Drawing challenge: Move

I was thinking a great deal about Katrin's drawing challenge this week. The idea of movement is so wonderful. Robert, Chloe and I like to move. We like to dance, we like to swim, to skate, to drive our cars really fast. We move between houses, between countries, between world...I love to be free to move. Free as a bird. That freedom to do as I please, (within reason), it's one of the greatest things in my life.So where to start with this challenge?Well, I thought I would like to start by showing you this little book.It would seem that at the turn of the 20th century, there once was a girl just like me!Her name was May Grantham, and she lived in England, and, for what seems like ten years, she travelled the world with this little book.Everywhere she went, she collected friends who drew on the pages of her book.Some singed their names, some wrote silly little things, some painted beautiful little paintings.But the common theme here is that May Grantham moved. She moved between friends, between countries, over the ten years, she moved and collected memories in the pages of this book.And I think that's pretty much what we all do. We move.I might move between countries, but I also move thru my life. Forging on ahead. Sometimes in baby steps, sometimes full speed. I make loads of mistakes as I move, I turn back and recount my steps more often that I care to admit. I'm carrying on, being brave, forging new paths.Ha! Kind of makes this painting a bit redundant, doesn't it?Art: Chickadee on a 1910 hymnal "Like Angel Whisper Stealing". Chickadee and quaking aspen painted with watercolours, watercolour pencils, and inks.

The garden just before the shadows of the evening

I must admit that I don't sit out in the garden often enough during the day, and that's because I'm often working or running about, and just don't have the time. But the evenings, especially warm summer evenings, are my perfect time for garden sitting. I love how the white flowers shine and reduce everything to a black and white world, and I love how the light of the setting sun bounces around the garden and reflects off the water and the few mirrored surfaces. Morgan loves it too. She's into prime hunting mode and getting very excited. Don't worry, she's not a hunter...just likes to think she is. :DSharing these vivid images with the Wordpress bunch

Not much going on, yet everything changes

I've been contemplating changing things up a little for some time now, but you know how it is, one gets complacent with a status quo and everything carries on as before.Yesterday evening, with Clover's help, I finally decided on a new theme for my website.This was a bit harder that I thought and at one point C and I were ready to throw in the towel.You see, nothing's just right. Some themes have beautiful images going clear across the screen, some themes have smaller images but better spaces for texts, some themes have both those but don't have a running post display. No Goldilocks theme, no just right, always too hot or too cold.But then, as I sat in my dining room, I looked to the left into my living room and to the right into my kitchen, and realised that nothing in my life is just right, but things are various degrees of wonderful.So we'll go with this small change for what I hope is the better. Remembering that I write this blog for you, but also for me, I hope you like it as much as I do as we continue to improve it and work out the kinks.Beside me is Milo happily sleeping within arms reach of a pet, on the next chair over is Morgan, and on the table is a selection of garden roses and the last peony.Life is a lovely degree of wonderful. :D

Chloe's convocation ceremony! How proud are we?

So she made it! After four hard years and a killer internship, and a two season wait for the next ceremony, our smiley girl got to walk across the stage, shake hands with the University president, then the dean, then a great, warm hug from the head of her Communications department, and she's done. Diploma of Communication Studies, and Bachelor of Communication Studies.Her boy's so proud.Her mama's so proud! (sniff)She's so proud.Robert and Kerstie and Jonathan, who watched the ceremony via internet from various parts of the globe, and my mother, who will get all these plus more photos, are so proud.After the ceremony we had a bite to eat and celebrated with the head of her CMNS department Ted Hamilton.She found all her CMNS friends in the crowd. A photo op with her three best friends.And with her three best professors. And then, the group that made it! Then, the gown is returned, a few last hugs, and she walks away form her university as a graduate. Congratulations my darling girl! We love you. :D

Hello from Sunday night and the ending to the Art in the Garden show! (And drawing challenge: youth, part 2)

Hello at the end of a wonderful and successful Art in the Garden show.It's been a most beautiful weekend round here. The garden was beautiful. Everyone seemed to love visiting it.And everyone stepped up to our interactive canvas and drew.We listened to the lovely music of Lorna and Mark FortinAnd the flowers shone, and people wandered the garden and looked at the art and drew on the canvas.At the end of the day, that magical canvas I began on Thursday ended up looking like this:Thank you everyone who visited my garden, who bought my art and cards, thank you everyone who said lovely things about my garden, thank you my friends who made the special trip out to support me; especially thank you to my gardening friends Rosemary for the beautiful roses, and Michelle and Ken for the pots of hostas and ginger, so unexpected, so loving and sweet.And, as a thank you to my garden for looking so very beautiful, I've given it a good watering this evening.Rosemary, your roses are so fragrant and gorgeous by my bed tonight. I might have to beg a cutting later on in the year. :DSharing with Judith and the mosaic bunch.

Drawing Challenge: Youth (part one)

I've been so very busy painting up a storm for my art in the garden show, that I really didn't have much time for my beloved drawing challenge, and, Ariane called such a good DC this week, that I really wanted to join in.What to do, what to do?I know, make someone else do the DC for me!!! :D (I'm cunning and manipulative that way...lol)Actually, this is a project I've wanted to do for some time now.Thursday afternoon, I took an old toned canvas, my acrylics, and some water, and began painting the canvas with some bright, random colours and shapes.Then, after seeing it dry in the shadows cast by the trees, I decided to splash, water, drip and smudge more paint on it, till it looked well messy and finger-painty.Then, when Chloe came home, I asked her to write "Be the Child" somewhere. (see, make others do the hard work...lol)She did, and she also painted this beautiful face...and two small children.I painted the twilight rose from the front garden, my favourite saying of the moment...and a peony from the back garden......a ladder and some marching ants, and we went about our business while I let it dry.This morning I gathered up some pencils, pens, markers, sharpies and oil pastels......and invited everyone who came to the garden to step up to the canvas and leave a mark.And you know what? Everyone did!And even if that mark was a stick man, or a heart, or a glorious sunset tree against rainbow mountains, it's all just too beautiful. Be the child! Art brings us back to our youth, and I love that.One more day of inviting everyone up to the canvas tomorrow. I wonder what it will look like tomorrow evening. Can't wait to see it. Stay tuned, I'll update this project tomorrow. :DPop over to visit our rose Ariane and the rest of this youthful, beautiful bunch! :DAlso, had to share with the Inspire Me Monday blog hop because this is so inspirational.

