes and ears, mouth and nose.

I have had more than my fair share of troubles with this one, and she just didn't want to be ready for tomorrow. Perhaps she thinks it takes some of the mystery out of being the goddess of Earth if people know what she looks like.

My decisions to go outside my comfort zone and make a much larger doll, and to experiment with a new armature based on Dawn's tutorial probably didn't help much, either.

I think she will be ready for the unveilling tomorrow, though!

More encaustics

2009-07-06T20:47:00.005-06:00

I have been enjoying playing with encaustics, in between sculpting my challenge doll, of course!), and I thought I would post a few images. These two are small (4 inches square).

This one is a bit larger (7 inches square):

They are all painted on solid board.

Art Doll Challenge

2009-06-22T12:08:00.004-06:00

I am going to try to take part in an art doll challenge from the Art Dolls Only group. It may be difficult, because I have a lot of other committments during the same time period, so I will see how far I get, but I am excited about taking part. I started sculpting the hands out of polymer clay last night, and then went a completely different direction today and drew out a pattern for a cloth doll. I'm not sure which way I will go, but it isn't wasted effort which ever path I choose.

Charms

2009-06-18T10:07:00.003-06:00

I put my name in a draw for Amber Dawn's International Charm Day and won a beautiful little shell charm. Amber does a wonderful job of presentation packaging as well, and included a little charm with her card. I was too late to get in on the give away this year, but I am looking forward to participating next year.

2009-06-06T13:18:00.004-06:00

I was in Quebec city for a conference last week, and got an opportunity to slip into the museum there for a quick visit before closing one evening. I wanted to see the Egyptian mummy display they advertised, and was hoping to see one of Sekhmet's statues. Much to my amazement, one of the displays held a relatively crude terracotta goddess figure. Given the technical and artistic skill typical of the grave goods placed with mummies, this goddess figure was very rough and naive. It reminded me of the headstones I have seen on occasion in local graveyards, handcrafted by the grieving spouse from cement and steel plate.

The goddess image was about 4 inches long, with no breasts (unlike most 'Venus' figures), but she was very clearly given long curly hair and ears or earrings. The fingers were slashes cut into the end of the arm, as were the marks that form the pubic triangle. The slashes looked like they were made with a long bladed knife. The pubic area was filled with rows of dots and she had a squarish mound on the tummy area that she was kind of holding, although her fingers didn't reach that far. Archeological theory says that these were intended to represent rebirth in the afterlife, but it seems to me more like a form of sympatheic magic intended to ensure the deceased is reincarnated/reborn to a wealthy mother (hence the very wide hips and the earrings). The grave was estimated to be around 2040 to 1640 BC.

I was quite excited to finally see one of these 'goddess' images in person, although she was very different from anything I had seen before or expected to see associated with mummies. Although she was made from terracotta, I think I will have to try making one of my own.

Crow stamps

2009-05-24T10:39:00.002-06:00

A few months ago I had an idea for an art piece very clearly visualized in my mind and I made these two stamps of crows that would be required. Then I put them away until I could get the black permanent ink required to make it work properly. I finally remembered they were there, and picked up the permanent ink to test them to see if they worked OK. These are only test stamps, so the color isn't really even, but i think the carving went well.

The real problem is that now I can't remember why I needed them - so much time has passed that I don't remember the original vision. Ah well, I am sure I can find some use for them.

amulets

2009-05-20T19:36:00.003-06:00

Objects and Elements offers recycled sari silks. I use the spun sari silks to make pouches or medicine bag necklaces. It is difficult to crochet because of all the hanging strings, but the outcome is definitely worth it - the variegated colors are stunning!

Snow

2009-05-19T20:51:00.002-06:00

Can you believe it - we have had snow for the last couple of days. The long weekend traditionally marks the time when the danger of frost is past, and most people spend the weekend planting their gardens. Well, this year we spend the holiday huddled inside against the cold and blowing snow. The dogs were all sick too, so everyone just moped around the whole weekend.
It's hard to compalin too much, though, because snow means moisture, which we are sorely lacking. All the ponds are dry, and we have been quite worried that the drought this year is going to be the worst yet. In fact, it is so dry that the trees are still refusing to leaf, but this snow should give them that boost of moisture that will encourage them to leaf out, and we can finally see some signs of spring. Yay!

Macarons!

2009-04-29T19:13:00.005-06:00

I finally managed to try baking macarons last night. It takes a bit of advanced preparation, because the egg whites called for in the recipe have to be separated and left in the refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours before they can be used, and of course I never think of doing any baking except on a weekend. I used unblanched almonds, so there are lots lof little brown flecks, but otherwise I think they worked like they are supposed to. I even got little feet on most of them. I used a very basic recipe - I was quite disappointed to find that the luscious color of macarons is actually just powdered food coloring, and not flavour. I think I will try making them with a bit of cassis to see if I can't get them to make the same with a bit more flavour. I also tried putting them on a silpat, and that was a disaster. They didn't cook, and they stuck. The ones on parchment paper worked perfectly and slid off without any effort.

The recipe seemed small, and my weigh scale doesn't measure in such small amounts, so I doubled the recipe. I ended up with 8 or 9 sheets of cookies! I got bored with all the piping and started making them bigger and then made some heart shaped ones as well. This would be really pretty in pink or purple sandwiched with some purple jam.

Encaustics - again

2009-04-28T18:16:00.003-06:00

Since I had all my encaustic materials spread all over my work table, I decided to play a bit with some small boards 4x5 I had prepared. The first board was well primed and had a fairly smooth surface, so it was possible to treat the surface like the slick paper usually used for encaustics, and the brushstrokes are similar:

I think that the second one turned out more interesting. The surface was still rather porous (which makes for better adehsion anyway), and the final image looks more like an oil painting from the 1800s:

Although it is small, you can still see the trees in the foreground, and the creek, hills and bluffs in the background.

encaustic

2009-04-14T09:53:00.002-06:00

Rather than work on any of the sixteen projects I currently have underway, I decided to pull out my encaustic materials on the weekend and work on a rather large (for encaustics) painting. I spent a full day working on it, and another day struggling to make it look like the image in my mind. I finally decided to put it aside, because it simply wasn't working. I don't know if I will bother to spend the time scraping the wax off so I can reuse the board (it is a lovely 2 feet square), or just chuck the whole thing in the garbage. How frustrating! and a waste of a lot of time on the long weekend that would have been better spent raking grass.

Another fairy

2009-04-05T19:52:00.002-06:00

I finished another fairy baby yesterday:

She is about the same size as the previous one (2.5 inches) and made from polymer clay.

Here she is asleep in her moss bed:

fairy baby

2009-04-01T12:53:00.003-06:00

I finished this little fairy baby a couple of days ago:

She is about 2.5 inches long and made from polymer clay.

Lust cookies

2009-03-15T20:13:00.002-06:00

After reading Dogs and Goddesses, I simply HAD to try making butter cookies. The only recipe I could find was for Cardamom cookies, and while they are tasty, they certainly don't inspire any lust or need to fulfill my deepest desires. Although, I was inspired to dig up a few ideas for paintings, so maybe they had more of an effect than I thought!

