Art Every Day Month – Day 16

A sleepy, snowy, quiet day!

Today I worked some more on getting organized for the Dream Vacation postcard project…finished the 4th postcard and got them scanned and written up…20 more to go!!!

These are all done on 4"x6" 140lb cold pressed watercolour paper using acrylics and inks...

Here they are so far…

Georgian Bay II












After the Sail












Meditation Garden V


















Sunset Over Open Water II – finished today












Now I am off to get ready for yet another birthday dinner for Cariño! This one at his niece’s with two nieces, nephew-in-law, a brother, sister-in-law and my elder daughter…

Art Every Day Month – Day 15

By the time we got home from having Cariño’s birthday dinner out at Barbara’s…I was way too tired to post anything about our visits to the three shows!

The Ottawa Potters Guild show was wonderful…my favorite of the day…they had a great turn out…people were lining up to pay for their treasures! In fact there were lots of people at all three shows and many seemed to be buying! I ended up buying a few things…couldn’t resist!

There were the works of over 70 potters at the show and the pottery ranged from wonderfully whimsical to beautifully functional. Over the course of the show there were various demonstrations up on the stage that was at one end of the room…we ran into my pottery teacher, Carrie – she had just finished a demonstration and hands on session with a whole lot of kids.

Here are Barbara (left) and Carrie














I came away with a cup (we use our collection of pottery cups for wine – each one different) that has a beautiful glaze – looks like an abstract landscape…and it is blue…I love blue! I also got a little fish plate that is really happy and two Christmas tree ornaments. There were so many more things that tried to speak to me…but I resisted!

Here is the new addition to our wine cup collection


















The happy fish plate


















And the ornaments














Next we went to the Ottawa Glass Bead Artists show - again – lots of wonderful eye candy – but those beads are expensive! I fell in love with a glass heart bead, about 1.5” high with beautiful iridescent blues and greens inside of it. There were a few exceptional artists there that stood out above anyone else. They made things that you just couldn't help but touch - that were absolutely yummy in their colours and design! . There were some amazing glass beads that were like mini sculptures – twisted and melded colours and shimmers in them like little landscapes - beautiful worlds all on thier own. I have never tried making glass beads or blowing glass so it is kind of like magic to me! There were a few artists making glass goddess beads that were beautiful…my favorite was a buxom purple one.

There was also one artist there that was making silver jewelry out of a special kind of clay…”Art Clay Silver”…that seemed to be truly magical! She talks about it on her web site Rideau Art & Beads. They give classes in this – might have to look into that!

The final show was the Third World Bazaar and it was very much like a bazaar – tons and tons of things all stuffed onto shelf after shelf after isle after isle…I got a little overwhelmed there! There were too many people and too much stuff! Maybe it was because I was going into eye candy overload! There were some really nice things though – my elder daughter bought a bunch of things and Barbara got a rug – I came away with a maraca to put with my Tibetan singing bowl and tingsha.

Entering the bazaar


















Some nice Kisi Stone plates














This frog bird bath could have followed me home!


















Barbara choosing her new rug














My new noise-maker
















Cariño was the only one who made it through the day without buying anything – my elder daughter bought the most! It was a fun day and lots of beautiful things were seen. After the shows, we stopped by our place, picked up the dogs and headed out to Barbara’s for a wonderful dinner.

Art Every Day Month – Day 14

Today’s creativity consisted mainly of a wonderful nap…came home after working and crawled into bed with my younger daughter (who also loves naps), a cuddly fat cat (Maddy – who has perfected the slob-cat routine) and we slipped away for a couple hours…good for the soul!

I puttered for a little while up in the studio in the early evening…after waking up from my nap…I have a pile of bits to be put together for the cards…all ready to go except for the star…I think I am going to make a little stamp for the star…it is a bit finger-tying to work with the little cut out!


















I also worked a bit on another postcard for that project…the Dream Vacation one…won’t show a picture yet…will wait till it is finished…this one is a Norval Morriseau/Ted Harrison inspired one of a sunset over open water…I’m doing it in acrylics – this is the one I was painting the narrow ‘straight’ black lines with the brush that wouldn’t hold a point! I decided to just embrace the non-perfection of the line and go with it!

Tomorrow I will be going to a few shows…the Ottawa Potters Guild show is on…so is the First Annual Ottawa Glass Bead Artists Show…and the Third World Bazaar! I don’t have a cent to spend at any of them…and that is going to be hard…but I will enjoy the looking!

Art Every Day month – Day 13

It’s a rainy day today…at least the freezing rain warning has been lifted…a few blocks around the Parliament buildings have been closed because of a suspicious package…there was one last week on Bank street in front of the Morgentaler clinic that turned out to be an empty suitcase that had been left out for the garbage…

Today I painted the fronts of the seven pre-made cards, the seven tree trunks, splattered ink on the now blue cards and the gold insets…it’s like an assembly line doing a bunch at a time…not as captivating as doing the first one…but that’s ok…there is something fun about having a whole lot of pieces laying about…knowing that they will all come together soon into a finished whole…I used to feel this way when I did woodworking way back when the kids were just little…I felt like a one-person toy store! I also spend time thinking about the people that I am making the cards for, which is nice.

The only other thing I managed to do today in-between job and orientation, was to ‘pat’ the ‘flowers’ in on my Meditation Garden postcard…so it will be ready to be mailed off once it dries…

Art Every Day month – Day 12

I’m sitting at home today waiting for an electrician to come…in my business, which also deals with emergencies at times, I tell people the time I will be coming and if I am going to be at all late– I call them…seems most business don’t do that! We were hoping the electrician would come yesterday (my Cariño doesn’t have classes on Tuesdays this term) but no one showed up…so today I had to shuffle around my stuff so I could wait at home…why can’t these people make appointments like I do???

