anniversary round-up

Yesterday marked 7 years of being married to a dude who is just awesome. No itches here! "7 year itch"... bah! If anything, it just gets better.

I haven't been very creative in the 2 dimensional realm of late but I wanted to waste time doing a blog post - I'm procrastinating from learning about the new HST tax rules - so here are some pictures of my kingdom during the last few days...

Holding feet:

I recently saw heart-shaped waffles in my friend's pictures of Norway and I instantly wished some Scandinavian would import heart-shaped-waffle-makers to Canada. Apparently someone already did! I went to the thrift store on my anniversary-day and what did I find?!?! See below! What luck!

So I made savory, cornmeal waffles for dinner and topped them with a creamy red-wine/mushroom sauce for syrup... and chicken instead of bacon. I like how the heart-shaped indicator light glows when the waffle iron is plugged in.

Below is a picture I already posted on my "farm-blog" but I really like it. That's the husband in behind the tomato.


In another twist-of-good-fortune, there was wet sidewalk pavement right outside our building when I got home from the grocery/thrift-store trip. I took advantage but it was already pretty dry so I could only manage "R + A" and not our full initials with a cheesy heart.

Sadly, when I went to look at it at the end of the day the workers had come back and scuffed it out (plus a few others). Kill joys!

I have to mention the other cool thrifty items I got.

A Stephen Leacock tea cup. He was a famous Canadian humourist, which is why I picked it up. I found out when I goggled him at home that his was also a bit of an conservative jerk that didn't believe women should vote. Oh well. Still a cool-looking tea cup and now I will just take pleasure in getting my spit on his face when I drink tea from him...

A $5 portfolio! It's in really good shape. Looks like it was never used. Most of my artwork is small and I don't have to carry it around very often but this will still be handy for storing stuff in!

And how did Husband and I spend the rest of the evening? After eating our heart-shaped dinner we broke into a new TV show, "Community". It is REALLY funny! I don't know how I missed it until now! I love this Abbed character:


Oh, I think I've kicked the friendship-bracelet-bug. Back to making other stuff:

no catchy title today

Last night's model at Life Drawing was really good. Very unique gestures, brought in some props, and even maintained active facial expressions during the longer poses! Unfortunately, I was not having the greatest drawing night (am I ever?)

But here are some that I managed to sort out of the cull pile:

a one-minute gesture that I like mainly for the odd placement on the large page

and two of the longer poses (I forget, 20-minutes each maybe?)

I don't feel like I've found that magical combination of materials yet that really lets me get past beyond struggling with materials and on to struggling with the drawing.

*****

In other, more crafty-news. I've been suddenly overcome with the desire to make friendship bracelets. I think this seed was planted last year or so by Ray Fenwick (my Halifax Art Hero).

He did a whole series about friendship bracelets which you must see by clicking the link in this sentence. But here's one of them if you're too lazy to click:

Friendship bracelets have also been popping up all over the fashion-blogosphere. I like the clever, up-graded twists people have been doing with them: weaving them through and around gold and rhinestones bracelets, etc.

Partly I think it's just because, in learning to embroider, I've been handling embroidery floss a lot lately and I used to be a Pro-Star bracelet maker back in the ol' days... so it was just bound to happen.

I've been having a hard time finding embroidery floss but I stumbled upon a GOLDMINE at the Lens Mill Store in Guelph recently. That place is a throw-back to an earlier time for me too. I made a big quilt in university and most of the fabric came from there. It used to be in an old knitting factory that was a pleasure to visit. It has since moved into an ugly strip mall and the factory is now condos that aren't very soundproof (I know because I have a friend who lives there). Oh well... it still houses all sorts of weird loose ends and embroidery floss is very abundant!

Also, I found this awesome horse-head-thread-organizer thing there! I never knew I needed this until now! Love it. Also love that I found FLORESCENT floss! And some sparkly gold stuff (not pictured). What what!?!?!

gods of thrift, i salute you

Oh! What's that in the corner over there? A new print?

Why yes! Let's take a closer look shall we?

It appears to be men on horses. Some kind of stampede? No they are dressed too fancy. Perhaps they are on a hunt of some kind?

Yes. That's it - a hunt!

Zooming in even further reveals that some of the fancy-hunters have run into trouble... silly "fence-slappers".

I guess they are probably fox hunting? Or preparing to fox-hunt anyway... the top of the print says "Hunting Qualifications" so maybe they are just out for a ride sans the hounds.

The print also says it is "Drawn and Engraved by H. Alken". I looked him up and he died in 1851. I have no idea how old this print would be. The framing is certainly not that old.... it has some kind of tracking number so perhaps I could find out more information someday.

I suspect that it is a very nice reprint, complete with a fake embossed line. It is not signed or anything. I painted the wooden part of the frame black because I think it looks better than the brownish colour it was. I don't think this is valuable so I wasn't worried about "ruining" it... besides, it was just the frame anyway.

I'm pleased as punch that I found this at the thrift store. Firstly it is just a good-looking picture, well-drawn. But also it fits with all the other pictures of horses around here. More specifically, it looks great in what I call the "man corner" (I'll make a post about it someday but basically it's a corner of the livingroom that looks like some rich dude's den).

