Tamarak's Table

An Impromptu Artist’s Date

2011-04-08T09:50:00.018-04:00

Yesterday morning I had to go out to run some errands - it was a beautiful day - sunny, spring-time warm and, for the first time in what felt like forever, the thought of having a little walk about was appealing.

After finishing up what I had to get done, I parked the car on Murray Street in the Byward Market area and walked over to the National Art Gallery…

This is a shot of the Beaux-Arts lane that I took a few years ago…one of my first ‘drive by’ shots taken out of the car window while I was driving past…

Here is a shot of the same lane from yesterday…

I can’t remember the exact day last fall, but at some point, while driving across the Alexandra Bridge into Ottawa, I noticed this sharp silver finger reaching up into the sky…I asked Cariño if he knew when it had appeared and what it was, but he didn’t know either…and that was how it remained until yesterday.

I walked past Louise Bourgeois’ Maman…the giant spider, and although I really dislike spiders, this one kind of grows on you. She is quite lovely. I believe there are 8 of these huge spider sculptures around the world.

Maman is one of many things that I keep returning to to try to get just the perfect shot…I’m not the only one, either…on any given day you can see someone or sometimes groups of people walking up to, away from and all around Maman trying to get their perfect shot.

I am happy with this one I took yesterday, but I am sure that it won’t be the last one I take of her!

As I walked around to the river-side of the gallery, I started to get a feel of just how tall this new sculpture was…and such a nice shiny silver.

I walked right up to it and all around it…I decided that I like it! I especially liked being right bellied up to it…

There was no plaque or anything telling me what the name of the sculpture was, who the artist was…when it had been installed…so I looked it up when I got home and my artist date became complete then – I had got out, seen something up close that I hadn’t seen before, had fun figuring out how to take some photos of what I saw…and then was inspired to come home and research about what I had seen…and, finally, to blog about it! That whole package goes a long way to making me feel good!

The new sculpture’s name is “One Hundred Foot Line”, was created by the New York artist Roxy Paine and is one in a series of trees that he has done in stainless steel called “Dendroids”. There are 4 interesting videos about the artist and his work. The first one that comes up when you go to this page is a talk with the artist about his stainless steel trees and rock sculptures. I’ll let you go listen to it instead of my paraphrasing what he is trying to portray. The other 3 videos (click on the little arrow at the bottom right of the video to get to them) show the process he uses in his ‘paintings’ – really kind of neat – he has an elaborate computerized set-up that then allows the paint to do what it will do.

There are some more videos that show the installation of his mammoth Dendroids – the first in the list shows a time-lapse video of the installation of One Hundred Foot Line.

After getting to know the new sculpture, I continued walking around this area called Nepean Point. This article from the Ottawa Citizen talks about both the new sculpture and Nepean Point.

I continued taking some shots…it was a good a good artist's date!

To top the day off I played with Lily - who was 6 months old a few days ago...I can't believe how fast the time flies!!!

I never meant to lie...

2011-02-07T18:37:00.007-05:00

I really did not intend to tell a lie. I honestly thought that I was on the verge and just about to, and I have felt that way ever since I wrote that last blog post back in late June of last year, but it hasn’t happened yet. Many other things have happened, some of which have made it difficult, for the time being, to have space and time in my studio, in fact, most of my paints and materials are packed up for now.

I still have lots of creative ideas, but the actual painting and creating of them will have to wait. They will have to wait until we move to a bigger place. One major thing that has happened over this past year is that I became a grandmother! This is proving to be a thrilling journey, little Lily has brought such joy into our house. Joy and happiness…and a lot of ‘stuff’! My daughter, her beau and the baby have moved in with us, so now we all need to move to a bigger place! We had been planning on moving anyway, so this is no surprise.

I have still been keeping creative, even if I haven’t been painting. I have been focusing my creative energies on photographic ones…last January 1st, 2010, I began a Project 365, and on December 31st, 2010, I completed it. I had so much fun that I am doing another one!

A number of us who finished up our Project 365 at the end of December were sent some interview questions…you can find my answers here at the 365 Community Blog. At the end is a slide show of all of my photos for the year:

I do miss writing my blog though. Through the process of writing it, I would reflect on whatever it was I was working on, taking the time to examine my creative processes, to look closely at how I came up with my different ideas and how these ideas would grow and change into more ideas. Blogging made me sit back and look over things in a way that I simply don’t do at all if I’m not writing my blog and I believe that process helped my creative growth.

I do still spend most of my free time “filling the well”, getting in all the eye candy that I can, as well as reading about and learning new things. My Cariño told me about this new Google project that he heard about on the radio – Google Art Project. I have just started to wander about in it and it is wonderful! There is a great video that explains the project and an article about it from ‘The Economist’ and you can find the Google Art Project here. I think I am going to be spending some quality time wandering around these museums. I love that, with some of the paintings, you can zoom right in and almost feel the brush strokes – and no gallery security guard is going to yell at you for being too close to a piece of art!

I am on the verge and just about to…

2010-06-29T10:49:00.008-04:00

I have no shortage of creative ideas…just a serious lack of the “right” kind of time…it is kind of like when, a number of years ago, I wouldn’t allow myself to paint for over a year because we had to get our taxes done…the taxes never got done and I got progressively more grumpy because I wasn’t painting! Now our taxes are done…finally…we put 3 years worth into the system about 3 weeks ago…and we are caught up for the first time in about 5 years…I should be celebrating and painting my head off…so what is holding me up now?

It could be because I now feel that I should be doing all of the de-cluttering that needs to be done before LT will come to paint the house so we can put it on the market…but, like the taxes, neither the de-cluttering nor any painting is getting done!

You would think that I would have figured out by now (actually, I think I have figured it out…I just don’t act on it)…that I need to strike some kind of balance between doing what has to get done (in this case de-cluttering and packing) and what needs to get done (some serious creative play so I can function)…but balancing, scheduling and all of those basic organizational things have never been my strong suit…I seem to bounce from an excess of one thing to an excess of another…so that when there are things that really have to get done, like taxes and de-cluttering, I end up avoiding everything and doing nothing…except my mind never stops racing between thinking up creative ideas for paintings and berating myself for not getting the “have to get done” things done…I am my own worst enemy!

Yesterday, in my avoidance of all things, I wandered off down this trail…it all started with a newsletter from Photojojo…it was called “Unchartered Photography: 7 AM Portraits”…a fun “Sleep/Wake” project idea that Meredith Andrews came up with…this led me off in 2 directions…one was to look at Meredith Andrew’s website…I love her “Works in Progress”…I have a thing about repetition and collections of things that are all the same but different…the other was another link from the Photojojo newsletter that led to an article in the New Yorker about a series of photographs that Michael Putnam did back in the 60’s and 70’s about sleeping in public…they are wonderful…the book – called “Sleep” has been reprinted…I would love to get a copy…

It was an enjoyable couple of hours…and not wasted time either...I justify it by telling myself that it is all a part of the “filling of the well”…now if I could only get myself to pack for a couple of hours, paint for a couple of hours and blog wander, visit a gallery or go on a photography excursion to fill the creative for a couple of hours daily...well…then I might find some balance…but, wait…how do I fit working into that?

I Have a New Toy…!

2010-06-16T16:03:00.008-04:00

I can’t remember, exactly, when my elder daughter and I took a weekend workshop at the Ottawa School of Art…it was a few years ago now…but I do remember the content of the 2-day workshop! It was my first introduction to encaustic painting…and I loved it…

For one reason or another, and likely because of a great many reasons and life ‘stuff’, I haven’t been up to paint in my studio since the last mad flurry before my show back in March! I have been photographing and I suppose that this has kept me stimulated enough creatively so that I haven’t felt an overwhelming need to be painting…but I do miss it…

I love oil paints for their richness and the way they blend…but with the way that I paint…using tons of paint and slathering it on thick, with lots of texture…it takes years for my oil paintings to fully cure…that was why I switched to using acrylics…and I love the different acrylic mediums and the ease of clean-up and all…but they aren’t oils…they just don’t have the same luminosity and richness…encaustic painting combines oil pigments with molten beeswax…the depth and sheen of this amalgamation is simply amazing…plus this medium has endless possibilities…you can build it up with many layers, carve into it to reveal the layers below, add elements to it creating a collage, create a layered mass of it and then carve away at parts of that…artist Laura Moriarty does some pretty wild things with encaustics…this video shows her working on one of her sculptural paintings…

Another encaustic artist that I like is Susan Wallis…

Ever since that encaustic workshop, I have wanted to explore this medium further…and our visit to Su Sheedy’s studio in Kingston back in April woke that urge up again…

While at Su’s studio, she showed me her tools and materials…one main tool was a blow torch…with a self-igniting switch…how cool is that?...

It has already been 2 months since we visited Su’s studio…but the idea of doing some encaustics hasn’t been far from my thoughts…and a couple of days ago, I finally used up some of my Canadian Tire funny money and bought myself this…

Tulips and More Tulips…

2010-04-29T23:22:00.014-04:00

I seem to be on a photographing flowers kick lately…this spring seems to be more visual for me…maybe that is because I have been doing the Project 365...maybe it is because the weather seems to be perfect for the spring flowers…I have been photographing way more…loving my new camera…

So here are a bunch more tulip pictures from the other day…I'm hoping to be able to get out to photograph some of the artists that come out to paint the tulips plein air...I also have some daffodil ones from a week or so ago…those will be next…

I’m afraid that with this weather we’ve been having, the tulips will all be finished before the May 7th beginning of the Tulip Festival in Ottawa…

Sometimes things just all fit together and a wonderful time is had……

2010-04-26T18:30:00.020-04:00

Cariño and I just had a very nice weekend…filled with the best of things – family visits, nice weather, good food, wine…and a healthy dose of eye candy and inspirational art talk!

As is often the case, what started as a small overnight away, turned into a multiple visit weekend mini-holiday…I didn’t do any of the driving, so it was all much easier on me!

Through an act of kind generosity, my sister-in-law-to-be decided to give Cariño and me her car…this couldn’t have come at a better time…our van, which we had hoped would make it through to the end of Cariño’s university degree was fast failing and the prospect of having to buy another vehicle at this time was daunting, to say the least!

It’s funny how a few seemingly unrelated things can come together and form into an elaborate, but do-able event…

It just so happened that my art show at the Stepping Stones Gallery ended last week (Cariño, my younger daughter and I had taken it down on the Wednesday afternoon) and I needed to deliver the painting that my Mom had bought...she lives in Mount Hope…it also just so happens that my brother’s fiancé lives in Ancaster...very close to my Mom…it further just so happened that my brother was going down this weekend to a pre-wedding party at his fiancé’s parents…add to this the fact that Cariño and I had already planned to go to Napanee to visit my Dad and his cariño…

So all of these various things kind of melded together into a master plan…Oma said she would watch the dogs for us…so Cariño and I drove them out to the Oma’s Happy Hermitage on Thursday afternoon…we stopped on the way home so I could take some shots of this beautiful little creek that winds its way through the woods…

Early Friday morning found my brother, Cariño and I heading out of Ottawa in my brother’s truck…we made it (a 6 hour drive) to the garage in Mount Hope, where the car had been taken for its safety and emissions tests, in time to pick up that paperwork, go to the licensing office and do that paperwork, then back to the garage, slap on the plates, fly by the wine store, and be sitting at my Mom and her cariño’s place for a glass of wine by about 5pm!

This is the painting that Mom bought at my show opening…it is the latest in my Flow series…

Mom and her cariño took us for a delicious dinner at a little place called Lemon Grass Restaurant…then a good sleep, leisurely morning, nice visit and we headed off on the next part of the trip…

Just before Dad’s there is an old abandoned barn…it makes me sad to see these beautiful old wooden farm buildings being left to fall to pieces…they are so magnificent…but they also take a lot of maintenance…we had one of these wood barns on the farm that I grew up on…Dad tells me that it was endless upkeep…that he could go out at night and hear pieces of the barn falling off…still…it seems such a shame that so many of these old beauties are being left to fall to the ground to be swallowed up by the brambles…

I have tried a few times to photograph this particular group of farm buildings…I’m not sure if it is lighting, or the fact that I am a bit hesitant to go wandering in and around them too much…I have never seen anyone that I could ask permission from…the old farmhouse is abandoned too…but I have yet to get a picture that I really love of this place…here are my efforts from this past Saturday…

We got to Napanee in perfect time, once again, for pre-dinner drinks…yummy dinner and then later we watched the movie “Hachiko: A Dog’s Story”...it was very touching and had me crying…it was based on the story of a dog in Japan – Hachikō – who waited for nine years for his master (who had died while at work) to return to the train station where the dog had met him after work each day…of course I am a sucker for a good animal yarn…plus the facial expressions of an Akita are amazing…

After brunch Cariño and I began the trip home…on the way, we stopped in to visit one of my Dad’s cariño’s daughters (my step-sister) in Kingston…Su Sheedy is an encaustics artist…my elder daughter and I took a weekend encaustics workshop a few years ago…it was so much fun…so for a while now, I had been wanting to get together with Su to talk art with her and to see her studio…it was a wonderfully inspiring visit…

Here are some shots from around her studio…what a fun place...full of neat things...

After picking up the dogs from Oma’s outside of Wakefield, it was late by the time we got home…I woke this morning to the welcome feelings of happiness and being inspired…it was a very nice weekend and I want to get back to painting!

Out running around today it seems that Ottawa is starting to burst into colour with blooming tulips…they have started to open over the weekend…masses of vibrant colours…I think they will be in their full glory before the beginning of the Tulip Festival…I’m going to have to spend some time this week out photographing them…this is what I got on the way home from errands today…

Post Show…Depression…?...

2010-04-03T11:39:00.012-04:00

Well…it has almost been a month, now, since the show opened…I have long since caught up on my sleep and have been back working - although this year is getting off to a really slow start - but I haven’t been back to painting at all yet…

Now, there may be a number of reasons for this…we have moved my brother in for the duration to do whatever renovations need doing to spruce the house up so that we can put it up for sale…(I really need to move back to Ontario)…this means that the house is in even more of a state of upheaval than it usually is…I have started ‘de-cluttering’ - packing the stuff that I can live without for the next while so the house won’t look like an overstuffed storage closet (the house we moved from when we moved into here was much bigger and had a wonderful, dry basement for storage – I won’t set foot in the basement here!)…there is the usual family chaos…which, in my family, might be considered to be fairly extreme…but mostly I just feel like a deflated balloon…

I have been doing my 365 Project…and that brings some thoughts of creativity into my daily life…but I haven’t painted since that last flurry before this last show…my next show isn’t until October…but, really that isn’t that far off…but I do tend to wait for the looming deadline…but that isn’t it…I love to be painting…it makes me feel good…I have lots of ideas…some series I want to work further on…as well as a few paintings in progress that I am happy about…so why am I not painting?...and it isn’t because I can’t work in chaos…I live in chaos!