The book is definitely a must-read. It was hilarious, and I couldn't put it down. I am hoping for more from this collaborative of authors.

movies and books

2009-03-10T11:29:00.000-06:00

I had to take a quick trip out east for work, and encountered a couple of quirky movies on the flight. The ‘Hollywood’ movie choices were pretty drab, and not really to my taste, so I started searching to see if there was something else I could watch. I decided to take a look at the Canadian movies. The first one I watched was called Evelyn: the Cutest Evil Dead Girl. This was a cute movie about a dead girl who tries to make friends with living people and after getting ridiculed, she tries to kill herself back to life so they will accept her. It is short and funny and very quirky.

I also read (there is a lot of time for reading while waiting for planes to arrive and depart) Joanne Harris’s new book “The Lollipop Shoes”. It is a kind of sequel to “Chocolat”, and the book and the movie explored the same theme – dealing with being different. It was curious how similar the two characters Evelyn (in the movie) and Zozie (in the book) were.

The second movie, called Just Buried had a lot of promise but the system died before I got very far into it. Just buried is about a young man who inherits a funeral home from his estranged father, in a town where there hasn’t been a funeral for over a year. He and the young female mortician who works for him then try to figure out how to drum up business. Now I am going to have to buy the DVD or figure out how to find this movie so I can finish watching it.

The Conservatory Overcoat GIVEAWAY!!!!

2009-02-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

The Conservatory Overcoat GIVEAWAY!!!!

I followed a link and found this incredibly generous and talented wonam is giving away this beautiful coat. She took some wonderful photos of a romatic Valentie's day in a conservatory. The photos are wonderful, and allow everyone to share in their day. Definitely worth many return visits.

Beaver tails and canele

2009-02-22T11:45:00.006-07:00

It all started when I was unloading the dishwasher. I was trying to shove some clean pots into the bottom cupboard, and they wouldn't budge. Something was in the way. I got down on my hands and knees and pulled everything out, and found the madelaine pan I had purchased many years ago and never tried. Aha! oh, but wait... Madelaines. Lemon madelaines. I have lemons in the fridge just waiting to be used for some luscious purpose....

I pulled out the pan, put all the other stuff back in the cupboard, and searched through my recipe library for a good recipe for madelaines. It is a weird recipe - mostly eggs and very little flour, so one could easily argue that madelaines are a good breakfast cookie (I often feel the need to justify what I stick in my face!). I was quite proud of them, and I thought they looked just like they should, tasted lemony and had a light cake-like texture.

I had been looking at Paris Breakfasts' blog the night before, where she was talking about caneles, so I figured I might as well try them while I was playing in the kitchen. I found a lot of references and recipes online, and eventually decided on the recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini mostly because all the other recipes called for a dozen eggs, and this one called for three. I don't have the required canele pans, but the recipes all referred to silicone pans, and the fact that the silicone pans are easier to use than the traditional copper. I do have a silicone muffin pan, and although it isn't as deep, I figured I could at least get an idea about whether caneles are the delicious magical treat every one claims they are. They are. They are supposed to look a bit burnt, although mine cooked quite a bit more quickly than the recipe suggested, because the pans are so shallow. They have a carmelly crunchy outside layer, and a custardy filling. I only filled the muffin pans three quarters full (and then they spilled as I was transferring them to the oven, because the damn pans aren't stable), so I would put the pan on a cookie sheet and fill them right to the top next time. They are easy to make, and definitely worth the effort. And since my silicone pans have this lovely rose shape, they are quite pretty as well!

Since I had already decided to dedicate my day to baking, I decided to try Beaver Tails. It was all over the news that Barack Obama stopped into a mall on his recent visit to Ottawa and while there he tried a Beaver Tail, which is supposedly a classic Canadian dish. I suppose that might be true if you live in Ottawa, but those of us in other parts of the country haven't ever heard of them. Of course, I have a recipe for stewed beaver tail, which was apparently a popular dish among settlers, but - ewww! The kind that Barack tasted was a pastry, so I hit the internet again. There are recipes all over the place for beaver tails, and they all seem to be exactly the same. They are a yeast-raised doughnut, but curiously, they also have eggs which help them rise quickly when they are in the oil (there's that great excuse to eat them for breakfast again!) Once you get the douhg prepared, it only takes about 2 minutes to cook them. They are great, and since I don't like anything really sweet, I just sprinkled a bit of icing sugar on them. I ended up making enough for my DH's social studies class.

necklace

2009-02-17T21:02:00.003-07:00

I made these dangly bits several years ago, and finally got around to putting them together into this necklace:

clockwork flower pendant

2009-02-17T20:27:00.004-07:00

I completed this clockwork flower pendant this evening:

This is a close-up of the flower:
Brass chain, steel tap, antique clock parts, brass guitar string nuts.

Approximately 12 inches long.

skull and tiger eye necklace

2009-02-16T10:48:00.003-07:00

Looking at all the great art I found through visiting the participants in the One World One Heart event has given me the inspiration I needed to get creating again, although in a number of different genres. I am focusing on jewelry and artdolls for now, but I also need to complete two suits that I started last year.

I finished this skull necklace and matching earrings last night. It has bone skulls as accent beads, one large skull as a focal bead, and the remaining beads are flat tiger eye beads.

clockwork earrings

2009-02-15T15:41:00.006-07:00

I was inspired by the work of Deryn Mentock and Dr. Insectus to dig out my jewelry projects and complete this pair of earrings. I absolutely LOVE steampunk style. These earrings have identical clockwork mechanisms, with lapis chips and small bulbs.

Whew!

2009-02-05T21:00:00.004-07:00

I finally managed to look at all the incredible bloggers who are part of One World One Heart this year - all 911 of them. At least, I think I got them all and didn't miss any. I was worried that I wouldn't get through them all before the February 11 deadline because the dial-up access was crashing every three pages. I didn't take a lot of time to investigate all the blogs, so now that I am done the quick pass through, I am going to go back and take my time looking at all the new blogs this wonderful event has introduced to me. I know, it means more time spent surfing and no time creating, but there are such a lot of inspiring blogs on the list, and a bit of inspiration can't hurt, right? If you haven't done so already, take some time and check out some of these blogs. The range of items that people are giving away is amazing - there are even things like personal coaching sessions, and books written just for the winner. There are some amazing and generous people out there.

One World One Heart

2009-01-20T12:14:00.008-07:00

Congratulations to the winner of this giveaway:

Cindy from Ohio http://www.oopsdesperateblogger.blogspot.com/

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to play. This event was a great way of meeting new artists and seeing a lot of great art, and I know I will be spending the next few months spending more time perusing the sites included on the One World One Heart list.

I am so excited to participate in the One World One Heart event this year. If you want more information about the event, click the logo below:

I have visited all the sites of participants in the past, but this year I am able to play along. I will be giving away this stone goddess pendant:

She is carved from teal colored grout, and feels like real stone. Leave a comment on this post, and I will draw the name of the winner on February 12th.

Abstract made with interior housepaint

2009-01-20T12:09:00.003-07:00

This is a painting made with a bit of leftover paint from the recent reno project. It isn't stretched yet, but will be about 2 feet x 3 feet when finished.

