A candelit power outage evening. Thanks windstorm
Yesterday the windstorm howled up some major gusts which took out power to many Lower Mainland homes. I drove home about 5pm and hit my block in complete darkness. There went supper plans.So I drove right past my house to the neighbourhood organic market and bought supper instead.
Back home again, I realised that the power outage really only affected a narrow band of city blocks, but my house was right in the middle of that band.So I lit the candles, moved them around the house, and got our two emergency flashlights out.
Then I made a Greek salad and put our supper out on the kitchen island.
You know, both C and I loved, LOVED our evening. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a store bought, organic, rotisserie chicken and potato salad, and a freshly baked baguette.
And I must admit that sometimes, especially after a long day, the last thing I feel like doing is cooking, so this was actually a treat as well as a romantic evening.
C retired to bed to watch Twilight on her fully charged laptop and I sat in the living room enjoying the ambience.
It was actually beautifully bright in the living room with all those candles and I loved sitting here reading my book. I'm reading a very soppy and romantic Katie Fford right now, so it did my heart wonderful good to sit in my beautifully romantic room.
Unfortunately the power outage didn't last very long, and we had power back on by 9pm. But it was great while it lasted. Such silence, such peace.Do you like being in a power outage? I suppose that, since it doesn't happen very often, and it's generally pretty warm here on the West Coast, I just love it. It's probably not like that elsewhere, is it?
When hard work is really worth it. (And then your mother gets in the way)
Chloe and I have a large collection of vintage clothes and jewellery. Lately we've been weeding the things we no longer love or want to wear, and Clove has had it in the back of her mind for some time now to start an Etsy store to sell some of our collection.
Now that she's like a big girl photographer, (kidding, :D over years she's developed the most amazing eye), and she's invested in her own professional camera, my living room has become her runway.
On a good light day...like Sunday was...she moves all my furniture and paintings to one end of the room, grabs mountains of vintage dresses, and gets to work.
Not a lot of input from me on technique or light, she has my remote shutter release, puts her camera on the timed program, clicks the clicker...
...and strikes a pose! The camera does the that sexy c...ah...lick of most heavy and sexy professional cameras.
Then she checks the images, changes into another dress, and does it again till the light runs out at about 4pm.
Morgan is completely unimpressed by all this.
But it's really bad for me to be there in the room because I just say, "I love that one on you!"
and "Oh my gosh, that's so cute!"
and "Nooo, you're not going to sell that one, are you?"
and even, "Hey, you can wear that to Megan's wedding next July! That would be so cute!"
So far she's photographed about 50 pieces of clothing that I think she shouldn't sell...lol. Maybe we should send these photos to a modelling agency instead of Etsy. What do you think?Anyone know of any good agents. :D
Announcing a new drawing challenge: calm
Hi everyoneI was driving with Chloe today and we were talking about the obvious distress on everyone's minds, and that led me to thinking about the one obvious question.How are we supposed to live in this fear based society? What power do we have?Well, we are creative beings. We have our art, our photography, our writing. We have our excellent imagination, and maybe that's the most supportive thing we can do for now.So, I'm announcing a new drawing challenge: calmCome join and let's try to spread a little calm in the world. I will try Tammie's excellent example with a link-type plug in, but I understand WordPress is tricky. If I cannot manage the link-in, then I will add everyone in manually. So please let me know that you're in.As usual, I'll post on Friday Nov 20th, and we'll all visit and catch up over the weekend. :D
Taking comfort in words
Yesterday I was speechless.For the most part I stayed off of social media figuring that something like this cannot be categorised by hashtags or profile updates. The horror, the helplessness, and indignation are still burning in my heart. News filtered in via my family, friends, the radio. There is no way to escape this. The pain, the horror, this reality that one sentient human being can do this to a fellow sentient human being. Today I took a walk and found some comfort in words:"Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place." Iain Thomas
Tammie's drawing challenge: deer
This cheeky little squirrel at my back door has absolutely nothing to do with this drawing challenge, except that I thought he was funny. Sometimes I put Milo's cat food out there, especially when Milo's all "I am the night!" and won't stop for two minutes together to eat his breakfast. Mr Squirrel has figured that out.
So on to our drawing challenge. It's been a while since I painted on oil paper. Actually, I hardly ever do in the studio because I have this prejudice that the paper is only for travelling with, but I have no idea why. I actually love painting with my oils on oil paper.I started this painting with a little background toning in purple acrylic sludge, and when that was dried, began a little misty winter scene with two deer that you can just make out among the frozen bracken.
I chose the oil paper because I meant to cut the painting to fit into this little, vintage glass fronted frame.
And, after several days drying, I popped that painting in there and stood it up on my fireplace mantle.I think it's going to look amazing there over winter.
Come visit Tammie, and see all the dear deer.OK, one more pic of that silly squirrel and I'll stop...I promise. Come to think of it, that squirrel is investigating the toy John Deere! Hey, maybe he does have something to do with this DC...lol.