The opening went really well…at first I was nervous, but I did calm down so I actually enjoyed myself…and I sold 6 paintings! But I still seem to feel a sense of guilt for enjoying myself at something like this…for enjoying promoting myself…I wrote about this before…my feelings are the same…but I did do better this time…

I’m sure that the feelings to get myself up to my studio to paint again will return…but for now I will coast along…photographing - with my absolutely fantastic new camera that my younger daughter orchestrated getting me for my birthday in February…I am thrilled with it…what a difference this better quality of camera makes!

To catch up a bit…here are my February and March Project 365 mosaics…

Up to the end of March, I have taken 1,464 photos…I seem to be consistently averaging just under 500 a month…it will be interesting to see if this goes up…seeing as February is a short month and I still took just under 500 photos, it seems that I was increasing as the months past…but for about a week in March I had a hard time getting myself to go photographing…was feeling down and uninspired…I think that I am through that now…let’s see what April brings…hopefully, along with the daffodils and tulips, inspired picture taking and painting!

Pre-Show Jitters…

2010-02-26T10:40:00.006-05:00

It feels strange to me…I paint happily, quietly all by myself up in my studio…getting completely lost in thought…or, at times, the act of painting brings me a blessed release from too much thinking…I get lost in the colours and the textures of the paint…fat, colourful globs, swirls, peaks…I love the zen of putting the paint on…slathering it on…moving it around on the canvas…taking delight not only in the mixing of the colours, but also simply in the texture created by the brush, palette knife or whatever it is that I am using to apply the paint…it is a very private thing…

It may be because I am still new to this…I hope that is the main cause for it…but I suspect that I will always feel these pre-show jitters to a certain degree…and probably a bit of healthy fear is a good thing…it is a big step to move from the private into the public...

Initially…when I am working on setting up a show…I don’t feel these jitters…but as the deadline looms, they set in…usually a couple of weeks before the show date…that is when my negative inner voice starts to speak up…telling me that I am not worthy…asking me who I am trying to kid…suggesting that I don’t have enough pieces for the space…

I try to quell this negative voice…tell myself that it is just that…my over-active inner critic…I go to a fair number of art shows…I am constantly looking at art of all sorts…I am by no means much more than a beginner at this…but I think that I can hold my own in the emerging artist’s ring…sure there are many, many who are far better than I will ever be…sometimes that is because we are creating different types of art…also, I am not, I don’t think, at the bottom of the pile…it is a dangerous thing, this comparing yourself…it can lead to a bruising of the self esteem…or, worse, an inflated ego!

So here I am…a few days before the opening of my next show…a solo one…this is my 9th show…my 5th solo one…and I have just come through the pre-show jitters…my elder daughter joined me yesterday evening and, with the owner of the gallery, we got it hung…mostly I was worried that I didn’t have enough pieces…this is my first themed show…so it is all pieces from my Flow series…a few weeks ago I went into overdrive and finished up a few pieces, as well as started and finished, 8 new pieces…it was a lot of fun…and, as usually is the case with me, the more I paint, the more the ideas start to fly…it just takes the looming deadline to make me rearrange my life so that I make painting a priority...I ended up with 21 pieces, 2 of which are triptychs and 1 diptych - so 26 canvases in total...

Now the next thing that I get worried about is the ‘vernissage’…the actual opening event…where I have to be present, with my art…the pieces that I have created in private, which are now hung in a public space with people there to view them…I suppose that this gets easier with experience as well…but this is only my 2nd vernissage!

Rebecca – the owner of the Stepping Stones Art Gallery is a wonderful person…not only does she operate this art gallery, but she also runs Camellia Teas of Ottawa, which not only hosts traditional Japanese tea ceremonies, but so much more…demonstration and instruction is a variety of world tea ceremonies, Kimono, Ikebana and painting…entering into Stepping Stones Art Gallery and the home that houses it is like stepping into another world…a wonderful world of all kinds of aesthetics…

With respect to the art gallery, one of the things that Rebecca likes to facilitate is a bridge between artist and viewer…she creates a safe, encouraging atmosphere in which communication between the 2 can be carried out without fear of judgment or ridicule…so I that think this will be a very good experience for me…talking about my art is something that I have had to learn how to do…it doesn’t just come flowing out naturally…but it is important, I think, for my growth…

Creative Growth…

2010-02-15T10:16:00.006-05:00

We grow in our creativity – at least I do – in fits and spurts…there are times of rapid growth and times of slow or non-existent growth…it is in the times of rapid growth that I have ideas coming at me faster than I can do anything with them and I need to write them down or risk loosing them…then in the times of slow or no growth, I can go back and explore these ideas that I wasn’t able to look at before (that is, if they still make sense!)…

There are also time when I seem to get sidetracked altogether…like I seem to have been lately…spending more time doing photography…but it all goes towards feeding the creative spirit…I did make it up to the studio yesterday though…I have a few painting ideas that have been percolating and germinating in my head for a while now and I need to get them out now…and it is a good time to get them out and onto canvas, because I can use these ideas (which will hopefully be actual, physical paintings soon) for my next show that is coming up fast! I think I will have enough for the show with these few more…this is something I am still figuring out how to figure out – how many paintings are needed to nicely occupy a specific space…I guess that comes with experience…

I’m not sure what, if any specific thing or combination of things, triggers periods of rapid growth…was it something inspirational that I saw? – I’m sure that has an effect sometimes, but it doesn’t always seem to…is it just some natural ebb and flow of my being?...to be honest, I haven’t ever really tried to track the reasons…while I am lucky in that I almost always have more ideas than time to explore them, I am not so self-assured that I want to look too closely at that creative vapour thread for fear of scaring it away…and I think, by its very nature, it is an ethereal thing, not something that you can produce on demand by means of some creative recipe…

I do know that I am always looking at art…of all kinds…all over the place…in real life and on the Internet…blog wandering is great for this…I can get lost for hours wandering from link to link…eye candy to eye candy…inspiration to inspiration…researching various artists…I also going to galleries, read books and magazines…this renewed interest in photography has me becoming more observant and that helps not only with my photography but also with creative ideas for painting…I think this constant immersion keeps me inspired…

This week I will be bringing in 3 paintings to the Ottawa School of Art Boutique to hopefully have them hung for sale in there…I am still deciding which ones to take in…

This one...

And maybe this one...this is a detail...

My studio is in its usual state of chaos...I am going now to spend some time painting...sorting...and deciding which paintings to submit...

Month End…Month Beginning…

2010-02-02T09:32:00.015-05:00

Yesterday was so busy…I didn't get home from it all until almost 10pm...in between 3 various appointments I managed to get my photography show hung at the ArtSpace at the Unitarian…I am still working on the photo transfer piece that I had wanted to have done for it…but it didn’t happen…I can go in and hang it later in the month…or save it for another show…or see about getting it accepted into the Ottawa School of Art Boutique which is taking in submissions on February 17th and 18th…

I finished my first month of Project 365 and made the mosaic for the month…

I have also gone through all the shots I took in January – 527 of them and picked out some of the ones that I didn’t choose for the project but that I still like for one reason or another…

In no particular order here they are…

Another thing that I tried to do was to pick a favorite photo from the 31 photos that I did choose for the project…and that was hard…first I narrowed it down to these 5…and then I got stuck…

Time is flying...

2010-01-28T11:01:00.011-05:00

The end of this first month of the year is fast approaching and so far I haven’t managed much (any?) painting time in the studio…which I really do need to do…and I really would love to find the time to do…I have a show of my paintings coming up in March/April…I also have a show in February…I have decided to make this one a show of some of my photography…so I am hoping to be able to pull that together…in, what – I have 4 more days – yikes!

What comes to mind as I am thinking about how this month has flown by at lightning speed – how time, in general, lately, seems to have been speeding up and flying by - is John Lennon’s quote “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”…how true that is! Very often there are times when I have plans to do one thing and then life just blithely steps in and dictates something totally different and there I go - heading off on a completely unexpected tangent…

I have been getting a bit better at handling this though…not in changing the complete lack of control that I seem to have over my life – just in getting somewhat better at accepting it…even my horoscope that came this week from Rob Brezsney seems to point to this – both the chaos aspect and the acceptance of it…

"PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Congrats on your growing ability to do more floating and less thrashing as you cascade down the stream of consciousness. I think you're finally understanding that a little bit of chaos isn't a sign that *everything's falling apart forever omigod the entire planet's crashing and evil is in ascension* . . . but rather that a healthy amount of bewildering unpredictability keeps things fresh and clean. My advice is to learn to relax even more as you glide with serene amusement through the bubbling and churning waters of life."

I have been taking photographs every day…417 so far…and that observance part of my brain is enjoying the waking up and coming back to life that this exercise has stimulated…there have been days when I have been so busy that by the time I have a chance to even think about taking a photograph, it is dark and I am tired and frustrated from a long day of working or running around doing those things that I hadn't planned on doing…but still, I have taken a picture…thank goodness we have so many animals – I can always fall back on a pet picture!

I have learned, though, that of our 4 cats, 2 dogs and my younger daughter's puppy, I am not able to photograph all of them in the same way…for example, the black cat is a real challenge, as is the black and white one...the other 2 cats are easy and willing models...and one of our dogs requires certain circumstances in which to photograph him with any amount of success – he was hit by a car when he was young and had some spinal cord damage, so he almost always has his head down…the only place that I have managed to take good pictures of him…so he doesn’t look all ‘hang-dog’…is at the cottage – where I can get down off the boardwalk so I am below him, or to be ‘down-rock face’ from him…or I need the space to lie down on the ground and photograph him from his level…like so…

I have usually managed to spend some time each day looking at and being inspired by some of the other’s photographs in the Project 365 and the 365 Community groups on Flickr…these communities are an endless source of encouragement and inspiration…just like looking at art inspires me and fills my well, the same applies with looking at photography…

I have also been learning things that I didn’t know about before…like Bokeh, for instance…I had never heard of Bokeh before…but wandering around Flickr I was seeing it more and more…

Dictionary.com gives this definition: “a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photographic image”…

Wikipedia expands on that to include: “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light"…and “Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it often associated with such areas. However, bokeh is not limited to highlights, as blur occurs in all out-of-focus regions of the image”…

Then I went looking some more…Flickr has a bunch of groups dedicated to bokeh…including at least one where no bokeh is allowed! Further searching came up with some more information (this is how I can get lost for a whole day just wandering around in cyberspace!)…Ken Rockwell talks about bokeh and DIYPhotography.net tells you how you can make a lens cover to create your own bokeh…

The other evening, while I was stopped at a traffic light, it had been raining and I looked out the van window to see a bokeh shot…not that great a one…but a couple weeks ago I didn’t even know what bokeh was!

Of the 417 pictures that I have taken so far this year, I have used 27 for my Project 365...I haven't always been happy with what I have to choose from for the day...but, there have been days when I have ended up with more than 1...I am hoping to put together a collage shot of the month each month for this project and also to put up some of my out takes from the month as well...hoping to get a chance to do that at month's end!

Project 365 so far…

2010-01-19T15:21:00.005-05:00

When I started painting a few years ago…it wasn’t long before some of my sleeping senses began to wake up and tune in…my observance of colour, shape and texture became keener…

So it is now, through doing this Project 365 that even more of my senses have begun to stir…when I was in Photographic Arts at Ryerson, I remember become very observant…it was a skill that we worked hard at fine tuning…constantly thinking about and looking for things to photograph and ways in which to photograph them in order to make some kind of statement…

In just these few short weeks I am beginning to think like a photographer again…it is a wonderful feeling…like another window in my mind opening and letting in some fresh air…fresh ideas…fresh ways of seeing…I now have a journal where I can jot down ideas for things to photograph…or a location that I want to return to…having flown past it on my way to or from a job…

It is a challenge finding the right kind of time to go out on a shoot…a number of things need to coincide…sometimes the weather is needed to cooperate…mostly it is making the time…I have been really busy work-wise since people got back into the swing of things after the New Year…which is a good thing…but, I think I have said it before…being self employed in a break/fix type of job means it is feast or famine most of the time…there is very little ‘happy medium’…

I have always been pretty good at always carrying my camera with me…so a lot of my shots are the spur-of-the-moment-glad-I-had-my-camera-with-me kinds…but this effort of having to come up with a photo that I am happy to post every day has got me thinking about photography more than I had been lately…

There are days when I almost forget…or the day passes way too quickly but so far I have managed through these times when I have been out working from morning till 9 or 10 at night by quite comprehensively photographing an old typewriter…that was fun…it is gone now, so I can’t fall back on that anymore…but I also can always photograph our animals…right now we have 4 cats and 2 dogs plus my younger daughter’s puppy comes to visit often…I am lucky in that, for the most part, they love to be photographed…especially when there is bribery involved…a love-up or treat…

Here is a collage of Pimkie posing for me...

So far this month I have taken 243 photos – 43 of the typewriter, 24 of just Pimkie and 21 of just Maddy…I have also taken 17 of a certain blowfish but am not happy about the lighting for that yet…

I have decided that the show I am having in February will be a photographic one...I have to get to work on that...it is coming up soon!

Happy Holidays!!!...

2010-01-02T13:18:00.008-05:00

December flew by without my writing even one blog entry…I’m not even sure exactly where it all went…except to say that a significant part of it was spent with my dog, Shea… he had a lump on his leg that kept growing – it had started when he slipped off the wood stairs out at Oma’s about a year and a half ago…we had it tested and it was benign but it had started causing him pain…we found out why – when the wonderful vet, Dr Barbara Anne Chidiac, at Chidiac Animal Hospital operated to remove it, she discovered that it had encased a tendon and nerves...

It was a worrisome morning when I dropped Shea off at the vet on December 10th (after driving through the first wicked snow storm of the season the day before to arrive at LT’s – the 5½ hour drive took 9 that day – yes, we are slightly insane to go to a vet that far from home…but if you knew her, you would understand why)…at that point they didn’t know if they would be able to save his leg…

The operation went very well…he still has 4 legs…a fact I am very happy about – I had been told a number of times that he would adapt if they had not been able to save it, but I just couldn’t see him swimming with only 1 front leg…and he loves to swim…but it is all good…he did loose about an inch of tendon and he does have to pay attention now when he walks, so his foot doesn’t knuckle over…but he is doing really well…the first few days were restless…he didn’t understand the drugged haze he was in – he had a morphine patch for the first few days and was on pain medication on top of that…but as the drugs wore off, after a few days, he came to enjoy all the extra babying and cuddling he was receiving…

Once more, Christmas and the whole of the holidays snuck up on me…I seem to be getting worse as the years pass, not better, as I had once hoped! While down at LT’s during the days around Shea’s operation, LT and I made our Christmas cards…I guess mine will be for next year as I didn’t get them mailed out!

We had a lot of fun taking over the kitchen table for a few days making them though...it brought back happy memories from when LT used to live with or near us and the 2 of us used to create together often...

Christmas was spent with family and friends...good food and wine...seeing family I hadn't seen for too long...seeing my sister and her family's new home which is absolutely beautiful...and now it is January once more...another year has come...

