Beach walk in the glorious sun
Oh my gosh guys, it's just so beautiful in Vancouver right now.It's a little cold, lows of about -5, (I know you're all saying, "you call that cold?" but this is Vancouver!), and it's been so wonderfully sunny that I try to get out into the sunshine as much as I can.I must say that I'd much rather be here than the Black Friday weekend shopping. The city was shimmering, the air was still and warm, there were loads of people walking about, checking out the little art galleries, who had affordable arts and crafts for sale, walking their dogs, their babies, there were kayakers and runners and people on bicycles and in-line skates, and the leaves were almost gone from the trees and the winter flowers were starting to make and appearance. I love winter flowers. I love helebores and snow drops and winter jasmine.Also, I'm glad some of the photos turned out. I love taking photos into the sun but it was just so glaringly bright that I couldn't really see what I was taking photos of, and I only had my iPhone with me. :D
Drawing Challenge: Abundance
I've been thinking about our drawing challenge: abundance for the whole week.I asked Robbie what he thought of abundance and he suggested I ask a few friends and get the first thing which comes to their mind and then make something out of that. "OK", I said, "what's the first thing you think of?" "Breasts!!!" he said. :D Then I asked Chloe and she said, "a huge bouquet of flowers." Hmm...a lady with an abundance of breasts holding an abundance of flowers...(slaps forehead with palm)...not off to a good start. LOL
So I went up into my recently cleaned up studio, where I was playing with my stamps and wondering why I draw and carve animals looking left, and remembered I started carving a little linocut with a little wren looking right...because...why not break a habit I didn't even know I had?
Originally I cut this lino block in half and then forgot what I meant to do with it, but then I remembered. What if I could treat a linocut like a stamp of sorts and mix and match the pieces?Now, I'm not that great at lino cutting, (not enough practice), but when I took the first printing from the bottom half I was really pretty pleased with myself.
And pretty soon the art table had some nice prints, plus the original stamped inspiration papers. I love that there's no one around telling me that I can or can't do it this or that way. I have a limited amount of inks and first I used a brown, then squished some blue for the second print, then some purple for the third...etc. I love the mix of colours much better than the straight out of the tube colours.
Then I carved the top part of the stamp, and inked that too.
Then I chose the prints I liked the best and printed the top part with the branch lino.
I think I like this one the most. Then I used a little red acrylic paint and coloured in the berries.
And here we are! My drawing challenge: abundance. I love this image. It represents that kind of tending the land which produces abundance for everyone. The farmer tends the fields and provides for his family and tends a hedgerow for the keeping of all the wild creatures.
I hope you come join in :D[inlinkz_linkup id=585752 mode=1]
Micro T
There's a new little boy in our lives.Yes guys, we got a new kitten. He's with Robert in West Cottage and I haven't met him yet, but Robbie sends me photos and videos of him on practically a daily basis.
I already love our new little buddy.
He's only been with us for just over a month, but he's already walked all over The Medusa, fallen in the bath, climbed up the dressing gown hanging on the back of the bedroom door, and learned how to perch on R's shoulder as he walks around.
But mostly he just sleeps that deep and trusting kitten sleep. He's just so darn cute!
We've thought and puzzled and agonized about a name, and the one which fits him best is Theo. Now I know that our darling late cat was called Theo, and I know that naming Micro T the same has, and will bring up emotions, but it seems to be fitting well so far.And once again we're a three cat family.
A reward for cleaning up the studio
Oh my gosh the studio does get out of hand.The reason is that, when I start creating something, I reach for what I need, put it aside and reach for the next thing and so on, until there are brushes and inks and paints and pencils and papers everywhere. Then I just have to take a day and put everything where it belongs.So after the place looked a little more respectable, and after I dragged the vacuum up two flights of stairs and carried it back down again, I decided to have some fun with my stamps.
I took some out and lay them on the board I do collage work on.
Then I stamped some on this big block of paper on my art desk. (I really need a new black ink pad!) Then I sketched and scribbled around them and I thought, hmm, wonder if I could layer them into a scene.
You know what I noticed? I carve the stamps with my animals facing to the left!
So I carved some simple stamps of twigs and leaves, and took out a little ink and a roller, and began composing little vignettes.