Finally, some sun

2009-01-18T17:22:00.006-07:00

It was wonderful to get a break in the cold weather today. The sun was shining, and the temperature actually reached somewhere in the region of +8. There were lots of people walking around in t-shirts and short sleeves.

I always get into a slump after Christmas, and don't get a lot of art done, but I am feeling a bit more inspired the last few days. I have been painting a bedroom, and chose a dark raspberry color. I haven't painted a room that dark before, and it has been a lot more work that I anticipated. I had to paint the walls with a tinted primer, and it has taken 4 to 5 top coats to get the color to look even and not streaky. It looks pretty nice, although I'm not sure I would ever choose to paint such a dark color again. I still have to finish the ceiling (I am planning on using a heavily textured wallpaper) and touch up all the trim, but I will post pictures once that is completed. I thought I had an idea about how to furnish the room, but now I am not so sure, and will have to give it some thought. It was supposed to be a pretty girly room for the two granddaughters to use when they visit, but I am also trying to make it a bit more mature so that I don't have to redo the whole thing in five years.

I also used some of the wall paint to make an abstract painting, and I will post pictures of that as soon as it dries.

watercolour landscape

2008-12-11T21:54:00.004-07:00

Here are a couple of more paintings I completed while taking the watercolour course. The first was an exercise in painting clouds, and the second was foliage. I haven't done a lot of landscape painting, so I quite enjoyed painting these and I think they turned out well.

miniatures

2008-12-07T20:04:00.005-07:00

I haven't been doing any painting for a few days, because I have been remodelling a spare room. The room has been used for storage for all my artwork. It has been piling up, but I hadn't realized how much there was until I had to move it all out of the room.
Some of it is quite difficult to store, like this 1/12 scale room I built many years ago. It is an alchemist's studio, and the alchemist has mysteriously disappeared.

There is a map on the table, spread out for close study.

One of the bell jars on the shelf even has a little fetus. There is gold and silver spilled on the floor, and glowing coals in the brazier.

It was great fun to make but now it just takes up room.

Pumpkin face

2008-11-28T16:39:00.003-07:00

I came across this little guy at the bottom of a box of Reeses Pieces the other day. He must have been hiding there since Halloween, and I couldn't bring myself to eat him. He now lives on my bookshelf among the other skulls where nobody will mistake him for something edible.

My 'type"

2008-11-26T10:47:00.004-07:00

Following a link posted by one of my favorite bloggers Bluepoppy, I entered my blog into this analyzer, and it came up with this image:

It says that, according to what I have written on my blog pages, that I am a doer:
The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical outdoor activities. The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

This is SO accurate! at least in terms of what I have written on the blog pages. Very cool!

I also did the Myers-Briggs test again, and it says I am an INTJ Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging. I AM introverted, but I DO try to refrain from judging!

It does align with the Crow totem, though - seeing a vision of the future, and helping people to get to that vision. As long as I don't have to leave my house and actually talk to people.

Senses

2008-11-14T16:02:00.002-07:00

As I was walking to work this morning, I saw a young, attractive woman cross the street at the light. She was dressed in jogging gear and had her hair in a pony tail. She was carrying a white cane, and despite (obviously) being partially blind, she was marching along at a very good pace with her held high. I admired her strength and courage, and thought about how incredibly difficult it would be to be even partially blind. How devoid of beauty and everything that, to me, makes life worth living. I am such a visual person that any loss of sight would be devastating for me.

I know that if I lost my sight, the other senses would become stronger, but somehow, it just isn’t the same, and isn’t as fundamental to who I am.

Oh sure, I like music. But I only listen passively, and don’t get particularly engaged. I prefer silence.

I like to eat good food, but I like it even better if I can cook it myself, which requires me to be able to see.

I enjoy scent, too, and love to make my own perfumes. But crafting perfume isn’t as fully engaging as visual art.

I admire people who have learned to enjoy life without seeing. For a visual artist, that is the most tragic thing that could happen.

Studio organization

2008-10-24T15:50:00.001-06:00

Everyone loves to get a peek into an artist’s studio, and I definitely count myself among them. I love Cloth Paper Scissor’s Studio, which also introduces me to new artists, which I always find inspiring.

The studios that are very well organized and incorporate purpose-built (read: expensive) furniture are not very intriguing, because they strike me as not feasible for me (without winning the lottery), and I don’t aspire to that kind of studio. The ones that have mountains of supplies all on display, whether well organized or not, are too overwhelming and make me think that the artist is scattered, unprofessional and no good at their art. Then there are the tiny ones that have only basic supplies that make me think that the artist is just very young and can't afford proper supplies. However, I find that I am always intrigued by the studios that have mountains of stuff that is well organized and yet has enough on display that it is inspiring. These ones seem to reflect the kind of artist I want to be - professional, organized yet still creative, ample supplies to ensure there are no breaks in creative activity because something was missing. I know that all these judgements aren't fair, and some very successful artists work on the dining room table and keep their supplies in the china cabinet, but I know that for most of us, the space we call our own, whether for creative activities, relaxation or whatever, influences us as much as we influence the space.

One certainly doesn’t need a large space to be creative, and I have had my fair share of times when I painted in the dining room or sewed on the kitchen table while someone was eating at the other end. But it takes a really comfortable place – however you define comfortable – to make one feel relaxed enough to quell the left-brain voices sufficiently to let the right-brained creativity have free reign.

Ample supplies are also critical. When I was in university art courses, living on student loans, I could never afford enough supplies, and always had to be cautious about how much I used, lest I deplete my entire supply before the basic course requirements were completed. I certainly never had enough to dabble or play or do any extra projects other than what was required to pass the course. And that caution always showed through in the final result, and my professors always had negative comments that pointed out my ‘thriftiness’. Now, I try to not look at the price, or forget what I paid as soon as possible, so I am not tempted to be miserly with my supplies. I do get a little irritated at the constant advice that artists should get rid of the stash, implying that it is some kind of psychotic illness. Sure, some supplies decay as they age, and are no longer usable after a period of time. But lots of things can be repurposed to find new life in a totally different project. And if enough time passes, it will be back in style eventually.

I don’t have the incredible stashes that a lot of people do, but I have enough that storage is still a problem. But the problem isn’t room – it is being able to find what I am looking for, whether a particular item for a specific project, or just inspiration. I go through phases when I do nothing but encaustic painting, and then one day I will see a great art doll and be inspired to do some sculpting, and I want to have the supplies available right then, before the inspiration fizzles into the mist. I often put supplies that all seem like they ‘go together’ in zip-lock bags so that if I ever figure out how to put them together into a coherent assemblage, or run across an inspiring theme, I have everything in one place. Unfortunately, the thing that makes them all seem like they go together can dissipate just the same as the initial inspiration, so I end up resorting fairly frequently. Other times I will start a project with a very well defined concept, but no idea of how to develop the concept, so all the supplies also go into a zip-lock bag until a new idea or method reminds me of the project, and I get inspired all over again.