I have been trying to decide between a couple of words for my theme this year...I think I will use both...they just might compliment each other nicely...

Mindfulness and Colour...

Happy New Year!!!

2010-01-01T11:54:00.006-05:00

Welcome to 2010...here is hoping that we all have a quiet, happy, peaceful, gentle, tender, organized and healthy upcoming year/decade! This was the list that I came up with last night, with a couple of additions from Mom and Bro...he just added productive as well! I'll be happy with peaceful and healthy but all the other things would be nice too...

Last year I came up with a word to act as a theme for my year – it was “challenge”…I haven’t come up with one for this year yet…I’ll think about that today…

I plan to continue challenging myself though…and one of those challenges is to do Project 365 – starting today…I opened a Flickr account back in October in preparation for this…later today I will upload my first photo for this project. I will put a link to my 'Flickr photostream' in the sidebar of my blog…

Happy New Year to everyone...hope your holidays have been filled with goodness!

Last day of AEDM 2009...

2009-11-30T14:16:00.006-05:00

This month has flown by…as most months seem to be doing these days with alarming regularity and increasing speed…wouldn’t it be nice to have back all those days from my youth when I thought I was bored!

This past Saturday, Yvonne, my elder daughter and I went out to the new Shenkman Arts Centre…this is where our Gloucester Pottery School has moved to…not a very convenient move for us, really…driving to Orleans is not a pleasant exercise during rush hour…which, if we were to keep taking our classes, we would have to do…but it is a beautiful spot…this was our first time out there since the pottery school had moved…

We originally went to see the Gloucester Pottery School Christmas Show and Sale…which runs until December 15th…it was great to finally have a look at the new location and there were some wonderful pieces…but the real surprise was seeing Hans Blokpoel’s show called “Patterns in Nature” in the Trinity Gallery: Salon A exhibit space at the Shenkman Arts Centre…Hans’ sculptural pieces are wonderful…I love rocks and nature and his use of slate, rocks, nails and hardware bits really appealed to me…

On Sunday…after a much needed sleep-in…Cariño, my elder daughter and puppies, Shea and Teddy, met my younger daughter, her Beau and their puppy, Kaiah, at the Bruce Pit…what a great place…my younger daughter, her Beau and Kaiah had been there before, but the rest of us hadn’t…there were great trails through the woods…lots of dogs running about…it was a fun outing…we also saw this awesome tree…it's base was huge and very complex...

In the confines of the woods, I couldn't get the whole tree in one shot...so I made this composite...which I think is more interesting...

We came home to the wonderful smell of the stew I had started earlier in the slow cooker…we roasted some veggies to go with it – there wasn’t room for everything in the slow cooker…it was a delicious late fall dinner…

This afternoon I plan on spending the last day of AEDM up in the studio painting…I’ll post pictures later if anything interesting happens…

Checking in...

2009-11-26T22:10:00.007-05:00

It seems that the last week and a bit have got away on me...life has a way of doing that...mine does anyway!

It also seems that I have not been destined to spend very much time at all in my studio this month…but I have been doing some photography…though none of that in these past few days either…but today I did spend some time playing with some photographs that I had taken previously and have been meaning to fiddle with…

When I was at Ryerson in the Photographic Arts program, I started exploring and experimenting with things like distortion, repetition and panoramas…it was much more labour intensive back then when I had to develop film and print the pictures…one of the final pieces that I did in second year - which was made up of 36 negatives - took me 56 hours to print…now, with Photoshop and digital images…my how things have changed…although I can still get lost for hours fine tuning and tweaking…

These have not been tweaked to their final pluck…no doubt I will go back and fiddle some more…but here are some of the things I have been playing with…

This is a panorama of my favorite place on earth..."The Island"...last year for Christmas I made 5x7 prints of these 5 pictures for my 2 nieces...I would love to enlarge them a bit more and have them printed on canvas...

From the other side of Georgian Bay...at my Mom's beautiful Cobblestone Cottage...these 2 panaorama series were taken just after a storm had rolled through...storms on Georgian Bay can be very awe inspiring...

PS...if you click on each picture you will be able to see a larger view of it...

AEDM ~ Days 14 to 17…

2009-11-17T10:53:00.005-05:00

Had a great weekend…nice birthday dinner for Cariño Friday night out at Oma’s…then on Saturday Cariño, Oma, elder daughter and I went to the Ottawa Guild of Potters Fall Sale…saw lots of pottery eye candy…I went back again on Sunday with Yvonne…there is always so much to see that I usually go 2 or 3 times…

On Sunday Cariño, Yvonne and I went out for breakfast at a place in Orleans that Cariño’s niece, along with a friend of hers, have just bought…many family members and friends are helping with all the work that needs doing…a number of family members and friends work there as well…

On the way to pick up Yvonne, Cariño stopped so that I could take a picture of this tree that had caught my eye…I seem to be noticing trees a lot more since that full moon drive…

I managed to spend a bit of time in the studio yesterday…started working on a big canvas painting for my Georgian Bay series…stylized rocks and trees…I had done this ATC card months ago...this is what I am using as reference for the new painting…it is in the same style as my Northern Series…

Last night Cariño and I ended up driving out to Orleans to the restaurant again…only this time it was dark and during rush hour…since I wasn’t driving I could play a bit more taking pictures out of the window as we were driving along with all the other cars…

I was trying to get interesting blur photos...to show the chaos of rush hour...

As I played...things became more and more abstract...I also altered with these in my photo editor...

AEDM ~ Day 13…

2009-11-13T08:49:00.005-05:00

Happy Birthday Cariño!!!

Both my Mom and Cariño were born on the 13th day of a month…so Friday the 13th days hold no fear for us…they are happy days…especially when a birthday falls on one!

Last weekend Cariño and I went to the 260 Fingers pottery show…it was fantastic…such talented clay artists…there were many pieces I would have loved to have had follow me home…some of my favorite artists were there…

I love Chandler Swain’s work – especially the ones with the crows or ravens…I have also been lusting after Saskia Praamsma’s pieces for a few years now…one of Cynthia O’Brien’s women wall figures cried out to me…it was hilarious…I also wanted one of Tim Storey’s wall birds…his dragons are great too…it was nice to see Diane Sullivan there…when Yvonne and I were on our way to the Fall Fire pottery workshop weekend back in September, we stopped in at her studio in Williamsburg and so I already have some of her pieces…as well it was nice to see Leta and Don Cormier’s pottery creations, but I didn’t get a chance to say hi to Leta – she was one of the presenters at that Fall Fire workshop and has inspired both Yvonne and I to learn throwing…lastly I fell in love with Colleen O’Reilly’s totems…on going to her web site, I realized that my sister has some of her pieces…the colours are so wonderful and bright…she is from Hamilton and I am going to have to go check out her and her partner’s James North Art Collective next time I am down in that area…

This weekend, on top of being Cariño’s b-day weekend, the Ottawa Guild of Potters Fall Sale is on…it actually started Thursday and runs until Sunday…this is most definitely a must attend…dangerous though…

It was cold again last night, so I took my camera this morning on the puppy walk...it didn't seem as glorious as yesterday...but then maybe it just got blown up into the memory of something wonderful because I didn't have my camera yesterday!

AEDM ~ Day 12…

2009-11-12T17:47:00.004-05:00

The temperature dipped down below zero (Celsius) over night…on my walk with the puppies this morning the grass and the leaves on the ground were all painted with frost…each blade of grass and edge of leaf emphasized so that it stood out - separate from those around it…it added so much to the depth of this simple scene on the ground…I didn't have my camera with me...

On my way to a job this morning, I passed by a newly formed ghost town…CFB Rockcliffe closed down at the end of July 2009…leaving hundreds of empty, boarded up military homes…I stopped by after my job…hoping to be able to walk around and take some photos…but there were all kinds of no trespassing signs, so I didn’t venture too far into the deserted neighbourhood…

I am feeling kind of stumped on that painting I started yesterday…sometimes I just have to leave it for a bit to let it sit…I don’t know…I also have a painting that I started over a month ago and then I got side-tracked by life and have yet to get back to it…it was like I got interrupted mid-thought and am having a hard time picking up the thread again…

Since my elder daughter has moved back out again, we have gone from 5 cats down to 2…my younger daughter’s 2 cats will be with us for a while yet…one of them – Maddy – has become super affectionate once more…he didn’t like one of the other 3 and it really affected his behaviour…here he is tonight…helping me…

He is very hard to resist...

AEDM…Day 11…Remembrance Day…

2009-11-11T17:17:00.009-05:00

Prince Charles and Camilla were here in Ottawa today for the Remembrance Day ceremonies…I can only imagine the crowds…it was a nice day too…I don’t like crowds, so I didn’t even attempt to head down to the National War Memorial…but we could hear the CF-18 jets fly over and the cannon boom from home…

Today I played…it has been a while since I have had a chance to do anything in my studio…first I had to sort it out a bit…things tend to fill it in when I am not holding the household chaos at bay by spending time in there…

I started with a canvas painted red…

Added some cheese cloth…

I love the way it folds on itself creating texture…

Then I squeezed out a bunch of colours and dipped a felt flower that I had picked up a few weeks ago at The Papery (wonderful store in the Glebe)…I actually bought 3 of these felt flowers and I imagine that I will use them collaged right into a painting or paintings at some point, but I wanted to see how they worked as a stamp…then I got out my various taps that I have been saving…I have 3 now and a metal tap end circle that I found on the road way back and used them to get some paint on the canvas as well…now I have to wait for this to dry…

Here are the "tools" I used...

AEDM ~ Day 10 ~ Ghost Town...

2009-11-10T08:44:00.007-05:00

After getting lost a couple of times this summer while trying to navigate from one back road route across Ontario to another, I got totally fed up with my ripped and tattered, years out of date basic Ontario road map and treated myself to 2 new back roads map books…one is from the Backroad Mapbook Outdoor Recreation Guide series…and is the Cottage Country Ontario one…the other is from MapArt Publishing and is the Ontario Back Road Atlas…

The MapArt map book shows ghost towns…and while Cariño and I were heading back to LT’s to retrieve my forgotten laptop on October 31st…we figured what better day of the year to visit a ghost town than on Halloween?

Balaclava is an interesting little ghost town because there are still 2 inhabited houses…how spooky would it be, I wonder, to live in a ghost town…it is just a short distance north of Dacre and used to be a lumber mill town…

Ron Brown has written a number of interesting books about Ontario…I decided that I needed his one entitled Ontario’s Ghost Town Heritage…this could make for some fun outings!...I picked it up at one of my favourite stops when I pass through Orillia…Manticore books…

November 6th to 9th…

2009-11-09T11:31:00.005-05:00

I had started writing this post about a week ago...but hadn't had a chance to get it finished and posted...I have a few of these almost finished postings...I haven’t had any time for painting these last few days either…but I feel some coming up...

Late Fall Drive…

This year I have driven back and forth across Ontario more times than in any other year…I have been crisscrossing the province via a number of different routes…I realized on one of my last trips across that I had never done it at that time of year before (October 24th)…so I was seeing things that I have never seen before…most spectacular were the tamarack trees in their full fall glory…

On the route that I was driving, most of the leaves from the deciduous trees had fallen by this time…the height of the fall colours having passed a couple of weeks prior…I was driving across the province then as well, but couldn’t stop because of time restrictions…I did take a couple pictures of the beautiful fall colours...taken out of the van window as I drove…but wasn’t able to stop and photograph...

I left Ottawa on that Saturday morning, a few weeks ago, in the misty rain…it was really quite beautiful even so…there was a lot of ground fog…so lakes were mostly soft grey blurs, revealing only the outcroppings of trees and rock close to the road…the rest of the scene strangely missing in the foggy haze…swamps meandered, snaking back and forth between the landscape forms, disappearing into the mist…the dead trees showing as stark black lines against the muted golds and browns of the dying grasses…the water reflecting back varying tones of grey…the mostly leafless birch added their bright white highlights to play against the beautiful, rich dark greens of the pines…then the shock of the yellow tamaracks…

I wanted to stop so many times…but I wasn’t set up for photographing in the rain…and while beautiful in real life, my simple camera would not have been able to catch the subtleties of the colours and the light…the depth and mysteriousness of the landscape would have been lost…

I drove along in awe…relishing the fleeting sneak peeks at mostly hidden lakes and swamps that disappeared around the outcroppings of rocks and the stands of trees…the back roads that I take to get from Ottawa to near Midland or to the cottage are so magical…Ontario is such a beautiful province…

When I reached LT’s, there were still some deciduous trees with their leaves still clinging…we walked the dogs on some paths near her house...part of the network of the Simcoe Forest County Trails…it was a beautiful world in bright yellow…looking up into the trees…and the path blanketed with leaves…

I would love to, someday, do a number of photography trips through the back roads of Ontario...so that i could concentrate on the photography and not just snap pictures as I fly by…I would have to go a number of times...in the different seasons…I have since bought myself a couple of really good back road map books…that was how Cariño and I ended up at the ghost town of Balaclava…

November 5th…

2009-11-05T20:03:00.007-05:00

As the nature of my job would have it…it was 2pm before I managed to get out of Ottawa yesterday and head to LT’s…which meant I spent a portion of the drive in the dusk and the dark…and, it being hunting season, the deer seem to be on the move…a pick up in front of me at some point west of Bancroft narrowly missed hitting the second of 2 does running across the road and then later on, just east of Sebright, I had to brake hard as a big buck charged his way across the road in front of me…close calls like that always make me want to slow right down and just creep the rest of the way…

On both my drive yesterday and my return trip today, I kept seeing herds of burly men in florescent orange coats and groups of pick up trucks parked by paths leading into the woods…hunting season…

The weather doesn’t seem to be cooperating with me lately…it seems that the times that I have to spend inside working are the sunny times and my drives back and forth across central Ontario are the rainy ones…so my drive yesterday didn’t yield any photo ops…

On my return trip to Ottawa today I drove in and out of periods of wet snow which left a beautiful white frosting on the fall coloured landscape…all shades of browns, tans and rusts interspersed with the various coniferous greens…the wild reds, oranges and yellows now a couple weeks gone…even the stubborn oaks have given up almost all of their beautiful burnt orangey-brown coloured leaves…the black lacy skeletons of the tamaracks have only a few golden orange needles left clinging to their branches…

Here is one of the stubborn oaks...

Tamarack and evergreens...

I met Jake just west of Norland…I found him standing in the middle of the road a few miles before the town…looking lost...I was worried he'd been dumped on the lonely back road… what could I do but stop and see what was up… he had no collar…he barked at me when I got out of the van…but then came over wagging his tail and looking silly…I opened the sliding door and he hopped up in…our van smells like dogs even to people…so dogs must be able to smell us coming…he jumped right up onto the front seat beside me and looked at me with his clear brown eyes…a beautiful young male black lab…we need another dog like we need multiple holes in our heads so I drove around to the farms and homes in the area and thank goodness the last place I tried was his home…silly puppy…but it was a fun diversion for a little while…

I regret, now, that I was so worried about finding Jake’s home, that I didn’t take a single picture of him…

In-between the bouts of snow I took pictures of tree silhouettes…and thought about how beautiful they were and how I might try to capture some of that beauty in my full moon paintings…

Here are some of the more picturesque ones…most are just reference shots...and the power lines get in the way…

This majestic lone birch stands before a backdrop of pines…

This is a very odd shaped tree...mostly hollow...I wonder if it will survive this coming winter's storms...