Luckily it all worked out – I didn’t have any emergency calls – and I made my appointments for tomorrow and Friday…so today I am spending creating!

I am happy with the Christmas card, so I cut out seven more trees and got them started in the painting, drying, painting some more and drying cycles!

Here is the finished card…simple, but I like it…


















Here are the various bits drying…The 4”x6” inserts are all painted gold and I got the trees base painted and then the textured green put on…have to be more careful with these pieces sticking to the backing…unlike my ‘pieces of colour’ squares, which I do on heavy watercolour paper – so they are fairly strong…I just did the trees on sketch pad paper, so they are much more delicate…I peeled them off the backing papers before they were dry and draped them over paint pots so I wouldn’t harm them trying to get them off later…




































I really need to get going on the two projects I am part of through WetCanvas! So today I started a postcard size (4”x6”) ‘Meditation Garden’ painting…great fun patting on all the different colours…I get carried away at times! Here I have the top and the bottom parts of the painting finished...once that is dry, I will pat in the 'flowers' - the purples...


















I started the recording process I do to go along with the pieces I will be sending out for the WetCanvas projects. This takes a fair amount of time on its own…each piece has to be scanned or photographed, I have to keep track of who I send each piece to (we mail them off and then upload them to the forum when the recipient lets us know it has arrived), write down the medium(s) used and also a few sentences about the piece…the why and wherefore…

The two projects I am participating in right now are a “travel or dream vacation” postcard (4”x6”) one and an “anything goes” ACEO (2.5”x3.5”) one…there are 25 in the one group and 27 in the other…so I have to make 24 and 26 cards respectively and mail them out to people in the group - people who are all over the world - and they are all doing the same…so I should receive 50 little pieces of art in the mail!...much nicer than bills!!!

I also worked some more on that new painting…lights on the river…but I don’t like what I did…so I will have to undo that…

The electrician never came…both Cariño and I are busy all day tomorrow…what a pain!

Not sure if I will get any time in the studio tomorrow…maybe I will take my camera with me on my journeys…I have a computer job in the morning and an orientation at a part-time job I just got in the evening…what happens in the afternoon depends on how long my job in the morning takes…tomorrow is also Cariño’s birthday so a special dinner will be in order…not sure how I will pull that off, since I will be at that orientation until 8pm and he is in class until 8:30pm! - dinner at midnight, anyone? Maybe we will have to postpone celebrations until the weekend…

Art Every Day month – Day 11

Remembrance Day – it was a beautiful day for the ceremonies here in Ottawa. As I type this, I can’t find any pictures from this year on the Internet yet – here is one from last year – a nice view of the crowds at the National War Memorial where they hold the ceremonies – just in front of Parliament Hill. I found this picture on “The Maple Leaf”.













Most places were closed for the morning, so I spent part of my morning up in the studio! The Christmas card is coming together and I am happy with how it is turning out…it isn’t going to be much of a surprise for my Mom because she keeps tabs on my blog! But things are always different in real life than in pictures! I have just made the one so far…to see if I liked it before I went making a few – immediate family only!

Here is a progress picture…the three pieces are all stuck together…


















Now I am going to put red ‘Christmas tree balls’ at the ends of the branches and a little star on top…the star will be another piece applied to the picture…am just deciding how to paint it…made it gold, but it didn’t show up…so now have painted it blue and am going to rub some gold and/or silver onto it…the red balls will be painted directly on…

Here is the little star…all but lost on one of my backing pieces that I paint on!


















I also started a new painting…I see patterns and light combinations everywhere and usually, in the back of my mind, I am wondering if I can ‘use’ what I see in my art…there are a few bridges that we drive over often (there are many around here) and when we drive over at night and Cariño is driving…I love to look at how the lights and the city reflect on the water…so this painting is an attempt to capture something of that view – actually the ‘view’ in my painting is from my imagination…based on a compilation of a few of the bridges…

Funny thing…I had painted the whole canvas (16”x8”) black and then had cut a mask out of paper to lay over top to paint the night sky…I was looking for that beautiful indigo blue…well…I painted it on and wet it looked great…came back this evening and the blue had dried down so dark that I couldn’t see it!...so I repainted with a lighter blue…again…looks good wet…we shall see when it dries…

Again…sorry about the glare on the photos…it is always dark by the time I get around to photographing my ‘stuff of the day’!...I should work one day ahead of myself…start the project October 31st and post in the mornings…maybe if Leah runs this again next year…

Art Every Day month – Day 10

Day 9 slipped by me without my getting much done in the creative department…I did do a little – started an idea I have had for a while for a Christmas card. So I started the parts for that…will consist of the card, an inset part on the front and then a piece put on top of that. I painted the card – a pre-made one, I painted the 4”x6” inset and cut out and painted the Christmas tree…then I had to wait for it all to dry!

Today I added another coat of gold for the 4”x6” piece, am flattening the card part and added 2 greens to the tree…I patted the paint on with a little palette knife so I could get some texture…waiting for it to dry again…














While waiting I started another postcard for one of the swaps I am on…am trying to paint a thin straight line with a brush that won’t keep a point!

I added some more blues back in on my big painting…there was a dark ‘hole’ in almost the middle of the painting that I found distracting…so now I will let this dry and then see if I want to add another lighter blue, some more off-white and red…


















I am hoping tomorrow morning to be able to spend a bit of time up in the studio…the last couple of days have been busy with this and that and I haven’t had much uninterrupted time to spend painting!