Bracelets

2008-10-21T13:06:00.002-06:00

I recently purchased a copy of Semiprecious Salvage by Stephanie Lee, and found a number of great jewellery projects that don't require a lot of tools and expensive materials. I thought I would try the bracelet last night, since I already had a lot of the materials on hand. I had so much fun that I made four - three in brass and one in silver.

Tea time watercolor

2008-10-18T11:20:00.002-06:00

Most of my creative time has been consumed by the assignments for the watercolour course I am taking, and since the course is introductory, the assignments are all quite ugly and not worth sharing. The mixing exercises are quite useful, because I have focused on using unmixed colors in the past, and haven't really learned a lot about mixing. I also prefer pure color to mixed and more dull colors, but knowing how to mix colors is still valuable learning. However, they really aren't worth sharing. The assignments in class are also quite unimaginative and uninspiring, which for some reason seems to be the norm. Perhaps there is some teaching theory for art that says that making students paint ugly broken crap is a good teaching approach.

I finally had a homework assignment that I thought was worth sharing. It was supposed to be a bunch of boxes and plain shapes using one color, but I couldn't stand the thought of painting more crap, so I added a few interesting elements that could create a story.

Fall pictures

2008-09-21T16:46:00.002-06:00

It is a bleak day, but the trees are putting on their fall finery, so I thought I would try to capture some of that beauty regardless of the quality of the light. It is a bit too bright, even thought it is overcast, which also means there aren't any shadows. I think I got some great pictures nonetheless.
High tea on the prairies:

creative bits - palmistry hand charm

2008-09-15T12:14:00.003-06:00

I have been puttering with a few different things, but nothing is finished enough to share. I often get a bunch of different projects underway in the winter, and if I don't finish them by the time spring arrives, they sit until the following fall, waiting for something to pique my interest in completing them. So, I have been working on completing a suit jacket and matching skirt, removing wallpaper in two rooms, and sculpting a few doll heads. I was making one out of papier mache, but I also finally splurged on some Creative Paperclay to experiment with making a doll head using some acrylic eyes I had lying around. It is wonderful stuff, and I am kicking myself for not trying it sooner. It is SOOO much nicer than polymer clay, and there is none of the risk of having it crack as it cures and it won't get crumbly like polymer clay does if it isn't cured just right. I will post when I get something worth looking at. The clay is quite soft and maleable, so I am developing the head in stages.

As I was digging through my stash to find items that could be used for an assemblage, I came across a few items left over from a swap I did a couple of years ago. The swap required one book page to be tipped into an altered book (or bound separately, which is what I did), and a plastic bag of items to be used for additional pages, all on the theme of Shadows and Dreams. I made little polymer skulls and palmistry hands made from shrink plastic as book charms. For some reason I had a hand left over that wasn't shrunk, so I finished it up on Saturday while I was making pot stickers.

posting..

2008-09-12T12:42:00.002-06:00

I was feeling guilty about not posting for so long (and no, the Blogging Without Obligation sticker doesn't really help) but after flipping through some of my favorite blogs, I realized that I am certainly not alone. Well, I don't know about the feelings of guilt part, but there are a lot of neglected blogs out there.

Fall is such a wonderful time of year, with curious and suprising little sensations if one takes the time to notice. In the summer, the walk down the road with the dogs is typically hot and dry, and getting into the shade is a blessed relief. In the fall, the walk is generally warm, but every so often there is a hot or cold spot that feels just like walking into a different room. The spots are always surprising and never where one would expect them. Like little bits of the earth are trying to hold on to summer as long as they can, while others have surrendered to the coming cold. Maybe that was the origination of the idea that fairies of the summer court or the winter court are walking around us, unseen but influencing us nonetheless.

I have been doing a few creative things, but mostly enjoying other people's work, and savouring the fall days. We went to Santana on Tuesday night, which was fabulous. We were in the 18th row, so we had great seats. We usually end up standing though most concerts, because everyone in front of us is standing, but Carlos played a series of slow songs throughout the evening, and each time a slow set arrived, the audience sat down and relaxed and just asborbed the music. Santana played for three hours, so we were really grateful for the opportunity to sit down once in a while. His son's band opened for him, and they were also incredible. I saw Santana when I was young, and there were no assigned seats, and the floor was open, so I managed to get stand so close I could lean on the stage. The concert was mesmerizing, and I still remember it all these years later.

Fall has arrived!

2008-08-28T11:44:00.001-06:00

I am so glad that fall has arrived. Without a doubt, fall is my favourite season. Oh, I like summer well enough, when everything is hot and slow growing. And spring is exciting and full of anticipation because winter is over, and summer is on the way. But for me, fall is really the best season of all. The only thing I don’t like about fall is that it doesn’t last long enough.

I have a hard time getting motivated to do anything in the summer. Gardening is hot and dirty work that seems totally futile, because everything just dies in the fall. Working in the studio is counterproductive because the heat adds to the frustration and makes most activities more difficult than they should be. There are a lot more visitors, too. So summers at our house are slow and lazy and not particularly productive.

But then comes fall, and that old ‘back-to-school’ excitement provides fuel for starting all kinds of projects, from house renovations to art.

The temperature dipped low enough the other night to put the trees into hibernation mode. Not cold enough to frost, but the leaves have started to loose their color and the birds are congregating around the ponds in preparation for their annual migration. In case that wasn't enough to end summer, the temperature is supposed to dip below freezing this weekend.

Even the rain feels different – it has that ‘fall’ quality to it. There is a beautiful soft rain falling today, gentle and misty, like a west coast rain. I absolutely love the rain, and I often question why I live in a part of the country that gets very little rain. People say that my love of rain comes from its uniqueness – we love it because we don’t get it very often. But the real reason that I love the rain is that, when I was a teenager, I figured that I could complain about it and be miserable every time it rained, or I could enjoy it and be ecstatic. I chose the latter.

I can understand and (reluctantly) empathize with people who live in the city who don’t like the rain. In the city, the rain is just wet that makes your shoes soggy and your hair look bad. The scent is barely there, and it smells mostly like dust and car exhaust. But a hint of the fresh forest scent is there, if one breathes deeply enough, and how one’s hair looks can’t be that important, can it? Really?

Although I totally enjoy walking in the rain in the country, where the smell is so strong it is almost overpowering, and the rain transforms the light so that every view is magical, I also take every chance I get to walk in the rain even when I am in the city. I carry an umbrella, but I seldom open it, unless the rain is pouring down so heavily that it will ruin my clothes. I don’t really care if my hair gets plastered to my head, or my shoes get soggy and wet. I would rather focus on the joy that rain brings to the world as each precious drop falls to quench the thirst of a plant or a bird, to wash away the dirt and grime accumulated through the sunny days, and to replenish the ponds and creeks that support the pockets of wildlife trying to survive despite mankind’s greatest attempts to exterminate them all.

I have been spending the summer gathering ideas and inspirations, and now that fall is finally here, I feel all that September excitement and motivation coming with the rain. Time to dig out the paint supplies!