This tree skeleton is so graceful looking...I wish that i could get a better picture of it...but it is in a swamp and I can't get closer to it...

Various tree silhouettes...

Snow and getting dark...

November 4th…

2009-11-04T11:14:00.004-05:00

Today, after my morning computer job, I am heading back to LT's to return the rental car and pick up the van...it is a nice sunny (so far) day...so I hope to get away in good enough time so that I can stop and take some photos...that will be my creative activity for today…another drive on the wonderful back roads of Ontario!…I won’t have Internet access until I return tomorrow…so I won’t be able to post my photos today…

This Friday evening Cariño and I will be going to the opening party of the 260 Fingers show…a wonderful pottery show…

Nov 3rd…

2009-11-03T11:10:00.004-05:00

This morning I was able to slip up to my studio…if only for an hour or so…it has been over a month since I have had a chance to be here…and for the few months before that it was very crowded…but my elder daughter and her beau have found a place of their own and have moved most of their stuff out…so I have breathing room again up here!

I perched at the big table, got out my sketchbook and jotted down some of the ideas that floated around in my head while driving home in the dark with Cariño this past Sunday…it really was a beautiful night…the bright, full moon in a deep grey sky with a gauzy haze of clouds moving about provided dramatic lighting for the skeletons of the mostly leafless deciduous trees and the wonderful silhouettes of the coniferous ones…

On the route that we take across Ontario, using the back roads, we drive through the mixed forest region which makes up the central part of the province...known as the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence forest…so the combinations and varieties of tree silhouettes against the grey sky and the full moon were endless…it was beautiful and mesmerizing…

As I was sketching, I came to the realization that I am going to need a tree book…or a good web site…one that shows the tree shapes for both summer and winter…it is the winter shapes that I am interested in now…although I guess – except for the Tamarack – for the coniferous trees it doesn’t much matter the season…

Here are my starting sketches…I can go ahead with the coniferous (not sure which species this was) painting, but will have to do some research for the deciduous and mixed ones…

It might be neat to do a triptych of a mixed species scene…sort of like this…except this is just a repeat of the 1 sketch…but then I do have a thing about repetition...

November 2nd...

2009-11-02T21:56:00.009-05:00

Like I said…things have not been going according to any plan of my design lately…for quite a while, actually…but it seems to have been amplified lately…

So…the painting idea is still in my head…I didn’t even get a chance to sketch it today like I had hoped…

My creative outlets, instead of sketching and painting, were 2 side trips into books stores and some photography while I was out and about doing a bunch of things that weren’t my idea to do today…

I treated myself to the Canadian Art magazine…I am looking forward to crawling into bed soon to look at it…the second book store I went to was the Book Bazaar on Bank Street in Ottawa…I had never been in it before…it was lovely…so much so that I took some pictures…I’d like to go back and take some more…

Driving home in traffic, I decided to take a few more 'drive-by' shots...holding my camera out the window and taking pictures...it takes a lot of shots to get some that work...because I am not watching what I am taking, but pointing in the general direction of stuff and snapping away...actually these 3 were taken while I was stopped at traffic lights...

Here's hoping for some studio time tomorrow morning!

November 1st…

2009-11-02T10:01:00.008-05:00

Yesterday was the first day of the Art Every Day Month (AEDM) that Leah at Creative Every Day is hosting…and while I did do some creative things – photographed an abandoned house and planned a painting in my head…things haven’t been going according to any plan of my design lately, so I didn’t get home in time to post last night…so be it…

I had been down to visit LT and her Beau last weekend for an extended weekend and when I left to head home on Wednesday, it wasn’t until I was almost back that I came to the realization that I had left my laptop behind…how could I do that???...not only is it my creative friend and research tool…it is also the main tool in my computer work…so, on Sat (Oct 31st) Cariño and I headed back to LT’s (a 5½ hour drive) in order to get my laptop…except the van broke down on a back road…nowhere near anything…thank goodness I had cell reception, we called CAA and settled in to wait…so we spent the dusky hours of Halloween sitting in the van, windows fogged up by our breath and our 2 big heavy-breathing dogs…eventually we got the van towed into Orillia and LT came to pick us up there…

One neat thing we did on the drive down, way before the van decided to give up the ghost, was to make a wee detour off our route to go visit a ghost town called Balaclava…just a bit north of Dacre, Ontario…I will do a post about that later...

Sunday we were told that they wouldn’t be able to order the part for our van until Monday…so we rented a car and drove home…we had been planning to leave in the morning and take our time driving home…stopping so I could photograph along the way…it was supposed to be a faily good day weather-wise…but as it turned out, we didn’t manage to get away until about 2pm…

I still got to photograph this abandoned house in the late afternoon light…just east of Norland, Ontario…I have been eyeing it each time I drive past…but it has either been raining, I was in a mad rush, or it was too dark any of the times I flew by…

There are so many abandoned and falling apart buildings along these back roads of Ontario…beautiful old barns, log buildings, or just little homes like this one…slowly falling apart…

I watched the sun set in the rearview mirror and the full moon work its way through the clouds…

I spent a long time looking at that full moon…a bit hazy in a grey clouded sky…and the bare branches of the trees and the solid tops of the various evergreens piercing the sky lit by the moon…it was beautiful…each species of tree with its own special silhouette…that got me to thinking about an idea for a painting…I am hoping to get a chance to sketch it out a bit later today…

And who knows...the weather might be wonderful for photographing when I have to make the trip back to Orillia to get the van later this week...there must be a reason why I am having to make this trip back and forth across Ontario so many times this year...

A Walk in the Woods…

2009-10-18T21:27:00.006-04:00

It was a lovely fall day today…unfortunately the colours are past their prime and most of the leaves have already fallen…but it was still a wonderful day for a walk in the woods…sunny, crisp, but not too cold…beautiful blue sky...

As we were sitting having morning coffee (late, since it was Sunday and we had both slept in), Cariño suggested that we go to Gatineau Park and find a place for me to set up and paint plein air…sounded good, so off we went…we drove out of Chelsea to the first parking lot we came to, walked down the path a bit, then veered off into the woods…we settled by a swampy pond…Cariño to read and me to paint…which we each did for a couple hours…

I didn’t end up with a painting that I kept…but it was fun anyway…and I figure…each time I spend out painting plein air is a time spent learning…whether I end up bringing something home or not…just the exercise of doing it…of being there…of looking and painting…colour mixing too…it is all good…it also felt good…being out in the woods for a few hours…it was very pretty…

This is the scene I was painting...

Project 365 – taking a photo a day…

2009-10-15T12:20:00.008-04:00

I first heard about Project 365 through a newsletter that I receive…from Photojojo…this newsletter has some great ideas…it is one of the things that comes into my inbox that I am happy to see!

Photography has always been a love of mine…I really fell in love with it when I spent 6 months cycling around Europe in ’79…that lead, a couple years later (after my first ‘half-degree’ from the University of Guelph in biological sciences), to my spending 2 years at Ryerson in Photographic Arts back in the early ‘80s…but that was also back when the travel bug had a pretty tight hold of me and so, after 2 years of a 4 year course, I wandered off again…travelling across Canada that time, ending up living in the Arctic (Inuvik) for a year and a half…then, somehow I ended up with a partner and twins…but that is another story…

I tried to do Project 365 in 2008, but wasn’t able, for a number of reasons to keep it up…it isn’t as easy as one would think…harder still when you expect to represent each day with a ‘good’ photograph!...you can’t just go out day after day and end up with a ‘good’ photograph without a fairly intensive commitment…I am thinking of trying it again for 2010 though…

I did participate in a ‘Day in the Life of…” project through WetCanvas…October 4th, 2008…on that date, everyone who had signed up for the project headed out and documented our day…there were people from all over the world participating…then we were to post on the forum a number of our pictures and from that choose 1 to represent the day…I took 84 photos total and whittled that down to 35 that I quite liked…it was hardest to choose the 1 to represent the day…it was one of those beautiful sunny, crisp, windy fall days…this is what I chose…

There are all kinds of neat projects out on the Net, for just about every kind of interest, that you can join in on…for free!…another one that I would like to participate in is the SketchCrawl…set dates for going out…in groups or alone…all over the world…just like a photographic “Day in the Life off…”…but sketching…I have wanted to do this one for a while…but never felt confident enough in my sketching skills to do it…but after my plein air class and in the spirit of continuing that aspect of my painting, I think I could now…I have no idea who I would go with though…I have never seen an Ottawa group…I could go alone…here is the forum for the next date coming up on November 21, 2009…the 25th World Wide SketchCrawl…

These projects are just one of the ways in which I keep my ‘inspiration well’ full…joining a project or group that requires me to create…be it through painting trading cards or postcards, taking photographs or just committing to be ‘Creative Every Day’, gives me a focus and the push to produce…to get out and photograph or go to my studio or outside to paint or draw…and that simple act…the just ‘doing it’ has an amazing power to get the creative juices flowing so that good things can happen…another thing I do is to fill myself regularly with ‘eye candy’…but blog surfing, researching artists, reading and going out to art shows…

Here are a few more photos from my 'Day in the Life of...' a year ago...

It has been a year!

2009-10-14T22:17:00.003-04:00

It has been a year since I started Tamarak’s Table…so…what have I learned from this?...

I originally started this blog so that I would have a space where I could put my stuff while I was participating in Leah’s Art Every Day month, which was November 2008…I have signed up for it again and am looking forward to it…the extra push it gives me…allowing myself to spend more time in the studio…

I have grown a lot through blogging and have gained some valuable insights and learning tools from it…it has really just been this past year that I have pushed myself to ‘put myself out there’…that was a big step for me and the blog was one of the ways through which I did this…

My posting track record has been irregular…no schedule, rhyme or reason...I posted when I could…usually I had much more to say, more entries that I would have liked to have made, than I had time to do it in…it takes me a while to get a post ready to upload…maybe I should post little bits more often…but I seem to like having a complete package of some sort before I post…it is different during the CED month…during that I am supposed to be tracking my daily creative activity…so little snippets are what is in order…

While I would love to be able to spend time every day painting, that isn’t possible…other life responsibilities are such that, at this point in my life, daily ‘studio time’ is still on my wish list…but that doesn’t mean I don’t have creativity in my life daily…I think I do…a lot of it still happens in my head though…

This blog has been my space where I take a longer, more structured look at my creativity…to look at my processes, my inspirations, my development…I didn’t know, when I started blogging just what it would give back to me…I have always thought about what I do creatively – whether it was my writing or my painting…I have always tried to step back and think about what I do…but I had never written about it…never photographed, written and then edited what I photographed and wrote about it to the point where I would put it out into a public place…about my creations, about my processes…about how I got to where I was, what inspired me along the way…not as a whole package, anyway…about 4 years ago Cariño and I did the Artist’s Way book in a group…that got me thinking about my processes and the ways in which I keep myself inspired…but, except for a very few people, I was still keeping all my ‘stuff’ private…

There were a few things that came together, all at the right time, which got me to step into the public realm…I had started painting in 2006…after one of my clients told me just to ‘do it’…each year I was painting more and more…and at some point in 2007 I started thinking that I might have to find a way to start selling my paintings so that I could buy more supplies (and make more space)…but it wasn’t until 2008 that I challenged myself to ‘put myself out there’…a huge and terrifying step…but a wonderful one as well…

This has been a great year for growth…for self examination and for stepping back and looking at what, how and why I do what I do…it has also opened a new channel of communication for me…got me back in touch with some old friends and opened up a new world full of fellow creative people…thank you all for your comments and support…I look forward to this next year with excitement about where it will take me from here…

Thanksgiving Cat Meld...

2009-10-13T20:29:00.015-04:00

I spent this past Thanksgiving weekend at the Island...the same place I have been blogging about lately…my favourite place in the world…only this weekend was Thanksgiving…so a lot of the family was there…my Mom, my sister and her husband and 2 girls, my brother, my younger daughter and I. It was wonderful…family is such a good thing and spending time with them is bliss…

As well, we brought my younger daughter’s 7 month old wee bit of a puppy, Kaiah. Matisse – my sister’s family dog…a Papillion (even smaller than Kaiah) and their 2 Siamese cats…Whiskers and Lisa, were all there too…

Here are Kaiah and Matisse on our walk about the island...

It was a cold weekend, so we had the fire going almost all of the time…the 2 cats snuggled on a stool right in front of the fireplace...

Whenever I would go near the fire…to put on another log, or to warm myself, I would notice the 2 snuggling cats…then I became interested in the abstract patterns of their bodies…I call it “Cat Meld”…

Spiders, Snakes and Shadow Waving…

2009-10-05T12:04:00.007-04:00

Part of a cottage experience for us his identifying the various things – plants, bugs, birds and animals – that we see…there are a number of field guides at the cottage and LT’s beau brought some neat survival books that had insect, snake and plant info…

For all who know me, photographing this spider (which we did identify but I can’t remember its name in the aftermath of my fear!) was a major case of forcing myself to do something that scares me! I hate to admit that it was kind of fascinating though…LT and I watched it spinning a fresh web one morning…it took down and made a new web every day…and its web had a very distinct zigzag pattern in a couple places coming out from the centre…it appeared to be after the yellow jacket wasps that come in late summer and we even tried to kill and toss some into its web, but none stuck and I got too creeped out by it all…

Now snakes, on the other hand, don’t scare me at all…I do have a healthy respect for the Massassauga Rattlers that live on the island, but snakes don’t scare me like spiders do…so when LT and I were loading up the canoe after one of our painting sessions, I didn’t freak when I saw the snake lying under the canoe…right about where LT was going to step when she reached over to put the painting gear in…but she is afraid of snakes…so I said, very calmly, for her to step back from the canoe…now…and she did…so all was good!