I had a lot of fun for about an hour or so, or until Miss Morgan decided it was supper time.
But first I took out a piece of black paper and some white ink, stamped myself a final little vignette, and went down to the kitchen to wash out the stamps, roller, and ink tray, and to feed those darn cats. :D
It's been a long day so I might be rambling on
Last night some dental floss snagged on the edge of my molar. Oh brother. Today's emergency dentist appointment confirmed my suspicions: the root canal compromised the porcelain overlay and the porcelain cracked. Oh well, that's a whole day gone and the near future me has to spend $1500, that I really didn't need to spend, but then, that's life, and how lucky am I to live in this country with great medical help. I'm particularly concerned about that tooth and healing it because it's a known fact that latent and chronic inflammation leads to wonky cellnosity, and, as you know, that's something I really don't want to mess with ever again. Visit a dentist today and view dental payment plans to avoid your dental issues from exacerbating.Anyway, I've been really busy and running my head off trying to get things in order before I switch countries, and haven't been taking the time I should take to reply here to all your lovely comments, and especially because I'm more concerned about getting round to your blogs and leaving comments there, rather than leaving replies here, so I tend to do that first...and run out of time.So there are my very good and very favourite daily bloggie friends who I usually visit every morning, check in, all's right in their world, I can go on. Then there are the people I treasure and love to visit who post three times/week, or possibly every time they feel like it...anyway, I pop round there too. Then there are the people who I meet from FB or some of the groups I belong to and think, "Hmm, I'll just go check them out." And sometimes they become friends too. It's nice having friends, isn't it?People...you all...stay in my mind and I think of you often. And, I've been at this blogging business for so many years, that I know how it goes. The people who's blogs I enjoyed last year, I might not be enjoying this year any more, and vice versa. People stop and retire their blogs, I find new people who I can visit and have a lovely time reading...and so it goes...all within my mornings, over a couple cups of tea and my toast, all between 5-9am.Mostly if I want to catch up with my friends, I tend to subscribe to their posting via my email. (There's a grand total of 9 blogs I subscribe to via my personal email, but also some with bloglovin) To me these friendships matter. They do. I see some people as true friends. I've invested time getting to know them, getting to know their families, their lives, and I look forward to the day we might meet in person.I am getting somewhere...lol...I promise.Anyway, one such friend, Barb, whose blog I subscribe to, has been having a tough time of it. She beat the wonky cellnosity a few years ago and it came back in a different and more virulent form. She has been updating her blog as she could, as she had the energy while dealing with the fallout from the drug cocktail that is chemo. And I was thinking about her yesterday, wondering how she's doing. This morning a new blog post email came to my inbox. But it wasn't from Barb. It was from her husband, saying that Barb succumbed to that horrible disease on Sunday. Here are some of the things he wrote:"Those that did correspond with her please know you helped her with her fight and added to the pleasure she received as she [was] writing her stories.To all of you thank you.As this will be the final post I ask that no-one reply to this as I will not be monitoring any reply to have it posted. So rather than reply please simply send out a thought or prayer on Barb’s behalf and that will serve a better purpose than a typed message.God Bless her and keep her safe."So here I am, agnostic/atheist me, ready to offer a little prayer to any of the gods out there listening, "Godspeed Barb. I'm happy to know I made your life a little better. You made mine a little better too."And the last thing I want to say...because you're probably all rolling your eyes at the screen muttering, "god does that girl ever go on!", is that, even though I don't always have the time to reply, (I wish I did have more time), the tracker tells me that today there have been 326 visitors here and I want to say THANK YOU! I want to tell you that each time you visit, each time you leave me a comment, you make my day brighter, happier. I feel lucky to have you all in my life and I think about you, wonder how your day is going, look forward to popping in on FB or on your blogs and catching up, and I consider you my friend. And if you've stuck with me this far, then you're a true friend...lol... and now I will end this ridiculous, rambling blog post with Barb's signature saying:Remember to be well.