School and new ideas

2008-08-21T10:54:00.002-06:00

I finally decided to register in the fine arts certificate program at the local university. I struggled with the decision for a long time, because the university art world is so stifling and arrogant and stuffy. I thought that it might help with making connections, or that it might help with making me feel more confident of my skills, or it might help me find a genre or medium that I could stick with. The problem is that the certificate program is only offered for painting, watercolor (which is somehow different than painting!) or drawing. In the end it was the desire to get some structured and consistent practice with both painting and drawing that made the decision for me. I am looking forward to the regular practice and perhaps a bit of advice and direction as well.

I recently stumbled on a new art genre called steampunk that has given me a huge burst of inspiration. I have always loved the Jules Verne fantasies, and we decorated our home with themes to try to evoke that feeling of being on the exciting edge of a new world. Who knew that other people had similar ideas and that it actually had a name! I have been reading and researching and spending all my time looking at other people's art work, gathering inspiration and ideas. I have a kernel of an idea about what I am going to do with that glass hummingbird feeder that dripped syrup all over the porch, and the brass finials I was saving for just the right art project, but I can also see that it is going to take some really creative scavenging before I can get very far.

I have also been making art dolls, although I don't have any finished enough for pictures. Soon.

photographs

2008-08-18T09:44:00.003-06:00

I took quite a few photographs of my granddaughter on Saturday. She vogued and directed, telling me how I should be taking the picture. She went through a variety of fashion-type poses, and then moved on to a mini-movie, complete with script for both of us. She is four. It was hilarious. None of the shots are great and worth sharing, but it was clear that she has a strong drive to create that hopefully won't get squashed before she grows up.

Here is one of her and her little sister.

Chypre kit

2008-08-12T16:51:00.007-06:00

It ws my sister's birthday in June, and I decided to put together a little perfume making kit in her favorite fragrance. Of course, that meant that I had to research the history of chypre and decide on the most representative combination of essential oils that would smell like the one she remembered. I ordered them online, and of course one of the key ingredients was back-ordered. When it finally came, I decided I couldn't just send them out in the same ugly bubble-wrap that they came in, so I created this bit of packaging to make it into a whole kit. I started with a wooden purse box form from Michaels.

This is the inside without anything in it. It is painted a flat black with gesso and there is a small turquoise scarab fixed to the top.
This is the inside when it is filled with the kit contents. I didn't have any way of packaging the contents so it would fit with the theme of an antique kit I was going for, so I used raw wool roving as padding.

This is the outside of the box. Hopefully she will understand why it took so long.

Update

2008-08-08T11:55:00.003-06:00

I haven't posted for quite a while, but mostly because the creative activities have been writing and not visual arts.

I have wanted to take pictures of my granddaughter and my dog illustrating the Red Riding Hood story for a while now, because Gwen would make a perfectly sweet Red. However, the story is gross and doesn't make any sense. It finally hit me a couple of weeks ago that I could retell the story from a different point of view. It was clear, once I came to that realization, that the story everyone knows was told by the 'hero', the woodcutter. But what if he was actually the villain in the story, and lied to his buddies to cover up his involvement? Doesn't that explain a lot?

And maybe the same could be said of other fairy tales - maybe Hansel and Gretel were spoiled and greedy teenagers who ran away from home and imposed their snotty selves on a kindly widow living in the woods.

Anyway, I wrote the first story, and it turned out quite well. At least, I think so! I think I will try to do a few more, and I am hoping to take the pictures later this summer. I will post the images when I do.

Create with yellow

2008-07-15T19:26:00.004-06:00

I spent an hour or so in the garden taking pictures yesterday. I thought this one would be a nice inspiration for days when there is no sun.

Encaustic painting

2008-07-14T21:00:00.002-06:00

I have been entertaining for the last week, so I haven't had much time for art, but I did get the opportunity to teach a private lesson in encaustics, and this is the result:

I think she did a great job! I also had the opportunity to give some watercolor lessons to my eight year old neice. I bought her a set of watercolor paints and a book with good quality paper, and she had so much fun painting that she wanted to paint every minute. It made for a great week of art, even if it was other people doing the art.

Rain

2008-07-06T09:53:00.003-06:00

It is amazing how a bit of rain can turn the most routine activity into a wonderful inspiring event. I usually don't take the dogs for a walk in the rain because neither of them like the rain and they always prefer to be inside when it rains. But this morning, it started to rain just as I was putting on their leashes, and once that promise is made, there is no going back.

We followed the same route we always take - a mile trek down the closest range road to the highway and back. Usually the walk is boring and smells of cow dung, and I spend the time thinking about work and ignoring the drab scenery. But I love walking in the rain, and it makes everything look so magical. It poured for the first couple of minutes, and then it softened to a gentle drizzle. It created a soft mist on the distant trees, and washed the flowers in the fields so the pink and purple, yellow and white stood out on the lush green backdrop of the fields.

As we walked, we were chaperoned by a little wren, who flew from fence post to fence post, watching us and trying to determine whether we were safe or not. A whole family of swifts were perched on the wires, and a heron was hunting for fish in the pond that ordinarily seems bereft of life. All the wildlife that normally hides from human predators or finds shelter from the heat of the day under trees that make them invisible to me were out in the rain, taking advantage of the brief relief from the heat of the sun.

Most people seem to avoid the rain, as though the water is poisonous. People think that if they get wet, they will catch a cold or get sick somehow. They dress up in cumbersome gear and run from shelter to shelter, to avoid getting touched by the rain.

I love the rain. When I was young I decided that I could either hate the rain and hide indoors like most people, or I could embrace the rain, and experience a world that most people miss out on. I chose the latter. I forget sometimes, and get too focused on day to day drudgery to stop and smell the rain, but when I lift my head and take a deep breath - oh how glorious it is! The rain brings out the smells of poplar and pine, and creates a heady frangrance that makes one stop and just smell.

Take a moment to walk in the rain. Look at how the rain washes away the dust and grime and leaves everything sparkling and fresh. The colors of the leaves and grass and flowers are different when it is raining. Visibility is affected, and the corners are softened so that the world is a comforting place full of life and joy. Rainbows are only the period at the end of the sentence - it is the rain that forms the important part of the story.

Art and Turnovers

2008-07-01T21:47:00.004-06:00

I have been working on a few art projects, but I have not been feeling a lot of that special kind of excitment that comes with a truly creative challenge. I think that my decision to work on more commercial forms of art may have been a bit of a mistake. I have been challenged while learning watercolors, but not really excited in the same way that I feel when working on assemblage and abstract art.

Rather than force myself to work on something I wasn't totally excited about, I decided to make raspberry turnovers instead. I made a few individual serving size turnovers, and all the filling kept oozing out the ends. I thought that it would work better to make them as one long turnover, and then cut them into servings, but they opened up while cooking and spilled all over the baking sheet. I do like the way that the two long turnovers formed this sensuous, sinuous line on the pan, and I thought it was worth a picture.

Tiara in watercolor

2008-06-30T14:23:00.002-06:00

I finished this watercolor of Tiara this morning. The painting is 11x14 on watercolor paper.

This is the original image.

Canola Fields

2008-06-30T10:27:00.003-06:00

I wanted to experiment with using a bit brighter color on black gessoed background. When the canola fields are mowed down in the fall, the drying plants have a variety of gorgeous colors - reds and greens and browns. The colors are brilliant but subtle, and they can't be captured on film.