The snake was a fox snake (even though the book says they only go up to Point au Baril and we are north of that)…on first glance, their colourings are similar to the massassagua, but fox snakes are longer and thinner…they ‘rattle’ their tail like a rattler though…I was going to pick it up for LT and my dog to have a better look at it, but it was vibrating its tail like mad and I had a momentary thought that went something like this - if I was wrong and it was a young rattler and I got bit out on this flat piece of rock and had to paddle back to the cottage before heading in to Britt (which would take about half an hour in the small motor boat) which is the closest place for the anti-venom shot…so I didn’t pick it up…

I take lots of pictures at the cottage…of the amazing landscape that I love so much…rocks and trees and water…I also take pictures of the tribe - people and dogs (cats when they come too)…a few years ago it was just my younger daughter and Cariño who made it to the cottage and I took this ‘waving’ shot…the lighting and location had to all work for this…it was taken out at the group of islands we call the ‘inner outers’…it is a great place to go for a shore lunch and if the weather is right, to play in the waves on the outer shore…as we were walking around I noticed our shadows following us…

A couple years ago when I was up with my 2 daughters, 2 of their friends, LT and her Beau, the 4 kids and I had walked over to the other side or our island to see the sun set and I took this picture for my waving series…

Then this year, we all went out to another one of the ‘inner outers’ for a picnic and I took this shot of the group of us waving…I love how the shadows are distorted…

I also took one of just Cariño and me…

I have years of dog pictures…some of my favourite pictures of our dogs have been ones taken at the island…here are a few of them…

Artists in their Environment ~ the Chelsea/Wakefield Studio Tour…

2009-10-02T14:17:00.026-04:00

This is the 3rd or 4th year that I’ve gone on the Chelsea/Wakefield Studio Tour...it is one of my favourites…I imagine that is not only because I've seen some wonderful artists on it, but also because it is so close and is easy for me to get to, as well, it is a tour that takes you through such a pretty area…though I bet the Haliburton County Studio Tour is pretty amazing for both artists and countryside too…but it is a 4 or 5 hour drive from Ottawa…

This time of year is not only beautiful with the fall colours, it is full to overflowing with studio tours…the Perth Autumn Studio Tour and the Merrickville Tour are both ones I wish I could go on…I’d love to go on all of them…but there is no way…even though Cariño is becoming a wonderfully seasoned studio tour goer and tour driver (this year 6 of us piled into our van and Cariño drove)…it was lots of fun, but if you tried to go to each and every one of them it would take all of your weekends for a month or so! If money was no obstacle, maybe…then you could travel about, staying in charming country inns, eating out…ya…dream on…the other thing, though…is that all that beautiful eye candy can become overwhelming…and it can get difficult if you see too many things that you just have to have and you can’t buy everything…these things can end up speaking to you and haunting you…I also get so inspired by all that I see that I can imagine, if I kept going and seeing without the time in between to get back to my creating, I might just explode…

I do love studio tours though…I love seeing artists in their environment…love looking into peoples homes…my job takes me into peoples homes to work on their computers, so I am used to entering peoples living spaces…some of the places on this tour were simply breathtaking…beautiful remote locations…in the woods, overlooking the river, on twisty, scenic back gravel roads…I saw more that a few places I would love to live in!

Of the 22 artists participating in this tour, we saw 14…that was all we could fit in on the 1 day that we could all get together to go…Cariño and I played the game of virtual shopping…deciding at each place what we would buy if we could…we spent a lot of virtual money! It would have been impossible for me to decide on only 1 virtual purchase from the day…it seemed that each place we went to became my new favourite…

Now, after almost a week of it settling in, I think Marie-France Nitski resonates the strongest for me in the painting category…I love the bright, bold colours she uses and the wild and free expression in her pieces…I fell in love with her piece called “Bread and Roses”…but there are a few of Linda Wright’s paintings that I am still thinking about too…especially one that had wonderful aqua blue colours, textures and worn paper with a fish skeleton image and a canoe…also her impressionistic textured pieces that looked, to me, like landscapes were wonderful…her web site doesn’t show the pieces I’m talking about, but you can get the idea from her page on the studio site…and John Barkley had a massive portrait that he was working on…it isn’t on his web site yet…it was huge! I like the way he uses tons of paint…I love tons of paint…great globs of it…so I was attracted to that aspect of his paintings…

We also saw Ross Rooke’s wood turning…absolutely beautiful…he gave us a tour of his workshop and I think I saw a glimmer of interest in Cariño’s eyes…maybe something he would like to do…Glen Foster makes finely crafted, unique tables…letting some of the natural form of the wood remain in the design…there was a sumac table where he had split the piece of sumac and mirrored it together side by side to for the table top…it was exquisite…Russ Zeitz, another woodworker creates wonderful mixed media, sculptural 3D pictures, rustic furniture and funky sculptures…

Diane Lemire is an artist I have admired for a few years now…her works in cement intrigue me…I fell in love with a bird bath I saw at her place a few years ago…it had different types of cement, leaf impressions and a blue and white china ball partly submerged in the bowl part of it…it has been speaking to me for a long time now…

Something out of character happened to me on the tour…I usually don’t get overly excited about jewellery, but I fell in love with a necklace that Susan Glazer made…it was a scrumptious blue…she had made it by crocheting the coloured copper-cored wire…really neat…her dancing diva’s were fun too…

We stopped in Wakefield for lunch at Chez Eric…had a lovely lunch and good wine…I had the quiche which came nicely presented…

The tour is on again this weekend if you are in the area and can go…it is well worth it…lots of yummy eye candy…I would have liked to have seen the rest of the artists on the tour, but right now I find myself sitting in another beautiful spot – my Mom’s cottage on the Bruce Peninsula overlooking a wild and restless Georgian Bay…from almost the exact opposite shore of my sister’s cottage…same bay, but so different on each side…

I missed the Bruce Peninsula Autumn Studio Tour…but there are is a nice gallery just up the road a bit in Tobermory…Circle Arts…I should be able to make it to 260 Fingers though…

Plein Air Painting, Lamps and Miniatures…

2009-10-01T12:22:00.014-04:00

So...for all the talk of cottage crafts…this year we didn’t have one! There were lots of creative things going on…but we didn’t have a craft organized that we all participated in together, like in other years…

LT’s beau had brought some of his metal miniatures to paint and that interested my 2 daughters and my younger daughter’s beau…so they worked on those over the course of our cottage time…the miniatures involved painting tiny details and each one took hours and hours to do…

My elder daughter also put together a sculptural piece from a piece from a falling apart, weathered wooden boat and some interesting branches; she painted it white and blue and made herself a really neat piece to hang her jewellery on…

LT and I had 4 plein air painting sessions and we also did some funky painting on furniture…

At first we thought that we would canoe all around and set up to paint at a different location each time we went out…but in the end we decided to set up in the same place each time, paint the same scene and see how we progressed…it isn’t that easy to just bop about painting plein air…you do get so that you can carry everything in one load – we had got to that point part way through our course in Haliburton…but it still takes at the very least 3 hours per session…our first 2 and last sessions were 3 hours, our 3rd was a bit over 4…it would be a different matter if LT and I were there solely on a painting trip for ourselves…but we couldn’t just disappear on everyone…so choosing a spot right close-by worked well…

We settled on painting one of the out buildings on the island…we call it the Ice House – it was once used to store the ice that was chopped in the winter…in the days before refrigerators, when people had ice boxes…it is a cute little structure perched on the rocks with cedar trees beside it and pines behind…also, it was just a short paddle across to a flat island where we could set up…

What a beautiful place to paint! Here we are all set up and the view around us...

LT Painting...

Our session 2 paintings with the Ice House in back...

My dog would swim beside the canoe and stay with us as we painted…he was a good painting companion!

Shea on location...keeping an eye on the island...

Of the 4 sessions, 3 of them were in a row and I really noticed progress in my paintings…then we couldn’t get out for a few days…my 4th painting has improved perspective…but I found that unless I moved from doing the monotone-initial-roughing-in-the-lines-phase into adding colour, then I would get too carried away with monotone details and didn’t want to add colour…

Here is my session 1 painting...

Our session 2 paintings about to go into the ice house to dry...

LT's session 3 painting...

My session 3 painting...I am gatting happy with my rocks (one of my goals) but my trees are a bit wild!

Here are our paintings from the first 3 sessions up in the ice house drying...

My painting from our 4th session...

LT working on her 4th session painting...

I am a long way and many practice paintings away from producing anything anywhere close to being ‘finished’…but it is nice to see progress in the little bit that I have done!

As our gift to the cottage this year, LT and I painted 2 lamp stands…we are also going to paint one of the couches but only managed to get it primed this year…the lamps took way longer than we realized they would…they also are not finished, but are looking pretty good so far!

The lamps before we started...

Here they are so far...

The couch as far as we got this year...we primed the parts we are going to paint...we are going to leave the arms and the front board natural, so those got sanded down and one coat of varathane applied to protect them until we get back to it next year...

Where I go to re-generate…

2009-09-23T13:03:00.029-04:00

Each summer my kids (usually along with a friend or beau), Cariño (if he can make it - he has gone back to University and has missed the last few years), LT, her beau and I go to the cottage for our summer vacation. When the kids were younger and I was a single Mom, we would go alone. It has only been the last 3 years that LT and her beau have been able to stay the whole time with us…they used to just be able to come for a long weekend. As a teen I used to go with friends and the family…the cottage has been in the family since I was somewhere in my teens…before that we had a place further south.

In my view, there are basically 2 different kinds of ‘cottaging’ - social and remote…within these 2 categories it ranges from rustic to luxurious…I grew up cottaging in a comfortably rustic, remote manner…the first cottage was 26 miles by boat - my Dad and his brother owned the only 3 cabins on this lake that was at the mouth of the Moon River…a beautiful spot to spend my summers growing up and I have many wonderful memories from those times…as the years past, my uncle sold his cabin to our neighbours from Hamilton and that was fun, but then the people who bought the 3rd cabin, after assuring my family that they were quiet types and loved the remote peacefulness of the place, well…they started up a marina…we sold a couple years later…this is how I remember it all anyway…then it took a few years for my family to find the island where we go now, and, when my Dad wanted to sell it years later, I am so happy that my sister was able to buy it with her family…so we still get to go and enjoy this spot!

This spot, for me, is the most beautiful place on earth. There is something about it that calms and inspires me at the same time. It is an island, about a 20 minute boat ride out from the marina in Britt – in an area called the Thirty Thousand Islands…when there, I am surrounded by rocks, water and windswept trees…you have to look hard to see one other cottage a couple islands away…

The photos interspersed throughout this post are mine but photographer Kas Stone has some beautiful photographs on her site as well – one of her Galleries is titled “Georgian Bay’s Thirty Thousand Islands”, she also has one for “Killarney and the French River Delta”…

In the years of my failing relationship with the kid’s father, the island was a place where I could go and regenerate. In the years that I was a single Mom I took the kids there as much as I could and it became a healing place for all of us. It remains the place where we go each summer to re-group, re-generate and relax.

Over the years I have taken thousands of photographs of the area…I love the rugged Georgian Bay rocks and windswept trees. For years I have yearned to do justice to them in paintings…still working on that!

There is an artist – John Hartman – who has done some paintings I love of Georgian Bay…I believe he has a cottage not too far from ours…unfortunately I can’t find any pictures on the Net of the paintings of his that I have seen of the Georgian Bay area – but you will have to take my word that they are wonderful – thick paint and rich colours, paintings of the typical rocky islands of the area.

Many people know the area from the Group of Seven paintings from the Killarney area – the windswept trees and Georgian Bay rock. Doris McCarthy has spent many years at her Georgian Bay cottage painting the area. On my drive back from my week at Haliburton, I stopped in at the Algonquin Park Art Centre and one fo the things I picked up there was one of Doris’ books – “My Life” which was a nice read – interesting to learn about her life and painting adventures. It made me regret not picking up the book about her friend Ethel Curry called “Northern Belle”.

This summer at the cottage was wonderful…beautiful weather, swimming, great food and wine…we never managed to get the floor cloth project organized but we all seemed to end up painting on some project or another…will write about those next…

For now...here are some more photos...

Quick Post…

2009-09-16T09:16:00.002-04:00

Time, these days, seems to be on fast forward for me…even our time at the cottage went too fast (but then, it always does)…

We had absolutely fantastic weather for our almost 2 weeks on the island…the best weather of the whole summer! We swam almost every day and the nights were lovely and cool...

We got home from our holiday, arriving after 1am on Thursday night (Friday morning), and I then headed down on Friday afternoon to Morrisburg with a friend for the ‘Fall Fire’ pottery workshop weekend…I was exhausted but it was amazing too!

Now I am trying to get caught up with work and laundry…I am in a 1 day art festival this weekend and have been asked to join in another the weekend after that…very busy!

Haven’t had a chance yet to go through all the photos…but I’ll leave you with these…

LT and I had 4 plein air painting sessions…we painted the Ice House, which is one of the buildings on the island…at first we thought we would go around to all different locations, but we decided, instead, to focus on 1 thing and to see how we progressed through our sessions…will show you the paintings another time…

We would canoe to a flat island across from our island and spend the morning painting - for 3 or 4 hours…my dog, Shea, would swim across beside the canoe…he is a wonderful painting companion!

This is the Ice House…a beautiful little building with interesting rocks and trees around it…

Cottage crafts with the kids…what will it be this year…

2009-08-19T17:15:00.008-04:00

Since my kids were wee babes, they have been spending time at ‘the cottage’…some summers more time than others…I think they could swim before they could walk! The cottage is, in my opinion, the most beautiful place on earth – on an island – one of the 30, 000 islands in Georgian Bay…it used to be the family cottage and then, when my Dad wanted to sell, my sister bought it – thank goodness!

As the kids grew, what we hauled to the cottage changed...it always has been and it will always be a lot of stuff…and this trip is no easy feat…we used to live only 2 hours to the marina, but since we moved to Ottawa, 7 years ago, it has become a 5½ hour trek…and that is just to the marina…then the car has to be off-loaded, the boat loaded and then the 6 mile ride to the island where everything has to be hauled back out of the boat and up to the cottage…no one is allowed to swim or crack a beer until the work is done! When the kids were little, they couldn’t haul much, but did their part…now it is easier with everyone grown…there were a few teen years that were trying, but those seem to have smoothed out. We take everything we need for our time at the cottage…it is very rare that I will leave the island to go into town during our stay…but there is usually someone who makes a couple trips in…for milk, worms, wine, bubblegum!

Each summer I would plan a craft of some sort that we would all do…on top of the usual paints, crayons, books, puzzles, music and such that would help to keep the kids happy on a rainy day…it is funny what things become ‘ritual’ – the cottage craft, certain foods…although there is now electricity on the island, there is a very strict no tv rule...but the kids in later years have bent this a bit by bringing laptops and movies that they watch hooked up to headphones into the night...

The crafts have had to match the abilities of the kids…so they have changed a lot over the years…from finger painting on paper and naked bodies when they were very young to constructing simple cardboard and popsicle stick picture frames to making braided and knotted leather thong key chains to paper mache to safety pin and bead anklets and bracelets to pottery and the making of pinch pots and tiles to gourd carving and painting…we have covered a lot of crafting in our summer sojourns. This summer we were thinking about doing floor cloths…but we are also going to do some painting of furniture, as well, LT and I will be doing some plein air painting…so we might do flags or wall hangings instead…that way we can use the not so expensive lighter weight canvas and won’t need to do all the finishing necessary if it was to be walked on…

Last year we did the gourd carving and painting…it was really fun…none of us had ever done it before…LT got the supplies from a neat place in Cookstown called Northern Dipper…for the last couple of years we have set up our crafts in the gazebo…it is funny how the family uses this building - all so differently…my brother used to eat most of his meals out there…my gang did have a big candle-lit sit down dinner for about 8 or 10 one year…it was lovely, but a lot of work getting everything over there from the main cabin and back again! My sister and her family use it mainly for exercising – they have a tread mill and some other exercise stuff there…my gang does crafts out there…that way we can set everything up and leave it…not having to put it all away when we want to sit down and eat…which we do in the main cabin! The view from the gazebo (actually from anywhere up there!) is wonderful…it is all screen on 3 sides, so a lovely breeze blows through…what a great summer studio!