Henry Alken was a print-maker and illustrator, so I'm into discovering how he fits into the history of those fields. Apparently he often did things that mocked the aristocratic, leisure class - hence depicting these dofusses* hitting the fence.

I've recently developed a strange attraction to fox-hunting stuff - I cheer for the fox.

I found a swell little dish the same day. It too lives in the "man-corner" and is the perfect holding dish for the remote control. Remote Controls are also "man-ish". This one is for the stereo. We don't have a TV because it blew up a few years ago but that doesn't mean we don't watch TV... we just use an internet/laptop/stereo configuration. We definitely aren't above wasting our precious time watching TV.

* I think that is the first time I have written the word "dofuss" and it occurs to me that it can be broken down into "do" and "fuss" - which would be a perfectly apt description for a fancy-19th-century-aristocrat. One who does fuss too much. A do-fuss. Dofuss!

shelf it

I'm not gonna lie. I'm pretty handy.

I'm sure a true craftsperson would shun my methods. I don't possess the tools or the know-how to make stuff in a professional manner... but I can make stuff look pretty cool without spending much money or having the proper tools. That's kind of like my super-hero power actually.Yay me! me me me me me!

Sorry, got a little carried away with the self-love there... but I'm pretty proud of my latest household project...

(Full disclosure: I do have a cordless drill that I love dearly - it's pretty much essential - we have concrete walls.)

I made this shelf as a place to display my doodles, artworks, found-objects, and works-in-progress.

The idea is to keep my art-projects and "inspirational-objects" up-front and in-sight to keep up my working-mojo. The problem is, I don't like things getting too messy. So this shelf, painted the same colour as the wall, is a storage/display space that can be changed constantly and easily. It's like a 3-dimensional sketchbook. That's the idea.

The other cool thing is that I made it from junk wood I found in the basement of our building. Man I love this building. It just gives and gives and gives!

As usual, you can click to biggify the image. Get in there and take a good look. Don't be shy.

And below is how the shelf looks currently. I acquired a few neat items from my sister on the weekend: an old Carnation Cookbook and some banged up Snooker balls. I also hauled my "Visible Man" out of storage because he is see-through, plastic, and awesome. I only gave him a heart when I made him because the other organs were kind of ugly and because I like to play God like that when I'm creating a man. I'm working on a star-painting based on the "hobo art" star I got at the "Chat Noir" awhile ago. The poem, typed in red on my old typewriter, is "messenger" by Mary Oliver. I just discovered her recently and since I love hummingbirds and baking bread you can bet this poem resonated with me. You can (and should!) read it here.

Lastly, you need to see both the front and back to fully appreciate this cook book:

new dots

The 3rd dot on my embroidery-sampler-quilt-project. An ampersand made up of French Knots. I directly copied this idea from a blog I read: Oh Hi.

As you can see below, the original is a lot neater than mine - but hey, she has a lot more experience than me and makes hers to sell so they have to be good... I'm just trying to learn.

I really like the idea of using the negative space. I wish I'd drawn a nicer ampersand to begin with. Her font choice is much more polished-looking.

I didn't see the extreme close-up of her work until after I had started mine using the french knots. She does not use french knots and is able to achieve much more control in her outline. Also, french knots take a long time - but I'm very good at them now! Lessons learned.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/locality/4626471177/in/set-72157616732457452/

In other newness, I did this quick-abstract-boob-painting yesterday on a piece of corner trim from my husband's parents' house. My mother-in-law had a lumpectomy yesterday so I had boobs on the brain. The photo-montage below is nicer than the actual object. I'll probably redo it another day.

Life Drawing - Some Results

I always admire the people in drawing classes who can make those beautiful, classical drawings that look like the stuff you see in drawing books - correct proportions, foreshortening, subtly in the shading, etc. (in my experience animators can always draw that way). My drawings never look like that but I'm learning (or trying) to accept them and my heavy-handedness.

It's a good thing that they don't look like the same as other people's drawings actually... but it's frustrating that they don't come out how I intend for them to look. I wish that I drew the way I do despite being able to do the "traditionally good" thing... but as it is, I just draw this way and I can't make it look any other way.

Here are my favourites from the last few weeks of Life Drawing. You can click on them to make them bigga'!

Session 2: Extremely Receeded Head on Yellow

Session 3: The Charcoal Man

There was some extreme lighting going on in the room this night. When I look at this weeks later, I think it actually looks like the model... at least to me.)

Sessions 4: Where I Ran Out of Newsprint and Tried Out Watercolour for the First Time

(When we started the pose below/left I was all excited about doing a facial close-up with the cool lighting and angles. Unfortunately the model fell asleep and by the end of the pose she was actually facing down and to the right... so I didn't get too far with that! haha!)

Biltmore Update

Update on Biltmore Hats:

I thought I had noticed a lack of activity around the place but wasn't sure if it had shut-down... Turns out they were temporarily shut-down but hopefully will return:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/05/17/legendary-biltmore-hats-to-return-owner-says/#ixzz0Xmv2HeRO

Maybe the boss man was getting the financing finalized the day I saw him at the bank!!

I'm really looking forward to taking a factory tour there!