Canola fields, acrylic, 9x12 canvas

Little girl

2008-06-16T22:17:00.003-06:00

This little girl came home with us on the weekend. She is so sweet and gentle, and loves to hug and cuddle, but is terrified of the other dogs. She whimpers a lot, and misses her sibs, but hopefully she will get used to her new home soon.

abstract mountain scene

2008-06-10T21:36:00.003-06:00

When I did the painting I posted yesterday, I was just playing with tube colors to see what the outcome would be, knowing that it would negate the depth to have pure tube color in the background. I was thinking about Emily Carr's gorgeous paintings where she used brilliant tube colors in a landscape and the effect was so stunning.

Today's painting was intended to be much more abstract - to just give the impression of a mountain landscape without clearly defining each tree and rock. The colors are more muted, and there is a much better impression of depth, but it is still not as abstract as I was going for at first. It seems to be all or nothing for me - totally color field abstract, or representational. Ah well, it is a pretty little painting even if it didn't turn out like I envisioned.

lighthouse - encaustic

2008-06-08T21:38:00.002-06:00

This is an encaustic collage using a photograph of the lighthouse in the Boston harbour that I took several years ago.

oil landscape

2008-06-08T19:58:00.002-06:00

I did this little oil painting this afternoon -
8"x8"x2" canvas

Dog Show

2008-06-02T20:02:00.002-06:00

I spent the weekend at an outdoor dog show (four days!) with Tiara. She got her first point on Saturday. Nine more to go. She was very interested in meeting all the other dogs, even the ones who weren't interested in meeting her. She got bored with all the standing around, but she still behaved quite well, considering it is only her second show.

Now to get back to some art.

accidental landscape

2008-05-25T20:47:00.004-06:00

I moved all my art supplies into the garage last year to free up some room and at the same to time organize everything and supposedly make it more easily accessible. That hasn't really worked, and I am rethinking the decision to move it out there altogether. I used to browse through my various boxes of supplies, materials, trinkets and partially completed projects as a way of getting inspiration and motivation, but that isn't as easy or comfortable to do now, which is probably why I haven't been able to get motivated lately.

I decided to make a few of my pocket shrines to put on Etsy, so I was forced to go out and paw through my boxes to find the glass medallions that go on the outside, and suddenly realized why I like having my boxes close at hand - I came back in the house with the stuff to start at least 10 new projects, and, more importantly, all kinds of the enthusiasm that I have been lacking of late.

I found this piece that I did a few years ago and couldn't throw out. I used a piece of scrap canvas to test that the squirt bottle I was going to use was working, and out came this wonderful little landscape, like a Japanese calligraphy painting. It is creased, and the canvas wasn't completely gessoed so it is two colors of white where I tried to fix it, and it is just a little scrap of a painting (6x12) that can't even be stretched properly, but I keep thinking that I will find some use for it someday, so I keep it. Maybe it will find it's way into a collage....

Gerbera

2008-05-23T17:41:00.004-06:00

I loaned my umbrella to a stranger I met in the elevator yesterday, and he brought me this beautiful flower when he returned the umbrella this morning. I suppose it was a surprise to him to be offered the use of an umbrella by a perfect stranger (well, not perfect!), but I certainly didn't expect such a response!

I used the scanner to get this image, which meant that I had to hang the flower upside down over the scanner bed. The flower had one of those little water-filled tubes on the bottom, and it kept dripping water on the scanner glass, so you can see the drips on the petals at the bottom, but I didn't want to keep trying to get a perfect image and risk killing the flower.

Life returns

2008-05-22T09:17:00.005-06:00

Two weeks ago, everything was brown and gray, just branches and twigs and dead grass, with no signs of life. Within a week, all the buds on the trees popped out, and suddenly all the trees were fully leafed. But it was still brown and drab, and everything looked like it was dying. I spent last weekend pulling weeds from the gardens, and the soil was so dry it was powdery. It finally started to rain on Tuesday evening, and has been drizzling off and on since then.

The dust is washed away, the grass is such a flourescent color of green that it almost hurts my eyes. Glorious!

The lawn still looks patchy, but it won't be long now before it is luscious again. The spring has been SO long coming, and it has been so hard to get inspired. I can feel some of the joie de vivre returning with the rain, and I went for a long walk in the rain yesterday, just to soak it into my soul.

Creek watercolor

2008-05-05T18:51:00.004-06:00

I was paging through the North Light Books catalogue last night, and found a demo of this beautiful little painting called Main Coast morning, so I thought I would give it a try. I left out the houses that were in the original (bad planning on my part), but I like the overall feeling of the image.

Deer oil painting

2008-04-24T21:28:00.003-06:00

I started this oil painting of a deer in the woods several months ago, and got overwhelmed by the thought of trying to paint all that green and make it look like something other than just a stippled wash. I have decided to give it a go again, but I may have to lighten the background to allow a little sky to show through.

This is the original that I am working from:

abstract landscape

2008-04-24T20:03:00.003-06:00

I painted this little landscape a few weeks ago, and have been looking at it for a while, trying to decide how to proceed. After staring at it for a while, I have decided that it is done, and any further tinkering would probably ruin it.

It is 8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas.

Dog Show

2008-04-20T15:09:00.002-06:00

It wasn't a particularly creative weekend, but it was an enjoyable one. We spent three days at the dog show with our borzoi. She won Best of Breed each day. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that she was the only borzoi in the show - no competition means that she automatically gets best in breed. She didn't win any prizes and the group level, so she didn't get any points for this show. It was her first show, though, so it was good practice for both of us. Here she is standing pretty.

Costa Rica Day eight

2008-04-16T20:07:00.006-06:00

I managed to snap a picture of this spider web in the early morning sunlight just before we left the hotel. Luckily nobody walked into it.Our last full day in Costa Rica was spent travelling back to San Jose. We stopped at a road-side market where they had mountains of watermelons and other fresh fruit

We also stopped in Sarchi, which is a small town that had a few stores offering locally crafted artworks. This is a picture of the local breast screening clinic. Although the country is very poor, they have a well-established public health care system.
We stayed in a nice hotel in downtown San Jose, and went out for a festival supper at a local restaurant where there was a performance by local dancers demonstrating the traditional dances. We were all pretty tired, and since we had to get up at 4:00 am to make it to the airport in time for our flight, we returned to the hotel and bed as soon as the performance was over.

It was a fascinating trip, but everyone was grateful to return home.

Costa Rica Day Seven

2008-04-16T19:28:00.004-06:00

We visited Manuel Antonio National Park, which is a tiny little park on the coast. It was less than a quarter section of land, but home to howler monkeys,

sloths,

and lots of lizards

The park was also home to one of only two known troupes of spider monkeys in central america, although we didn't see them. After trekking though the forest, we spent the afternoon at one of several beaches. These ones didn't have rip tides and were quite safe for swimming. We had a bit of time to just lay on the beach under the palm trees and enjoy the heat and the view.

These orange-cheeked parakeets were everywhere, eating the fruit of the trees around our hotel.