The gourds are dried when you get them from the supplier…all dirty, so the first step is to wash them…

There is a big table out there that we use…room for all the craft stuff…and wine!

Here are some of the gourd projects in progress…

The year before the gourds, I brought 50lbs of clay up to the island (like there isn’t enough stuff to lug up!)…we had great fun mostly making tiles…that year we had 4 teenagers…my 2 daughters, a beau and the younger brother of the girl that my elder daughter had done a 3 month exchange to France with…so there were 7 of us that year and LT and I decided that a nice cottage present would be for everyone to make a tile depicting something about the cottage…it has taken since the summer of 2007 to get the tiles glazed and mounted…but I will be taking it up this year…finally! The 2 boys did their required tiles and then took off for more fun things…but LT, my 2 daughters and I made many tiles and pinch pots…

Here is Ghislain, from France, in the fore-ground, LT and her beau, J all working on their tiles…

Tiles drying on the banister outside the gazebo…

More tiles finished and drying…

More tiles…we did have fun!

And here is the finished mosaic for the cottage…well, almost...I still need to touch up the grout in a few spots and figure out how to hang the thing...

In 2006 we made safety pin and bead bracelets/anklets…I still wear mine from time to time…I think I took the longest to make mine…I had to work very hard to make a ‘random’ pattern!...

I don’t seem to have any more pictures of cottage crafts…it could be that I didn’t have my digital camera before that…

Odds and sods…

2009-08-08T12:28:00.005-04:00

July really did take its toll on me…I have spent most of this first part of August catching up on work and sleep…resting and reading every chance I get…a few days ago I started painting again…I had a bunch of things that I had started before I left for Haliburton…so I have been puttering away on them…these are more of the playing with various gel mediums…playing with texture…they are fun to paint…kind of like home-made colouring book pictures, because the pattern and picture was laid out in the texture and then I ‘colour’ it in…pure play with a day dreaming meditative element to it!

I finished Daydreaming IV - it was basically finished - all I had to do was commit and attach the 3 small canvases...it isn't quite a crooked in real life...I had a hard time getting up high enough to photograph it, so it was a bit distorted...will have to work on getting a better photo later...

Somehow, in the rush of July, I managed to get 5 pieces into a group show at the Unitarian...it runs July and August...the Art Space wall here isn't that big...but with this being a meeting room, a lot of people go through...there are some talented people in the congregation and it is nice to go in and see the various shows...

I have also started a new piece…it is developing as I go along…here is the space I am working on now…my work table is full…so I have moved to a board that I put over 2 stools…I am going to have to do a clean up soon…I am slowly closing myself in! But that seems to be how I work…in a little nest surrounded by stuff…there are the textural paintings I am working on, some bits for the new one…the new one in the background…and my morning bowl of coffee…

I started this new piece with some cheese cloth attached to the base coloured canvas in a flowing, overlapped way...

Then I fiddled about with bits and pieces...some keys, some puzzle pieces, maybe some 'wonder bubbles'...adding colour and details as I went along...laying pieces on, moving them around...

This is where I am at now...need to let it sit for a bit...come back to it in a while to decide where to go next...

Time Flies…

2009-08-03T12:15:00.018-04:00

Well, I’m not sure where July went…except that I must have spent most of it on the go…I flew out West and back again and put almost 3,000 km on my van on top of that! I am hoping for a quieter August!

Somewhere in July I did spend a wonderful week at The Haliburton School of the Arts…at the new campus…what a beautiful spot and excellent facility…so many amazing courses available! Now, having been there for the first time, it is going to be hard to choose what to take next time! LT and I want to make this a yearly event. We are going to be torn though...we both want to take another course with John, but there is also a class on printmaking - impasto waterbase - that looks really cool...there are so many really cool classes there that it gets to be overwhelming when you start really looking!

I love the doors into the school…bright, bright red, with things incorporated into them – both inside and out…inside there was a pot with oversized paintbrushes in it and a lovely thick branch…carved into the wood over the doors (can’t really see it in the photo) it says “Within these walls the walls within disappear.” What a wonderful quote to walk under each morning…and how fitting for a place of creative learning.

This is the new campus...

We never did manage a full walk about the Sculpture Forest...but here are a few that we passed daily...the Inukshuk that welcomed us each day...

The Horse and Rider that were very cool...

My favorite was this totem made of carved stone...it is called "Dreaming Stones" by Kevin Lockau...

It is too bad that we didn't do the Sculpture Forest walk...we didn't realize how exhausting the class we took was going to be...not only being mentally tired from the actual learning and pushing ourselves...but also the lugging of all of our stuff out to the various locations was tiring! Next year we will have to make a point of doing the walk even if we are tired!

I absolutely loved the class we took…"Introduction to Oil Painting - Plein Air". John Anderson is a great teacher…we were a class of 12, with varying degrees of experience and coming from many different artistic backgrounds...John managed beautifully to pull us all through the week, each of us learning and growing individually…he balanced group and individual teaching with a skill that could only come out of a love of both the medium and being able to, and loving to, teach.

For me, personally, it was a week of intense, but good, frustration…I had my own private little lesson on perspective – I have never had any formal art training – a nasty elementary art teacher scared me as far away from art in middle and high school as I could go! We all had a few lessons on colour mixing which I was thrilled about! We geared up and hiked off to some beautiful spots to paint and I actually painted! All of my pieces are very amateurish, but from the first painting of the week to the one I did on the last day’s location…definite improvement and growth can be seen. What more can a person ask for?

We spent day 1 in the studio...learning about direct, indirect and oblique light, doing some colour mixing and a painting from a photo...here we are on day 2 setting up at our first 'plein air' location...these buildings are on the campus...so the lugging of equipment and supplies wasn't far...part of the learning curve included learning how to make it out to a location in 1 trip...with everything you needed, but not any more!

And here is part of the scene we were painting from...

Day 3 found us out on our second venture - on the side of a road outside of the town of Haliburton...I have already forgotten the name of the town it was near and it isn't on the map...should have written it down...

Here is the scene we were painting...

Here are LT and my canvases as we were working away...

Day 4 found us in town, right off the main street of Haliburton, set up along a river...this was a lovely spot...I enjoyed being able to be in the shade - after baking in the sun the day before!

Here we are all picking our spots and getting set up...

Here is the scene...

And here is my canvas in progress...it is really, really hard to create a sense of depth!

Day 5 found us back out towards that small town I can't remember the name of...on a side road, off a side road...then hike on down the trail and you come to this beautiful spot...the falls have a name too...but I have also forgot that! At this location, I wanted to focus on trying to paint rocks...the little scene that I chose looked like something I might find out on Georgian Bay...sort of...the rocks, anyway...

There were many different places for people to set up on this, our last, venture out...

This is the scene that I chose...

And here is a progress shot of my canvas...

Here is the scene that John chose...

And here is a picture that I took of John out on his point...LT is going to print it up and deliver it to him...as well as being an artist and a teacher, he also manages the Curry's art supplies store in Barrie, Ontario...

On the Thursday after classes, there was a 'walk about'...we could all go visit the other classes, talk to people about the class and see what they were doing...here is LT and my corner of the studio...

And a bunch of our canvases...

It is amazing how close you can get to what was, only 5 days before, a group of strangers...I didn't get a good group shot on my camera...but many were taken and I hope to get 1 as a memento of our week...there were goodbyes and hugs all round as we packed up to leave...exhausted, but exhilarated! Here is LT packing up her pizza boxes with wet canvases...

When I said earlier what more could I ask for?...well, there was more! LT and I stayed for the week with a friend of mine that I used to work with back when I was a picture framer…Barb…she and her husband let us join them at their cottage in Minden…it was beautiful and so great to see Barb again…I hadn’t seen her since I moved to Ottawa from Orillia…almost 7 years ago! So each day after LT and I got home from class, we shared dinner making duties and many bottles of wine…catching up on old times…Barb was looking after 2 of her grandbabies – aged 2 and 4…so the cottage was hopping with activity! It was a totally wonderful week all round.

A whole lot of things on the go…

2009-07-05T16:41:00.011-04:00

I am flying out to Vancouver tomorrow for a few days to help out my brother with some things…my sister and I are going out together…it is going to be an interesting trip and, I hope, a productive one…

I will be back from out west for a day or 2 and then I am heading off to Haliburton to take a week long art course with a girlfriend - LT – the one who came and led the painting party back in February. We are going to the Haliburton School of the Arts and are going to take one of the summer courses - Oil Painting – Introduction to Plein Air. I am so excited and so terrified all at the same time! Of course, my nasty, negative voice is telling me that I am going to make a fool of myself…that I am insane to take a class where I will be expected to actually paint something that looks like what I am looking at…I have never done that…don’t sketch, though I would love to…what my nice, supportive voice is trying to tell me, over all this negative din, is that I’ll do fine…I am not taking this class thinking that I will somehow instantly turn into a realist painter…I don’t even what to…but I am hoping to learn a bit about mixing colours and maybe adding some depth to my abstract paintings…if I can come away having learnt anything, it will all be worth it…and I am sure that at least that much will happen…and if I can come away with some additional skills - great…and if I can come away with some fledgling, early stage abstract landscapes…then I’ll be ecstatic! Just to be surrounded by creative people for a week is going to be a joy. Add to this that LT and I are staying with another girlfriend of mine that I used to picture frame with and haven’t seen since I left Orillia. We are going to be staying with her at her cottage for the week…it is going to be an all round fantastic week…old friends and creativity!

I have been flitting about in my studio this past week or so…have started many paintings…am just about to finish 1…I am still having so much fun playing with the various gels and modeling compounds…they are such fun but take so long to dry! So I keep starting more and more canvases…but this is all good because I also just found out about a week ago that I got juried into a show this fall instead of juried out!!! It is a 1 day festival on September 19th. It is the Old Ottawa South Music and Art Festival. I just had a look at the web site and my name is up there and one of my paintings…wow…how exciting! Looking at everyone’s pieces, it looks like it is going to be a good show…there are painters, potters, glass artists, sculptors and jewellery makers…this is going to be fun!

So…it is a very good thing that I have lots of paintings on the go! I am also looking forward to a burst of inspiration and creative activity to result from the art course. As well, just before the Festival, I will have had almost 2 weeks at the Island – my sister’s cottage – where I go each summer to re-group, relax and feed my soul.

Summers used to seem so long…when I was young, we would get out of school for summer holidays and everyone would go off to do whatever they did in the summer and in the fall when we all came back to school, it seemed that so much had changed…we had changed…so much had happened. Now, the summer seems to sneak up on me and it is half over before I even realize it and once I take a look and get everything ‘booked’ and sorted out…it’s gone! The only time I get a slight titch of the old summer feelings is after I have been at the Island for about a week and have wound down and slipped into ‘cottage mode’…then I get a fleeting sense of those long summer days…but as soon as it comes, it is gone again. So sweet when I can sense it though!

I have some shots of a big painting (24”x36”) that I have been working on…not sure if it is finished...

I started out with a base coat of phthalo green and then slathered on some modeling gel for an overall background texture

Missed some progress stages in here…but I divided the canvas into 3 sections, added more gel to make each section’s texture different, divided the left section into 3 again and started painting…

Details…

Finished painting the lolly-pop flowers and then decided that I didn’t like the middle section…it was too empty…

So I painted 3 small canvases…2 of them have elements that directly link to the big canvas and the middle one has elements that link it to the 2 small canvases…I am pretty sure that I like the addition of the 3 small canvases…but haven’t stuck them on yet…am going to live with it for a bit first…

Details…

I think I originally started this canvas back in February…did the base coat then…then it sat for a few months until I got inspired by the modeling gel…I guess that was only a little over a month ago…it feels like I have been working with it for a long time…I am almost sorry that I am feeling finished with it…

Oh...I also had lunch with a friend on Friday...she runs the ArtSpace wall at the First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa...there is a group show for the months of July and August...we were going to hang the show after lunch but she had to head out of town, so she will be hanging it tomorrow...I left her 5 small paintings to put up...I'll have to get in to take a picture...

Not using a brush or a palette knife…

2009-06-30T14:24:00.007-04:00

The June challenge in the Abstract and Contemporary Art forum at WetCanvas is (was) to “…create a painting without using a brush or palette knife.” I had decided way back at the beginning of June to try this…I have no idea where the month has disappeared to…but here it is the last day of June!!!

I thought that this challenge was something that I would be fully open to and well equipped for...I have no qualms about using my fingers or any instrument that will get the paint on the canvas the way I want to slather, smoosh, or dab it on…except I always like to do a base coat or 2 of a colour first...I’m not too anal about a lot of things…but I do have a thing about starting a painting on a nicely coloured, smooth canvas…even if I am going to go and put all kinds of texture on it! So it was more of a challenge than I first thought...having to start my painting without the usual smooth base…it is very easy to just reach for a brush without thinking about it!

I applied the first base coat with a credit card-type piece of plastic…hard to get smooth…but I am going to accept uneven into my life - for this painting anyway…

Once the first coat was dry, I put on a second, darker blue base coat, again with the credit card-type thing…it came out looking a lot like denim and I quite liked it and so decided to leave a fair amount of the background showing in the overall piece…

After the base coats were dry, I applied the modeling gel…again using the credit card-type things, and then using the laptop hard drive metal holder for the honey comb-like texture, the old metal number 3, my plastic triangle painting support and a pen cap for the other textures…then I had to wait for a few days for that to dry!

Here is where I am at now…maybe finished…not sure yet…I used q-tips and my fingers to apply the paints and inks over the modeling gel. I dribbled inks on some bits of cheese cloth that I had set on some waxed paper and let them dry, and then I splattered more inks on them using an old tooth brush. After I stuck the hardened cheese cloth pieces onto the canvas with the modeling gel, I dabbed on some acrylic paints using q-tips.

This has been a fun challenge and it is funny, but in a way it has made me less fussy about using some of my brushes...I have these beautiful, pristine brushes that I usually use for everything, but I also have these old, abused ones that I never used…now I find myself using these old beat up ones more…on other pieces I am working on…for smushing the paint into the textured parts…for this piece I couldn’t use the brushes, but for these other pieces…boy is it so easy to use my old ones…

Wreck This Journal…

2009-06-24T18:21:00.003-04:00

So, as well as joining another WetCanvas project…I also joined another online book group…same person leading as the last one…new book…

The book being done this time is called “Wreck This Journal” by Keri Smith. I am late starting in…it is week 3 already, but that doesn’t really matter…especially for this book project.