Announcing a new Drawing Challenge: Abundance, and a recipe for abundant health
Hi everybody,Our D C friend Melodye suggested "Abundance" as a theme for our drawing challenge for next weekend.This is brilliant, thank you so much Melodye. With the holidays approaching, it might be really nice for us to explore how abundant our life is, our art can be, before we give in to the craziness of consumerism.As usual, I will post the post on Friday Nov 27th, and the link up worked so well last time, don't you think? That I'll enable that again, and we'll all visit each other over the weekend. :DRemember, all forms of creativity are more than welcome.And I thought that I would love to share one of my most favourite recipes for the best, most highly nutritious Cesar salad I know: The Kale Cesar
This is the recipe as it comes from my wellness centre. I don't ever massage the kale, I love it just as it is, and I often omit the navy beans, and use Dijon mustard because I have that around right now. But play with this recipe; it's beautifully malleable and forgivable.Kale is so good for you. It contains powerful phytochemicals and tons of vitamin C, and ounce per ounce more calcium than milk.KALE CESAR¼ cup tahini¼ cup water½ lemon, juice & zest1 Tbsp miso paste1-2 garlic cloves, minced2 tsp grainy Dijon mustardUnrefined salt & pepper to taste1-2 bunches of kale, stemmed & chopped1 ½ cups navy beans, cooked½ red onion, thinly sliced¼ cup oil packed sundried tomatoes*, chopped*look for sulfite-freeDirections1. Stir together tahini, water, lemon juice, zest, miso paste, mustard, garlic, unrefined salt, and fresh pepper in a small bowl. Use a fork to blend until smooth.2. Add additional water, 1 tablespoon at a time to thin if necessary. Season with additional salt. The dressing should be slightly salty and the saltiness will subside somewhat when tossed with the salad. Set aside.3. In a large bowl, add a splash of water, a teaspoon or so of salt, and ‘massage’ the kale until tender. This should take a couple of minutes. Rinse well and dry in salad spinner.4. Place the kale, beans, red onion and sundried tomatoes into a large salad bowl. Pour on the dressing and toss gently.And, as added inspiration for our DC and in keeping with the holiday theme...lol...look at this beautiful vintage book I got. It's the Victory Kitchen, a 1944 edition of the famous cookbook, with substitutes for wartime unavailable ingredients.
How lucky we live in such a time of peace, of abundance, and how blessed are we to be able to share our abundance with our less fortunate neighbours.
A winter walk along my part of the Spirit Trail
In this bright, winter's day, I went for a walk on a local trail called The Spirit Trail. The trail is a rather long one, but this part runs along the waterfront escarpment separating the residential city from the industrial docks.
This part of the spirit trail is relatively new. As you walk the trail, you see a beautiful art piece consisting of crows and crow lore sandblasted into granite boulders from a local quarry.
The view from the escarpment down to the docks is spectacular.
I love seeing a view into a part of Vancouver rather unavailable to the ordinary pedestrian. The view to the east is to the part of the dock dealing with grain. Two major companies here have silos which hold wheat, durum, canola, barley, rye, and flax.
The view to the west is of the metalurgical and thermal coal stores. Today, being Sunday, it was rather still and quiet, but on weekdays it's fun to see the conveyor belts and cranes move the coal around.
The view south is across the Burrard Inlet and this is my favourite view. Robbie and I stood here for maybe an hour last time just looking at how the world works.There is a funny sort of car wash that cars coming out of the docks go thru. Some cars got a nice wash down, and some cars were denied. The cars denied drove back out and into the car wash over and over several times without luck, and then, a different car, who came just behind, got the car wash. What was that all about?
Sometimes I stand here and wonder how I could get down there and poke around.I wonder if it's allowed. Well, it must be...somehow. Wouldn't it be great to get up close and personal and find out how it all works?Well, maybe one day, but for now I'll look, take photos and wonder how it all works.
The good, the bad, and the ugly...but mostly the good
Ever have one of those Clint Eastwood days?Now this evening, you know, I have to have a little chuckle just thinking back on the day, it's been a lovely day and all's well.
The bad is: I stripped the mantle in the living room to redecorate for Christmas and so far I haven't got around to it. Really must try harder.
But the very good is: I got a lovely surprise first thing this morning. Kerstin phoned me on way to Seattle to ask if she could stop by and say hi. Are you kidding me? I love seeing my daughter, so I cleared it with Robbie, (our daily hour phone call is sacrosanct), he was fine with it and so I called Kers back to say it would be great.