Art in the Garden show ready!

Are you ready? Am I ready?So you all probably already know that I save plants from the bulldozer around the hood and plonk them into my garden. Sometimes they work out and look brilliantly, sometimes they sulk and look miserably for a year or so, but they get saved and that's all that matters to me. Some of the saved plants have slowly come into their own this year and I'm so happy about that. (Some I have to still baby along...like the peonies I saved last summer, they're sulking)Yesterday evening, as I was watering the garden for probably the last time before this weekend's Art in the Garden show, I took a good look around, put away the tools and declared the garden as ready as it's ever going to be.Come have a walk around the garden with me and help me pull up a last weed or two. :DFirst up: Peonies. I'm so happy they've lasted till this weekend for people to see. I've removed the leaves from the autumn blooming crocuses and Morgan is loving her little, fragrant cave.Let's walk past the roses next. Just a few of the roses in the garden are, clockwise from top left: Cloud Ten, Lemon Fizz, Julia Child, Amadeus. The roses are spectacular this year.Here's the entrance to the shade garden on the west side. I love how the white fox gloves just happened this year. The pink rambling rose, the honeysuckle and the violet clematis I nicknamed "Bad Hair Day" are also really lush and fragrant. Our resident hummingbirds are very happy.Here's a look down the shade garden. This area needs a lot of water because of the two big maples and three rhodos. I watered with some Miracle Grow here this year to give the shade plants a bit of a boost.Some of us are remarkably calm! (Milo, pull up that grass while you're there)The irises are almost all gone now, but I'm happy that some are still blooming for the weekend. That glorious yellow iris I've had for several years, a gift from a elderly friend who sold her home and moved to an apartment, but it's never bloomed till this year! Well done little Goldilocks.The veggie and fruit gardens are coming along nicely.There's a ton of garlic plants, tomatoes, potatoes, leeks, all sorts of herbs, peas, two sorts of kale and celery root.And on the other side of the path are strawberries, blueberries and crazy huge raspberries. The raspberries are so tall that they've grown into the apple tree! Our little girls will be thrilled when they come over in a couple weeks. They love the berries from the garden.The silly circle at the back of the garden, which we are sure is meant for twirling on...you never know when you feel like twirling in the garden...has some Canterbury bells growing between the bricks. They're not bothering anyone there and so if you feel like twirling, you'll have some lovely blue bells for partners. :DOh, and I have to show you my collection of sedums on the "Tower of Power", (blame my friend Tom from Southlands Nursery, he named it that), I just love sedums and am so proud for these three pots I've planted up, more so because I've "imported" the sedums mostly as babies from all over the place (eg: San Francisco).Like I've said, some of us are remarkably calm!Oh I just love the two huge patio pots. This year I went with bronze and purple and a splash of chartreuse to bring out the bronze in the pot glazes. This might be my favourite combination in this crazy, saved garden.And, since this is MY garden, and you all know me by now, there are a couple of pots of saved trees destined for the cabin, and a waterfall on the patio.On the patio table are some of the indoor plants, including this magnificent Medinilla (Philippine orchid) which decided to bloom just in time!So there we are, I hope you've enjoyed this little tour around. As usual, loads more photos coming over the weekend and a special art surprise project which I hope will turn out to be spectacular.Some of us are going to drag our tired selves out for a little sushi, because we can't even begin to think of cooking something for supper.And then we'll come home and some of us will paint.Ok, one last photo of the most glorious saved rose from my aunt's (now destroyed) garden. The fragrance is overwhelming!Wish me luck! :D Here we go! Read more here about my gardening experience.

A surprise lake, which we will keep a secret

Chloe and I seem to have developed a ritual of finding out of the way fabulous places, which usually contain lakes, like last year's treasure.This trip we followed a river off the highway just for fun, then turned right at a ground hog and headed up a mountain logging road which promised something lovely at the top.And there, about 20km up, was what we came for.Heaven in a lake.We'll be back. :D

Hello from Sunday night

Hello everyone. I hope you've had as lovely a weekend as I've had and are ready for a wonderful new week.I've spent the weekend at my daughter's home 500 Km away from Vancouver in the interior of BC. It was spectacularly warm and summery there and we took the children to the lake shore. You know how children close to water never stay dry? Oh yes, this was very much the case...lol. But Kerstin always packs extra clothes, so nobody cared. We stopped at a little lake shore cafe and bought ice cream, we built a fantasy rock castle for the lake fairies, found a piece of wood which looked like a crocodile and let it go, picked sweet honey locust blossoms, and three of us fell asleep on the drive home.Sharing with Judith and the mosaic bunch.

Got out of town; to the Okanagan

Got out of town!Chloe and I headed out of the city, 500 km away, over the West Coast mountains, away from the rain, the wet, into the semiarid, to the Okanagan, to visit my daughter Kerstin and her family.I used to live in this fragrant warmth for five years when Kerstie was one yr old.The air in the pine forests is so sweet and so...unique, like nothing I've felt anywhere else and it's so familiar.Nice to experience this deja vu once in a while.