When my book arrived last week and I had my first look through it (it takes just a few minutes to go through...just looking...not 'doing'!) my initial response to it was ”WOW...I must be a prude! I can’t do many of the things this book is instructing me to do.” - I hadn't expected that from myself!

You see, this isn’t your average book…it is an exercise in deconstruction…the subtitle of the book is “To Create is to Destroy”. The idea is to make you go against your better judgement, to ignore and quiet your inner critic…to get your messy, dirty, and destructive “who cares about the final product” child to come out and play. It is an exercise in letting go...

When I first read about this online book project on Jamie’s site: The Next Chapter, I thought – hey, I can do that…it should be easy…I am usually pretty good about not ‘playing by the rules’...when it comes to painting and creating, anyway…because I don’t know a lot of the rules…so ignorance is bliss, I figure…but this book wants me to do things I wouldn’t think of doing to a book…rip pages out…put food on it…yuk! How can I do that??? I am ok with writing on the pages…I have always done that with my books, break the spine…I can’t read a book without breaking the spine…fold over corners, sure…but take it in the shower? Rub dirt into it…rip and tear and in other ways destroy it? Here I run into trouble…I guess I do always want a final product…I hate sticky…how can I rip and tear it?

So, after some thought, I have decided to go through and do the things that I have no trouble with…and then I will start doing the harder and harder (for me) things…we’ll just have to see how it goes! The idea is to loosen up on your ingrained taboos...so I will try...

Some of the people in the group are getting right into it…smashing their book to the point that it rips in half, putting peanut butter on it and tossing it to their dogs…spitting and smearing food in it…at this point I can’t see myself doing that…any of that…but I will try…

Each week Jamie puts up a post on her site: The Next Chapter: Wreck This Journal, and then the group members can post a link to their weekly "Wreck This Journal" post...it is fun to see what some people are doing...amazing!

Update...

2009-06-11T19:01:00.003-04:00

Here are the 3 8"x8" little textural canvases all together...finished...so far, I think, anyway...they seem to be sitting fine! I haven't felt the need to fuss at them...

Progress pictures...

2009-06-10T12:15:00.006-04:00

Not much to say...just wanted to get some progress shots up...

I think this one is finished...I may have to wait until all 3 of the little ones (8"x8") like this are finished...not that they are meant to be a series, but they are all similar in a way...so far I am calling this group of textural paintings 'Daydreaming'...because that is what I am doing when I do them...doodling, playing and letting my mind wander and daydream...

This is the 3rd one of the small textural ones...3 progress shots...

This is the big canvas that I am working on using the modeling gel to create texture first and then painting on top of the texture...this is the 24"x36" canvas...I am having great fun trying out all the different bits and pieces that I have squirreled away with creating texture in mind...

Playing…and dogs…

2009-06-08T12:51:00.014-04:00

An important part of my creative process – and I believe that this applies to most people who are exploring their creativity…is that I have to let go and play sometimes. I have to try new things, new tools, new materials, new products…and there is always that allowing myself to let go and not worrying about ‘creating bad art’...or 'wasting materials'! Just letting myself get lost in the process, in the feel of the paint...not even thinking that 'I don't know how' to use or do something...getting lost in my thoughts, my feelings...daydreaming...

This is also an important part of the therapy that art is for me...the getting lost, the letting go...that is the healthy part of this whole process, the healing part...if I can 'get lost' for an hour or more in my studio...that is better than any nap I can take or book I can escape into...it is like taking my brain to the spa...I come back to reality feeling refreshed and rested...

There are so many different acrylic products available…from types of paints and inks, to things you can add to your paints, to all the various gels and textural mediums. Add to this the endless methods of applying it all...I am always adding to my collection of 'tools'...from the bent metal tongue depressor-sized and shaped tool that my brother-in-law, Tonio, made for me, and various other things he gave me from his workshop to squish the paint on, to the different lids from broken things, to credit cards, to the laptop hard drive metal frame that made the honey-comb-like shape in the gel...the list goes on...

A lot of my paintings have great gobs of paint on them…the more I can pile on and the more wild the array of colours the better! A while back I had bought a little tub of Tri-Art Semi Gloss Modeling Gel…I had originally thought maybe I could mix it with my paints to make them even more capable of bulking up…but I haven’t tried that yet…I was afraid of thinning out the colour. Also…this stuff isn’t cheap and I would need so much of it…

So the tub sat…until this past week when I decided to try something totally new for me…and I am having a riot! It is a test for my non-existent patience for waiting for paint to dry though…it takes 2-3 days for the gel layer to dry before I can attack it with paints and inks…but this only serves to make me start more and more pieces…trying to keep busy while waiting for pieces to dry…so I guess it is a good thing!

I think I am happiest when I have a few different things on the go and can just bop from one thing to another…working on my latest little card project (the alphabet one), I have prepared a huge (for me…the biggest yet at 28”x36”) canvas to start doing my Georgian Bay series and a whole lot of smaller canvases that I am playing with the textural medium on (including 1 big one - 24”x36”).

The gel goes on white…this is the second canvas I have started…

It dries clear…this is the first of the canvases I am playing around with...

And a detail...

Once dry, I started adding colour…this was where I got to last night…and was happy, but after looking at it for a while, decided it wasn’t finished…it needed something more up at the top and some metallic inks…

I think it is finished…will let it dry and see…mostly I used my fingers to put on the acrylic paints and inks…great messy fun! (I think I have paint on my keyboard and my camera now!!!)…

And a detail...

Yesterday we had well over 300 lbs worth of dog in the house! We had our 2, Shea and Teddy who weigh in at about 85 lbs and 55 lbs respectively, then, while Oma had dinner with one of her daughters, we babysat her Kenya (95 lbs) and Remi (probably 100 lbs)…Oma is babysitting Remi for a few days…plus we had my younger’s wee puppy, Kaiah who probably doesn’t weigh 5 lbs…that is a lot of dog! It was hilarious…the biggest, Remi, and the smallest, Kaiah, hit it off and played and played…Kaiah ran her little heart out – Remi only had to take a couple steps here and there to keep up and they barked and barked in joy…one huge, deep bark and one wee bark…

Kaiah is not as big as Remi’s head! Here are the 2 of them at the barricade that we made upstairs so they wouldn’t fall down the stair case…

This picture is so Remi…he is a real gentle soul, ragamuffin 2 year old gallumpous…

A different way of being creative…

2009-06-07T15:38:00.006-04:00

I have a thing for magazines…especially cooking and art ones…I love to look through the cooking ones while I am waiting in the line at the grocery store…if I find a recipe that I must have, then I buy it…it was the Vichyssoise recipe that made me buy the latest Fine Cooking magazine…that and the crab cake cook-off article…and the article on searing, braising and glazing on the barbeque…

Vichyssoise has always been one of my favourite summer soups…sipping spoonfuls of this silky smooth cold soup brings memories of my childhood flooding back…I had a wonderful childhood…filled with family fun, friends and adventures with my horse when I took off into the back fields and woods of the farm I grew up on…

When I was young, Mom would buy a frozen version of Vichyssoise...how easy is that?!…if I remember correctly, it came packaged like frozen juice and you added milk or cream to it…I think Campbell’s Soup made it…and it was delicious! We had a huge clump of chives in the garden that we would grab a handful of and cut onto the soup…

Cariño has made this before…but since he has been back at school, his soup-making days are few and far between for now…so I decided to try my hand at it…

Here is my adaptation of the recipe from the magazine…I used 1% instead of whole milk and 10% cream instead of heavy cream, I also reduced the amount of salt and used more leeks…I think the straining it through the sieve (actually you have to really coax it – I used a wooden spoon) is really important for getting the silky texture…

Vichyssoise

• 4-5 medium leeks – use the white part and a bit of the light green, cut in half and wash, then slice 1/8 inch thick – need about 4 cups (generous)
• 4-6 medium yellow-fleshed potatoes, peeled, cut in half and sliced 1/8 inch thick – need about 4 cups (generous)
• 2 cups 1% milk
• 2 cups water
• Salt
• 1 cup 10% cream
• Chives, for garnish

Put the leeks, potatoes and milk and water in a big pot and heat over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer.
Lower the heat to medium-low and add 1 teaspoon salt.
Simmer for about 20 minutes – until the potatoes fall apart when you stick a fork in them.
Remove from the heat and add the cream.
Let sit in the pot for a little while to cool, then, a bit at a time, puree the soup in a blender.
After pureeing, strain the soup through a fine sieve.
Let the soup cool to room temperature, stirring every so often to keep a skin from forming.
Once cooled to room temperature, refrigerate until cold.
Serve with chives cut over top.

Serves about 6 one cup servings

I have been painting a bit too...here are the next 3 for the Alphabet project...like the quilt blocks that I did, I find doing these calming and meditative...

I wasn't going to...but I did...

2009-05-20T16:49:00.004-04:00

I joined another WetCanvas project…I seem to be addicted…

This is an ATC project…2.5”x3.5”…the theme is “Alphabet”…I have wanted to play around with Illuminated Letters for a while now…so this was perfect…each person in the group was assigned, by random draw, a letter of the alphabet...I am “V”…so I will receive all “V” cards…

Virtual Quilting...

2009-05-16T23:41:00.004-04:00

It had been suggested to me, by a few of the people that I had sent these little watercolour quilt block pieces to in a WetCanvas project, that it would be interesting to see them 'put together' in a quilt...

So...I did some 'virtual sewing' today in Photoshop...all in the name of play and fun...my Mom knows how much I love to sew!!!

Imagine...3 quilts in one day...

On rejection and the dealing with it…

2009-05-15T14:06:00.004-04:00

Stephen King…from On Writing
“By the time I was fourteen … the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.”

Since I have chosen this year as the one in which to challenge myself, I am jumping in with both feet and this dealing with rejection is something that I am having to learn how to do…how to cope and not let the rejections stop me in my tracks…

A number of articles that I read regarding dealing with rejection said that you had to separate yourself from your work…while it may be your baby, your ever so personal creation…an outpouring of your soul…like a child, you have to set it free…send it out into the world to make it’s own way…

I read further, that when you receive a rejection letter, it isn’t you, personally, that is being rejected…it is that piece, or collection of pieces, of yours that is not being accepted…and many times we aren’t really given any indication as to why…and there are many reasons why your work might not have been chosen…and they certainly are not all because your work doesn’t ‘measure up’…

Recently, there have been 2 events that I submitted to…juried events…and was rejected…both with nice letters…form letters…the main reason given was that there had been so many submissions and there were only a limited number of spaces…both encouraged me to try again next time and one of them suggested other events in my city that I might apply to…

I have to admit that I was momentarily crushed…I am still developing my tough skin…so the rejections do hurt…and even though I tell myself not to let them, they do make me question my worth sometimes…at Karen Phipps' blog – A Visual Journey – she writes that the degree to which we react to a rejection depends on how much hope we had built up in being accepted…

I am learning to deal with these rejections and I’m sure that the more I keep plugging myself, the better I will get…at many things…at handling the rejections, at promoting myself, at learning which things I should be pursuing and which I should leave…and all the while improving my art…

Art has always been, foremost, a therapy for me…it was into creative activity that I originally retreated to take my mind off life and its difficulties and this led to painting and that led, eventually, to wanting to show my paintings (the house does tend to get full!)…and so, like Karen says at the end of her post about rejection…there is space within the turmoil we are feeling where we can go and create…

And so, on that note...I will be posting some pictures, soon, of the latest WetCanvas project that I have joined!

Montreal…a mini vacation...

2009-05-09T19:04:00.013-04:00

After Cariño finished his exams in April, he had a couple weeks free before his co-op job was to start (an all too typical government foul-up has since postponed his start…but what can you do???)…it had been a long time since we had been to Montreal to visit some of Cariño’s family…a brother (Tonio) and his partner (Marie-Claire) as well as a sister (Margot) live there…also a few nephews, but we didn’t see them this trip… another sister-in-law, Danielle came with us from Ottawa…we all stayed at Tonio and Marie-Claire’s…Margot came over one night for dinner…and an old friend of mine from my Photographic Arts school days at Ryerson came for an evening as well…

There was much delicious food eaten, lots of talking and laughing…as well as a good amount of wine sipped…we spent most of our visit in Tonio and Marie-Claire’s kitchen…either sitting around the table eating and drinking or standing around the island all helping to prepare the food…

A group shot of everyone...this was the night that my friend, Solonge, came over for dinner...we had had paella the night before with Margot and it was so good that we decided to do it again with Solonge...it was so delicious...

They live in a really neat place…they have converted the upstairs of a shop, which used to be offices, into their home…large, airy living room…huge kitchen…downstairs is a big workshop…all kinds of wonderful tools…Tonio does special effects for the movie industry…one of these days we will stay long enough and leave the kitchen for enough time for him to teach me to work with metal…welding and cutting and soldering…

Marie-Claire has a way with plants...and her orchids are all blooming their hearts out...

We did manage 2 outings…one afternoon Cariño and I took the bus to an area of the city that is just one gallery after another…and the next afternoon, we all headed down to wander around Old Montreal which is also full of galleries…it was eye candy heaven!

The first area we went to is called Le Quartier du Musée...we spent most of our time on Crescent Street...

There were all kinds of galleries...I especially liked the Canadian Guild of Crafts...there were also some galleries dedicated just to glass...what amazing glass sculptures we saw! I also like reflection photos...here is a glass sculpture...that was taller than me...in a window of reflections...

These 2 hearts outside of the Museum of Fine Arts on Sherbrooke Street, I am sure, are done by the same artist as the woman's body and heart at the National Art Gallery of Canada in Ottawa...and, you know, a quick look at the site doesn't tell me who that is...nor can I find the name of the sculptor on the Museum of Fine Arts site...will have to look into this...

Cariño and I stopped for a coffee at Nespresso...good coffee...but the most expensive coffee we have ever had! This was the flower that was on our table...we had to ask if it was real...which it was...but the waiter didn't know what kind it was...neither do i...

The streets in the Old Montreal section of the city have such a different feel to them...old European...you can almost forget that you are in Canada...this area is filled with galleries, street artists and vendors and restaurants...

Another thing about a lot of the buildings in this area are the layers of old printing that are on the buildings...layers upon layers of old advertisements and names of businesses long gone...from a time before plastic signs and neon...all mingling together as they all get worn off by time and weather...this building shows it well...

We got home Friday evening...dropping Danielle off first at her place in Ottawa and then heading up to Oma's to pick up the puppies...Oma had been babysitting them for us and she made us dinner too! The puppies were very happy to see us again...but tired from their holiday at the lake...

Finished!!!

2009-05-06T14:28:00.004-04:00

Well...I lived with it for a bit, but it wasn't very long at all before I knew I wasn't finished...

I liked the idea of leaving some sky...I thought it might add some depth to the painting...but I obviously hadn't managed to do it in an acceptable way...maybe this is something I should play with on smaller pieces of paper instead of large canvases using a ton of paint!

I found that my eye kept darting up to the sky bits...and they weren't meant to be to main point of focus...so I filled them in with more leaves and am happy now...for me, my eye wanders around the painting and keeps going back to the blue band in the lower middle...much better than constantly having my eyes jerked to the top of the canvas...