I was expecting just Kerstie and Adam, but surprise surprise, they had our youngest little girl Ziggy with them.Oh how lovely to see our youngest baby! I haven't seen my granddaughters for a few months now and miss them terribly.
Chloe and I had decided to have a mom and Clover day, and part of that was to clean up the spare room where our collection of vintage dresses is.
And I guess you're wondering about the ugly!Well I have a ridiculous huge nice collection of ironstone and predominantly brown transferware. As I'm cleaning and reorganising the house, a part of this collections, plus other pieces, was sitting on a round table in that spare room.Oops, the top of the table toppled over crashing two boxes onto the floor on top of other boxes.Oh boy! That was some cleanup. You might not be able to tell from this photo, but that box is 2.5' x 2.5'.
But then back to the good, Kerstie is always on the lookout for more lovely brown transferware for me. I absolutely love beautiful, eclectic pieces and especially if they have a beautiful storybook picture and some other colours, like the watery blues, pinks and greens. I never bother with one pattern and love to mix and match them. Kerstie knows this, and brought me these beautiful plates.
Anyway, out with the old and in with the new...right?Now please just no one say the word MOSAIC! I've got way too much to do...lol.
Drawing challenge: Calm
I've found that in difficult times, whether personal or global, I tend to always retreat into art.And you. fellow artists, creative people, wildly imaginative, pink-hearted friends, I bet you retreat in your own way. Do your own thing to stay calm. It's so important to stay calm, isn't it?My calm is being let loose into the weary world with this:This is an old copy of a map of war.
The war was the Battle of Gravelotte. It shows the troop placements along the French German frontier in 1870.
Representing the community of people is this common pigeon. There are millions of them in every city, every town, every village all over the world. All ready to stand their ground, fly together in unison.
Representing calm is this dove. Just another in the community of pigeons, but she is turned in a different direction. And look, she has got the attention of the pigeon. "Be Calm", she says. Follow me to a calmer, happier place.
I hope we do.Time was a bit limited this week, and I didn't quite finish this piece. (which is why the birds are floating instead of being grounded...lol) Time! Everything needs time.Art: 25yr old reprint of a map dated 1870, inks, watercolours, graphite, watercolour pencils.
I'm trying something new, thanks to our Tammie. This is the Wordpress possible link-up and I hope it works for us. I'll try to link up our friends who already sent me their posts, and hopefully this will work. Like with all new things, there may be a bug, so let's give this a little try and if it doesn't work, then I'll link everyone in manually. :D[inlinkz_linkup id=583895 mode=1]
A full home library of books, and more books
I love books!I know what you're thinking, who doesn't, right?Robert and I have this running joke about who has the more books in which home library, but, even though I do ;) we both love books and keep adding to our collections.
Today Clover and I stopped by my favourite used bookstore, Booklovers, where the owner, Dalyce, had an amazing book for me. I resolved to buy it immediately, but still had a good look around.Oh, we could spend hours here.
I could also spend hours here.This is my family room, where Robbie helped me build a fantastic library that run half way around the room (and only stops because there had to be a door and somebody insisted on a TV. I know these are only Ikea Billy bookshelves, but for now they're perfect and eventually I plan to do one of those Ikea hacks where the bookshelves are disguised so they look like built-ins.
But for now these are great. There's plenty of room for my collections. There's one whole cabinet dedicated to gardening books, a shelf holds the Pratchetts, another holds my beloved Agatha Christies, another goes half and half with Ian Fleming and P.G. Wodehouse, and so it goes.I don't mind adding to my collection at all, and it's so much fun hanging out at Booklovers, because it's a wonderful discovery. You never know what Dalyce will get in!
The book I got today is so beautiful. It's a book of bird called Birds of Western North America, with amazing illustrations by Kenneth Carlson.I can't stop looking at the illustrations. Such an imagination. How in the world did this painter ever manage to pose the birds in his mind to be able to paint them in these poses? I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in his studio. Also, I wish there was more information about artists and illustrators in the books themselves. I mean, I wish someone had the foresight to write, "illustrations by Kenneth Carlson, oil on velum." or something along those lines.
Oh well, I'll try to put the book down long enough to google the painter and see what I can find out.Do you ever buy books just for the pictures? I do all the time. :D