Also linking with Try it on Tuesday. Looks like fun. :D
Wood burning, Chloe inspired art
This afternoon I finished my work and was contemplating playing with some art.Round here, it's not about missing the tools, here in the studio there's almost everything I would like to use, but the key ingredient usually is inspiration.Chloe called me at the end of her class just to say hi and to check in, and I told her I'm a bit stuck. She suggested that I do a little wood burning.OK then, I plugged in the three wood burning tools here in the studio, and quickly discovered one I liked above the other two. I grabbed a piece of wood support (which I painted a little oil glaze over as a start of something...and promptly totally forgot about), sanded the paint down a bit, (probably ended up inhaling 32 different toxins) and drew out a little design.
Now, I'm still set on our drawing challenge: deer, and so a sunset forest came to mind.Then it was just a matter of sketching out a little something in pencil and laboriously burning the design into it with the wood burning tool.Whew, not my favourite medium, and I'm sure that again I breathed in 32 different toxins by the time I was finished.But easy to get the hang of. Once you're holding the wood burning tool in your hand, it's easy to figure out how to make face-on straight lines, or lay sideways fat burned marks. Everything sort of homogenises into a lovely image. Try it, you'll get the hang of it really quickly.
But look! After a quick, simple glaze with some gloss medium, look how lovely it looks next to my computer and overlooking all the work I have to complete.
Wood burning. Not my favourite, but definitely a wonderful art mind break.
A Pacific storm and a long day
We all knew it was coming.A Pacific storm slammed into the West Coast today bringing winds and rain which cancelled ferry sailings, upturned umbrellas and transformed roads into rivers.
And to think that when I cleaned the leaves off my patio table I thought how good it would be for the wood to dry out! Ha!
Chloe was planning a good hike this afternoon and I had to be out all day across town. Still, we can't always get what we want, so Dunkirk and all that, bundled up and out I went.The storm really set in by this afternoon. I caught the meteorologist call it "a rain river" and described it as a huge band of moisture stretching across the entire Pacific all the way from Japan.Well, I believe it!
But still wanted to see it for myself:
(gently borrowed form Environment Canada)Whoa! Do you see that outline in the top right hand corner? That's the Canadian Pacific and my whereabouts.So I think I might try to wait out this storm, work form home, and maybe begin a slow transformation to Christmas. After all, the amaryllis is beginning to bud...
...the brass candlesticks are waiting for their white candles...
...and I can keep the sunshine in my heart till it comes back again.
More leaves!
Tell me what you think guys, it's been ten days. Are you getting fed up with daily posts yet?I'm finding it pretty simple, and I guess Ms Unlimited Imagination over here with the camera attached to hip comes so naturally, that this nano poblano thing isn't too bad.
Last night we had the first frost of the year. This one touched the ground as well as the roof tops, and certainly affected some of the tender annuals.
There's so much garden clean up round here between the rains. See that one brown cedar? It died over the summer drought and I'll have to take it out, but more than that, see that glorious bronze beech of my neighbour's? It sheds mountains of leaves all over my garden.
So maple all over the patio and shade garden, cherry in front garden, apple at the lane end, beech and laburnum on the east side. But it's all fine. I love the leaves because they make terrific leaf mould and help to enrich the garden.
I have three compost bins in the east garden and I keep them sort of rotating. This year, when I went to take the compost out of the one destined for the garden, guess what I found! The laburnum has helped itself to my beautiful compost.So I took away the plastic composter sides and removed most of the compost and put the root balls into the green recycling can. And, in that compost, sticking out of the top, guess what else I found!
See that tall plant? Yup, an avocado tree has sprouted from a composted pip.Oh well, grow if you want to little avocado tree.And when I finished all the raking and composting and distribution of soil and repotting, and just as the rain started again, I picked up some maple leaves and took them upstairs to my studio, where I stamped them with my new stamps...
...because we must do things for no other reason except that they delight. :D
Making the most of our one sunny day in the week
Oh boy, when the sun shines here in November, there's no messing around. You better get out in it because it may be the last sun you'll see for weeks. And buckets of rain is exactly what is being threatened for the rest of this week. (The forecast may be gloomy, but have no fear, the weathermen lie like a rug!)Happily, a 9am appointment took Clover and me out of the house and across town. Appointment finished by 11am and we stopped for an early lunch at my most favourite cafe in all of Vancouver. Cafe Calabria.
C and I split the Frank's special panini, sat for a while in the sunshine, chatted with Frank, saved a coconut macaroon for later, and drove back home where we both got on with work.
C left to teach a class and before I headed up to the studio, I moved my bougainvillea into the middle of the living room, into the bright sunshine.
I've never grown a bougainvillea before, and, while I know it's not ideal, I'm going to try to keep it alive over the winter inside the house.
Of course, the minute anything is changed round here, Morgan has to come investigate. Look at that face! I'm afraid I had to wiggle her string for her round the piano chair for a few minutes.
And then I finally went into the studio to do some work but also to have some fun. The fun part was the beginning of this little oil on a sheet of oil painting paper. I'm working out a few ideas for this weekend's drawing challenge - deer is the theme. If you'd like to get in on this weekend's drawing challenge then pop round to Tammie's and tell her.