Cariño and I had a lovely escape last week...a few days spent with family in Montreal...lots of delicious food...good times spent sitting around the table eating and sipping wine...gallery wandering in 2 districts of the city...visiting an old friend...it was wonderful...will post some pictures soon...

Meditation Garden finished…maybe…more process shots…and play…

2009-04-24T21:31:00.008-04:00

I think I have may have finished the big Meditation Garden…I have to let it dry and see how I like the sky…I think I like it…but it is still shiny because it is wet and a bit distracting…it will flatten out and dull down as it dries and then I will know whether or not I am finished…actually, the more I look at it the more I am worried that the eye gets drawn right to the blue sky spots...and that isn't the point of focus...or at least it shouldn't be the main one...I might have to get rid of the sky...

I took pictures along the way as I painted the leatherback turtle postcard…I am only so-so about the actual turtle…but I really like the sand…and the foamy water is ok…I did learn some things along the way and used something I had never used before...masking fluid...I have a masking fluid pen - which was great for drawing the outline of the turtle and then I used a paint brush to fill in the shape with masking fluid...

Once the turtle was masked with the masking fluid and where the water was going to be was taped off, I used a toothbrush to splatter different sandy colours of watercolour paint...I had 2 styrofoam trays with light biege paint and to one I added reddish and darker brown tones and to the other I added black...I think there are about 9 different colours splattered on to make the sand...

Then I rubbed off the masking fluid...it really worked...what amazing stuff...

And took of the tape...

I used both coloured pencils and watercolour pencils for the turtle...and white acrylic and grey pencil for the lines on its back and feet...

Blended the watercolour pencils with water...

I used the other side of the tape mask to cover the painted side of the card and then painted the blue water with watercolour paint...

Removed the tape mask...

I used an old, stiff brush and white acrylic to stipple foam onto the water...

Tonight I had planned to gesso some large canvases, but first I just wanted to play a little...so I let loose squeezing lots of acrylic colours out of tubes...I had picked up some nozzles that screw onto the end of a tube of paint...I was used a small canvas (8"x8") for this...

Once I had lots of paint on it, I used a small screw driver (it was the first sort of pointed instrument I put my hand on) and started 'drawing' in the paint...drawing spirals and circles...

Meditation Garden progress...

2009-04-19T15:13:00.006-04:00

To let go and just lay the paint on is such a wonderful feeling...I bought all these pots of paint for the purpose of doing this painting...so I threw conservation to the wind (not that I conserve at all when it comes to painting anyway...the way I do my acrylic paintings on canvas, for the most part, is to use a ton of paint...I love the texture)...I also used paints from tubes that I already had...what fun!

Laying on the greens...I scooped them out of the pots with one of my bigger palette knives and, practising randomness, I blobbed them about...different greens (7 in all), different sized blobs and squirts...4 of the greens from pots and 3 from tubes...

Then, using a tongue depressor that I bent over about 3/4" from the end...it actually splintered so I taped it to keep the end from falling off...so I had an L shape...I used the small part to dabble the paint around...I am going to have to find a tool that is this shape...in a couple different sizes...once the greens were mixed the way I wanted them, using paint from tubes, I squirted on the red, orange and yellow...practising randomness once more...

Then, bending over the other end of the tongue depressor, I smooshed around to blend in the colours...adding from the tubes as I went...sometimes one little smoosh will completely hide the whole blob of colour...especially when the paint is so thick...

I have left some blue sky at the top of the painting...I like the blue there...but not the fact that it is just flat canvas...so, when the leaves dry, I will smoosh on some blues and whites so there is texture in the sky as well...of course this leaves the painting being made up of 4 sections...not an odd number...hmmmm...maybe that just bugs me...I asked my Mom about this and she thinks it's just me! I asked Cariño if it was funny with the sky spots and he said it didn't make him laugh at all...this is the help I get!

Various progressions…

2009-04-18T15:10:00.008-04:00

I am working on the big Meditation Garden and trying to remember to take progress pictures as I go along…in the beginning...before I started it...actually this may be another part of the reason why I wasn’t diving in so fast to getting it painted…it wasn’t just the WetCanvas project obligations hanging over my head…I think anyway…I am working through all of these feelings as I go…since much of this is so new to me…the ‘being out there’, the having vernissages…the being asked to paint a painting (this Meditation Garden)...like one of my other ones, but bigger…I am getting lost in my run-on sentence…

When I began painting this picture…I was worried about whether or not my friend would like it…I mean…she asked me to paint it…but what if she doesn’t like it when it is finished? These were my worries as I started out…what if whatever she is drawn to in the smaller version doesn’t come through in the larger one?...seeing as all my paintings turn out differently…I always end up taking different approaches to actually doing them…what if she just simply doesn’t like this one? Then that led to being worried about, if she doesn’t like it, then there will be awkward moments in all of ‘that’…she won’t want to say she doesn’t like it and I will be worried about whether she actually does…are these all normal feelings for doing commissions?

I knew these worries were slowing me down…keeping me from getting lost in the ‘doing of it’…I talked about these feelings with Cariño the other night while we were walking the dogs and he helped to clarify what I had begun working through…he pointed out that I paint because it makes me happy…it helps to keep me balanced…helps me deal with life…and if ‘doing commissions’ took that away, then I shouldn’t do commissions…or…I needed to look at it differently…which is what I had started to do…I will paint this painting without thinking that I am doing it with the explicit purpose that it will be sold to a specific person…I will do the painting like I have done all the rest…for the joy of it…I will talk to my friend before I even finish it and tell her that there will be no awkward moments…no money has passed hands…so there is no obligation…and whether or not she likes it…I will be the better for having done it…I will have learned and enjoyed myself…

So…with those worries put to rest...yesterday I dove into scooping paint from pots, squeezing it from tubes and using a variety of tools to move it about…getting totally lost in the process…now my only bother is having to wait for it to dry…doing one this big means having to work on it in sections…at least that is what I seem to be doing here…

This is the Meditation Garden painting that my friend likes and wants bigger...this one is 12"x16"...

Doing the 'flowers'...layers and layers and blibs and blobs of colour...this was fun!...

Smooshing it all together into an organized riot of colour...how could I not have fun messing around with this much paint and color?...the hard part was stopping and not diving into it with my hands!...

And here is the finished Splatter Flow postcard...

Now I am going back to doing a watercolour of a little Leatherback Turtle...I receive the Photo of the Month email from National Geographic and this month was a baby Leatherback making its way to the water...we'll see how it goes...

Post Easter…

2009-04-16T19:16:00.008-04:00

I had a really nice Easter weekend…Cariño and I went to Oma’s on Sunday for Easter dinner and then had dinner at our place on the Monday…Oma came and so did the girls…their beaus both had to work…so with Cariño and me, we were 5. My elder daughter came around noon and helped me with the cooking…my younger daughter came later in the afternoon but wasn’t feeling all that well…so she went and curled up in bed until it was food time…

We made a delicious meal! We tried out some new recipes from the April Gourmet magazine…the Herb-roasted Pork Loin, the Golden Potatoes with Caper Brown-butter Crumbs and our garlic green beans…sautéed green beans with a ton of garlic (yum)…and Lillet Marshmallows!

The marshmallows were a hoot to make…but ours didn’t look anything like the picture in the magazine! It said to lightly oil the pan you pour them in to set…then, once set, you are supposed to be able to just loosen the edges and then let it fall onto a cutting board…ha! It took 3 of us to get it out of the pan! And then cutting them was next to impossible…it took 3 of us to do that too…we had a lot of laughs anyway…and they were very, very good, if not perfectly square!

Something we discovered by making the marshmallows was Lillet…it was an adventure to find it as well…it isn’t carried in Ontario LCBO’s anymore, but it is in Quebec, but only at the big SAQ’s…it is an aperitif from France and quite wonderful sipped very cold…think we will add it to our summer!

I didn’t get much painting done over the weekend, but had fun being creative with food…

Today I started the very fun part of the big Meditation Garden…24”x30”…I will be painting it in a number of stages…while I wait for the paint to dry in between the steps, I can get this post up, work on the last 5 postcards for my project…and start some new paintings…now that I almost have all my project obligations completed, I am excited to try out some new paintings…start working on my Georgian Bay series, try a big Pieces of Colour and I also have some new ideas for some Flow paintings…more ideas than time!

Here is a progress shot of the Meditation Garden painting...doesn't really look like much yet...but it was lots of fun putting on all that paint...lots of it too!...now I have to wait for it to dry and then add in some more details in the bottom grass part and then there are 2 more sections to do sort of in the same manner...

Here is a progress shot of a new idea for a Flow...this is just on a postcard to start...I just love the scrumptious colours...the wet blobs of inks...I can get lost in details like this...the green is tape being used for a mask...

Getting the table cleared…

2009-04-09T19:34:00.005-04:00

In more ways than one I am clearing the decks…my work table is a mess of creative chaos again…it always gets this way…every so often I clear it off and start over…right now I am painting in my little space…

I have a painting that has been waiting for me to get into the thick of it with…the base paint coats are on…and it sits…it isn’t that I am uninspired...I am looking forward to cracking open the paint pots and going wild with thick, colourful paint…as well, I have a list of ideas waiting to come to fruition…things I am excited about…I think it may be these projects that I haven’t finished…I feel an obligation to get them completed…and I don’t dread doing it either…so why am I not forging on?...I think that, at times, life’s frustrations needle at me and push me off balance…sometimes it feels like there are too many things to cope with…sometimes it is easier to sit and think about all the things I want to do…to paint…to explore...than to actually do them…easier to go get lost in blog-land…

I have now completely finished my little cards project (2.5”x3.5”)…the one I did the quilt blocks for…I spent part of this afternoon addressing all the envelopes…26 of them…to the States, Canada, Malaysia, India, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Norway, France…they will be dispersed all over the globe!

Here are all the little cards...I love seeing them all together as a group...

I still have 12 outstanding for the Vacation Dreams postcard (4”x6”) project…I had originally signed up for this one to really challenge myself and challenge me it has…!!!...I don’t usually do anything very ‘realistic’…so I thought this project would force me to try some things in that direction…and I have…in fact, my Northern and my Georgian Bay series were born out of this project…but it really takes a lot of creative mental energy from me to come up with ideas for this it……there is good in that fact though…along with a touch of bemused frustration…growth does come from situations such as these…

So…of the 12 postcards that I have left to send…I have 6 painted...this one I did today…I was looking through my pictures and came across a photo which I took last summer during my trip to the cottage...when LT and I got away one afternoon for a paddle in the canoe and we went exploring in little lily-pad filled inlets…it is done in watercolour pencils…

The other 5 postcards I am pretty sure that I have posted here before…but I’ll post some of them again, because we all like pictures…2 of then I just posted yesterday, so I won’t put them up again…the 2 playing ones…I am calling them Into the Busy River I and II…

These 3 I know I have posted previously…Sitting Under Mandara’s Tree of Wonder, Wonder Tree Woods and Georgian Bay Moon…

How one thing leads to another…or…a piece of the creative process…

2009-04-08T23:45:00.004-04:00

When I was painting my little quilt block cards, I would sometimes be removing colour from the paper and I would wipe my paint brush on a piece of paper towel that I had under the card…it didn’t take long for me to notice that I liked what was happening on the paper towel…so I moved to working on a piece of watercolour paper…it wasn’t quite so absorbent…and once I had noticed what was going on in the background, I wasn’t quite so spontaneous…but still I liked what was happening…this is one of the things I learned from doing these cards…there are more things that I will be exploring…but I spent this afternoon playing with this idea…

The different coloured swipes…different intensities, thicknesses, lengths…they built on each other and became a vibrant riot of colour…when I moved to swiping my brush on the watercolour paper…the scene became one that reminded me of a clear, colourful riverbed with weeds and fish…movement darting this way and that…

So this afternoon…I took that further…some is good…sometimes more can be better…many moods can be created here…

It was fun to play anyway…a seed of an idea that will sit in my brain and may just pop out somewhere down the line…this is an aspect of creativity that I love…just like the layers of colour…it is layers of ideas and bits and pieces that may become a part of a larger whole…or may be boiled down further to some essence on it’s own…and you never really know where these things will come from...sometimes from the most unlikely, or unplanned places...

The paper towel...

Taking notice...

Playing...

Quilt Block Cards Finished…!!!...

2009-04-07T23:59:00.006-04:00

Here are the rest of the little quilt block cards…now that they are all finished, I have to get them all documented – which one goes to whom…because I wait until I hear that they have reached their destination before I post them to the forum – then I have to get them off on their way! It is always fun to have a whole stack of mail ready to go…whether it is art cards for these projects or Christmas cards...there is something special about setting free, into the postal system, a pile of mail…

I also like seeing the cards all together as a group…sometimes it is hard to see them all knowing that I am sending them all away…but then the feeling you get when giving kicks in and that is just as wonderful!

This particular project has provided me with quiet contemplation, has taught me how to have fun with watercolour pencils and has also given me ideas on how I might incorporate them into other pieces…

It feels good finishing something too…!...

So...in total...25 little cards will be sent out into the world...all over the world...kind of neat!

Time Flies…in so many ways…

2009-04-05T16:49:00.005-04:00

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last post…and so much has been going on in my world…things both big and small…someone told me that to not post for a while and then to post too much at one time is…how shall I say it…inconsiderate? So…I will do a few smaller posts over the next few days – hopefully…I never quite know where my life is going to take me…so to make a promise to blog regularly for the next little while might be something I can’t live up to!...so I will say that I will try...

Since my last post my ‘baby’ has turned 18 and we have moved her into her first apartment with her beau…in some ways I think she is too young…in others, not…she is having a lovely time nesting and has a nice little place…in the past few weeks we have gone from 5 of us living in the house with 4 cats and 2 dogs, to just Cariño, me and the 2 dogs!...my elder daughter and her beau had moved in with a friend a few blocks away just the night before we went on our road trip...big changes in the dynamics!!!...

Oma helped me to hang my April solo show at the First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa…11 pieces…nothing new I'm afraid...I haven't had a chance since the last show to get much studio time in...

I received my first blog award…the PREMIO DARDOS AWARD…from Maia…thank you so much! This award…"acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his or her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day."

All this on top of being fairly busy with the ‘bread and butter job’ of computer work!

I also managed to get in 3 visits to The Ottawa Guild of Potters Spring Sale…some might think that 3 visits is a bit excessive…but I enjoyed each and every one! Out of necessity, I was quite well behaved…but I did come away with a tea mug for me, a coffee mug for Cariño, a cottage present for my sister and a wee Easter gift for my elder daughter…can't show you the presents...but here are the 2 mugs...

Cariño's coffee mug...it fits on the espresso machine...

My new mug for tea (I already have a fav coffee mug)...

One of the things that I did not get to in these past busy days are…finishing my quilt block cards…but I will have more to post soon…I am very almost finished…I haven’t had a chance to do much painting at all!