Costa Rica Day Six

2008-04-16T18:26:00.009-06:00

We left Monteverde the next morning, and headed toward the coast. Once again the road was a narrow gravel track, winding along the ridge of the mountains, with a steep drop only inches from the bus tires. The terrain got drier as we progressed toward the ocean, because climate change is causing desertification of this once-lush tropical area.

There were coffee plantations all along the road, planted on the steep sides of the dry hills. Our first stop that day was at the Tarcoles river. The bus stopped and let everyone off on one side of the bridge, to let everyone walk to the other side and to stop in the middle to look a the wild crocodiles in the river below.

These suckers were HUGE, basking in the sun and waiting for some tasty morsel to wander from safety. Carlos said that when he first started researching bird numbers, he was collecting data in Carara National Park, which is right beside the river. He had a few close encounters with these crocs by accidentally blundering into their nesting area.
Once across the river, we climbed back into the bus for the very short trip to the park entrance. Carara National Park was originally owned by a man who bought the area so he could capture wild macaws and export them to the US for sale. That is now illegal, and the park is a protected area where the macaws nest and are trying to replenish their numbers. The soil is very shallow, so trees have huge buttressed trunks that help them stay upright.

There are lots of creepy crawlies in the undergrowth...
and some spectacular flowers:

Carlos showed us a camera he had set up with a motion detector to take pictures of the baby macaws in the nest in the hollow in this tree (remember I mentioned he was an Ornithologist and studied local birds when he wasn't leading tours):

After our tour through the park, we headed off to our hotel. We passed through huge palm oil plantations. This was not a native tree, but the climate is perfect to grow these palms, and the government is exploring ways of developing this industry. It seems quite destructive to the natural environment, but at least it is green.

The hotel for the next couple of nights was right on the ocean, by this beautiful beach. There were no other people on the beach, except for the hotel lifeguards, so we had it all to ourselves. The water was rather dangerous, because of the powerful rip tides, and the hotel had a few patrons who went swimming in the dark and died a couple of years ago, so they were pretty cautious about letting us swim in the water. The lifeguards made sure that nobody went in any deeper than mid-thighs. We arrived early enough to get in an hour of wading (and getting washed into the shore by the huge and powerful waves) before dark.

We also had a chance to watch the pelicans flying in formation along the top of the waves, again and again as the tide was coming in.

Cost Rica Day Five

2008-04-14T16:22:00.009-06:00

We started the day in Monteverde by planting trees to help built a shelter belt to stop the mountain from washing away in the rainy season. Each student got a tree and we found holes already dug in the hillside where we could plant our trees.

This is my little tree:
It is a tree related to a Lychee that is fast growing and will create a little forest of trees in no time.

The next activity was a walk through the cloud forest at the top of the great divide. This forest was a true jungle, and remains shrouded in cloud most of the time (hence the name). It doesn't have to rain much, because the plants can get enough moisture just from the ever-present mist.
I managed to snap a photo of this little guy hiding in the trees, waiting for the people to leave so he could continue to build his nest. Her nest? I'm not sure what kind of bird it is, or whether it is a female or a male, but it was only about the size of a canary.
and some picture of ferns just opening:
Then in the afternoon we went walking through the jungle on the suspended bridges:

I hate these things, and I had to just look straight ahead and walk quickly to get across all nine of them. The bridges are various lengths and heights, but all of them were too high and too long for me. Of course, I can't claim credit for this shot from the middle of one of the bridges:

but the scenery was incredible, and the walk on land parts of the trail was worth daring the bridges. There were a lot of people ziplining, but the zipline is only about the challenge of flying through the air, and it isn't possible to see anything of the jungle, so it didn't appeal to me at all. I was walking along, thinking about the tragedy of the loss of rain forest, and how few animals we had seen on the trip so far, and a little gecko scurried across my path, as if to remind me that they were there, they just chose not to show themselves.

We returned to the hotel for lunch, and then went to shop in the tiny town of Monteverde for a few hours before dark. The town is very small, and just made up of a few small shops, some hotels and a bank, but the bank had armed security guards and a special entrance that trapped each person as they walked through the double doors. Our bank cards still didn't work, even though the bank looked sophisticated enough.

Angel Raphael came to the hotel after supper for some more dance lessons, but everyone was so tired that they all retired early.

Costa Rica day four

2008-04-14T11:04:00.010-06:00

The next day we were up bright and early to go to Monteverde. Before we left, I snapped some pictures of these goofy turkey birds (I don't know what they are called). They were about the size of a turkey, and were eating the fruit of a tree outside our hotel room. They had a bright red wattle under their beaks, that glowed when the sun shone through.

These beautiful flowers were also outside our door. The white parts are the flower and the yellow strings are the stamens.

We didn't get very far down the road when we stopped to let these little fellows cross the road:

They are called Coatimundi, but everyone calls them coatis (pronounced co ott ees). They were a bit curious, hoping we would feed them, but then they all toddled off after another bus and we resumed our trek.

We stopped again not too far down the road to help pull a small vehicle out of the ditch. It was quite dangerous to stop, because it is a classic way of highjacking a bus of tourists, but our Tour Director stood in the doorway of the bus until he was sure it was safe. Two scientists were out counting and collecting dead birds, and got themselves mired in the mud beside the road.

We tried pushing, but only succeeded in getting sprayed with mud. Carlos flagged down a passing taxi and borrowed a bit of rope which they tied to the tour bus, and used that to pull the car out of the ditch.

Our first planned stop of the day was at a small school.

There was only one teacher for the fifty kids in the community, and the school was very small and obviously poor. The teacher was away at a teacher's convention, but the kids and their parents wanted to enterain us anyway, in the hope of getting some donations so they could complete the construction of their gymnasium. They had the walls and floor but needed money for the roof. The kids danced some traditional dances, and some modern jazz dance, and were very proud of their routines.

The next planned activity was lunch and trail riding through the mountains. Before we started, a few of the more intrepid had a bit of a ride on this:

And then we got a lesson in horse dancing from Angel Raphael:

Some of the group had never ridden before, so the trail ride was exciting and scary, but for most of us it was just a nice peaceful ride through beautiful countryside.

When we arrived back from the trail ride, we all had a dance lesson, designed as a cool-down exercise to ease strained muscles, and leave everyone feeling happy and relaxed. It certainly did the trick.

A nice end to a long and exciting day.

From there, we headed off to the town of Monteverde, supper and bed.

Day three

2008-04-08T21:15:00.010-06:00

We awoke in the morning to this incredible view of Arenal volcano:

The clouds didn't leave the peak of the volcano the entire time we in the vicinity, but we could frequently see red explosions and tumbling rocks raising dust and smoke.

We started our day with a trip into the small city of La Fortuna, to allow people to try to get money (which didn't work in most cases), and access to an internet cafe. Then we headed out to La Fortuna Falls for a swim. There is a hike down the side of a mountain to get to the water, which is helped a bit by the more than 370 steps - uneven, crumbling and treacherous steps that switchback across the very steep side of the mountain. Once at the bottom, the intrepid visitor is greeted by the incredible view of the waterfall:

and the opportunity to swim in the pristine cool water. We were warned to stay clear of swimming too close to the water, because the weight of the water coming down is deadly. There was a crowd there, and it was difficult to find a secluded area to swim, but we were so hot and tired after the climb down that it was worth the effort.

Then we had to face the climb back up.

In the afternoon we headed for Lake Arenal for a boat tour and a swim in the lake. The lake is man-made, and covers the remains of the town of Arenal, which was destroyed by the volcano in 1968. Apparently the church steeple can still be seen when the water level is low, but we didn't venture into that area of the lake to see if we could spot it. The lake is home to a wide variety of birds and mammals, including egrets and cormorants. I was very glad that I took my SLR camera, but I am still unhappy with the magnification of my zoom lense. I just can't get close enough to the wildlife to get a good shot without disturbing them.

Day Two afternoon

2008-04-07T19:38:00.012-06:00

The tour director was fabulous. Carlos Mora had a B.Sc. in Ornithology, a Master's degree in Tourism and a Ph.D. in Phonetics (Linguistics). Not only could he identify every bird we pointed out, but he was incredibly knowledgeable in geography, geology, culture, and the flora and fauna of Costa Rica. The next stop was Poas volcanoe. The plants around the volcano are unique, due to the high concentration of acid rain created by the volcano itself.

I did manage to get some good pictures of the beautiful flowers in the area.
This is a common little bush that grew on the path to the volcano. According to Carlos, the natives used the flowers of this plant to decorate their bodies, much like henna. When heated, the flowers turned blue.
Carlos heated the edges of this flower with a cigarette. The heat turned the petals a beautiful blue-green, but didn't seem to harm the flower at all.
Some areas along the climb were almost completely void of vegetation, because of the acid rain coming from the volcano. You can see the mist billowing over the trees at the rear of this photo.

This is all we saw of Poas volcano. We should be looking out over a vast cater, with a lake at the bottom, but the mist was so thick, it was like a solid white wall. There were a lot of people who had made the trip to see the volcano, and they hovered around, waiting for the mist to clear, but we had an agenda, and couldn't wait. While there, we noticed a man discretely taking pictures of some of the girls on our tour, and he followed us back to the tour bus. We were quite creeped out by his suspicious behaviour.

After leaving Poas, we headed off through La Paz, which ws supposed to be a shortcut on the way to the Arenal region, our final destination for the night. However, when we got to this bridge, we ran into a few problems. The bridge was crumbing, and was only wide enough for one car at a time. There was a huge line up of cars on both sides of the bridge waiting to cross.

We were asked to get out of the bus, and our tour director directed traffic while we explored the waterfall. We had to walk across the bridge while there were no other vehicles on it, because the tour director was worried that the bridge would collapse if the bus went across with us in it. This is a picture from behind the falls.

This traffic jam, in the middle of the jungle, went for several kilometers. This narrow road was considered a major highway. Our bus driver was incredibly skillful, and passed these vehicles with only inches to spare.

We stopped at Baldi Spa (a big american-style spa with multiple hot and swimming pools). All the money I brought with me was stolen at the spa (about $85 US). The group spent a couple of hours swimming, and then we headed off to our hotel at the base of Arenal Volcano for supper and bed. We were all exhausted, and ready for sleep.

Day two

2008-04-03T12:47:00.018-06:00

We spent the first day flying, leaving at 7 am, which meant that most people had to get up at 3:30 am to get to the airport on time. We had planned to check our large luggage and then say goodbyes, but we were ushered through the security gates immediately. I was the lucky one chosen for a complete security check, including a full body pat-down (like a gentle full-body massage!). The guy in the line-up behind me had concealed a razor knife in his backpack which was of course found and confiscated, so I didn't mind the increased security too much, and the staff were very nice.

It seemed a bit prophetic that we were flying by a full moon, but I chose to consider that a good sign, rather than anything sinister.

The first flight was only a couple of hours, and then we had a lay-over of four hours in Pheonix - not enough time to leave the airport, and just long enough to eat lunch and then get really bored. The next jump was much longer, and the movie screens weren't working, so it was very long and boring for those passengers who were hoping to pass the hours watching a movie.

It was already dark whem we arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica, and we just had enough time to grab a quick supper and head off to our hotel rooms. The hotel we were staying in was right in the worst part of town, and we were warned not to leave the hotel anyway, so nobody really felt like they were going to miss anything by going to bed.

This is the view from the balcony of our hotel room first thing in the morning:

There are nearly as many hours of daylight as night that close to the Equator, so our days usually started with a 6:30 breakfast, and we were on the road by 7:00. It must make sense to people who are used to that rhythym, but we are from much farther north, where the days are short in the winter, and 18 hours or so in the summer.

Our first stop was the INBioparque, which is a natioanl research institute of biodiversity. The small park has nature trails through areas representing the different climate and land zones found in Costa Rica, and the trained guides are very knowledgable. The park is home to lots of birds, deer and turtles, and quite a few of these caymans:

We all anxiously watched these adult birds trying to protect their babies from the cayman (on the left in the photo). They babies were so tiny and fuzzy, and seemed quite oblivious to their impending doom.

Of course there were also quite a few iguanas for a more personal encounter than one would find in the wild:

Visiting the park before venturing out into the wild lands also enabled us to capture on film the incredible blue butterflies. We would see lots of them throughout our adventures, but they never sat still enough to see them through the camera viewfinder.

The most outstanding feature of the landscape that first day was the incredible color - banks of brilliantly colored flowers everywhere.

Once we completed our tour of the park, we were back on the road, heading to Poas volcano. We passed this oxcart on the road,

and our enthusiastic tour director stopped the bus to allow us to get pictures of the cart, and to bribe the owner into letting us sit on the ox for pictures. Note the width of the road - that is the main highway.The ox was quite a beautiful creature, and while they were tolerant, they weren't friendly. This type of cart and decorative headgear for the oxen are very traditional, and even celebrated with a festival once a year! I don't really get it, but it is a good thing if it encourages people to keep these lovely creatures.

Costa Rica

2008-04-02T09:52:00.003-06:00

We returned from Costa Rica on Sunday night (actually Monday morning), and it took me a couple of days to recover and feel rested and 'normal' again. Although I took all the supplies along, I didn't do anything creative, other than taking a lot of pictures. I don't feel confident of my drawing skills anomore, and didn't want to draw where people could see the results, so it was difficult to find enough isolated time when I could do any drawing or painting.

I am disappointed in the results of the pictures too, because I seem to have trouble getting the auto focus to actually work, but I am hoping that there are one or two good ones in the lot. It was nice to have the digital cameras instead of the film camera, because I gelt free to take a lot more shots, but in the end, I think film is still superior. I always come home with a few awesome shots if I have the film camera, but can't say the same about the digital.

I will go through and try to find some good images, and will tell you all about our experiences in Costa Rica over the next few days.

The Creekbed

2008-03-16T22:26:00.004-06:00

This is another tiny encaustic painting (5x5). It actually looks a bit more vibrant in the photograph than it should, but that just gives me ideas for the colors in the next one.

Prairie winter

2008-03-16T20:10:00.003-06:00

I started out trying to make a fairly abstract prairie winter landscape, but it ended up being quite detailed. It worked, though, so I didn't want to ruin it by making it more abstract.