sabbath day for ultra orthodox canadians

It's All-Star Weekend here in Ottawa. The holy grail is in town along with the rich athletes who chase it down year after year. 

Despite my love of hockey-lore, I'm not planning to have much to do with All-Star Weekend. I've been to the hockey-hall-of-fame so I don't think the Fan Fair would provide me with $15 worth of value. The big-tickets were sold out ages ago (and too expensive anyway). The weather stinks for venturing outside... 

However, one concession to my general lack of interest in this event was to paint up an ol' timey hockey player from an old Starr Skates ad. I'm going to carry it around in case I bump into any Penguins. I'm not really going out to look for them but if I happen to see them, I'll be ready! Pretty dorky eh? 

Every now and then I strangely morph into an autograph-hound*... so I had this in my backpack when I went skating yesterday. True story.  

To kick-off ASW, they skated all the NHL trophies down the canal yesterday. Since it was the first day the whole canal was open and the weather was nice, I went out to see. (Good thing I took advantage of that because the whole canal is closed again today due to bad weather.)

To make it extra-cute they had all the little Timbits players holding the trophies and skating around. Here's the Art Ross.

Hey! It's the dude who protects Lord Stanley!! He even has his little white gloves on! 

In retrospect, I totally should have gotten HIS autograph!! I really dropped the ball puck ball on that one. 

There it is! The trophy that's been fought over for more than 100 years. Apparently the last time it was on the canal was in 1905 - when it was unceremoniously punted off a bridge by a drunken hockey player. 

Best outfit award. She really brightened the place up. 

There is some art hanging under the Bank St. bridge. Old white dudes and Native Canadians (but only the ones that sided with the British**).

Lastly, me at the end of my 10k skate. 

I geeked out with the Canadiana***: Hudson Bay coat, CBC pin, You've Changed pin (a Canadian record label), listening to The Sadies and The Tragically Hip the whole way... I did not however, eat a Beavertail - which would have been the perfect "communion" on this high-holy day of Canadianism... but I had no one to share it with.  

* What is it with autographs? I don't really understand why sometimes I'm suddenly compelled to try to get one. Normally I'm not into that. Maybe, for me, it's a way to generate a story/memory around something that is too "outside of my realm" to otherwise feel a part of? Maybe I hope some greatness will rub off on me? I'm still formulating this thought...

** Just kidding. I didn't stop to read the signs.

*** Contrary to how it might appear, I'm not actually super-nationalistic. I just like the stuff of history wherever I happen to be... and mostly I'm in Canada.

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loosey goosey

Two more drawings/paintings in my little book.

I was trying to be fast and loose with both of these and tried to do things with the inks that I hadn't tried yet. They are just practice really but I'm keeping them as records of progress/learning*.

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This one was originally based on a couple of pictures from the Sailor Jerry, American Tattoo Master book (pg. 53) but I after I messed up a bunch of lines I decided just to throw colours around, layer them, wash them off, etc. It felt liberating so I put it in the book. I like some stuff that happened in the top left quarter.

This one had very little initial drawing/planning and I painted with only brushes (normally I've been using a nib pen). Everything is copied out of the little Taschen book of tattoos. More specifically the tiger and lady-head are by Tattoo-Jack from Copenhagen (1951), most of the filler is either generic doodling or else copied from Ole Hansen, also of Copenhagen (1952)... oh... except that little dog which is Joseph Hartley, Great Britain (1930s).

 Cheerio.


*I guess every piece you start should be considered "practice"... you never start a thing thinking it's going to stand as your ultimate, amazing masterpiece right? Or at least you probably shouldn't... too much pressure... I digress.

Couch Rehab

Now for a slew of before and after shots of a couch I recovered last week.

The back story: this was the family couch when I was a young child. I believe that my family got it used so it probably dates to the late 60s or early 70s. There are no brand markings on it. My guess is that it's a Canadian-made take on the mid-century-Scando-style. I think several of my siblings (at least 2 for sure) have taken turns hosting it in their homes. So, with a little "reinforcement" (metal brackets added by my Dad), it has been sturdy enough to last through 35-40 years of abuse in big families with lots of kids jumping on it. Most recently it was in the basement of my sister's house where drunk teenagers played video games and crashed on it.  As you'll be able to see in the pictures, at least 2 previous attempts at covering the lovely floral pattern have been attempted.

I'm happy with how it turned out. It's a bit of a hack job in that I don't really know what I'm doing and I didn't feel like dismantling it to do a totally "proper" job... so I had to fudge the fabric around some tricky corners.

I considered having it professionally reupholstered but given that the wood is in rough condition (mostly on the back thank goodness), that it's not a high-end/namebrand piece, how expensive reupholstering is, and that I have time on my hands, I opted to do it on the cheapside by myself.

Fabric, I learned, is VERY EXPENSIVE (some of the stuff I liked was $35/meter!!! And I needed about 7 meters!!) I managed to find this "suit" fabric on sale for $5/meter. I don't know how long it will last but it is good for a first attempt anyway.

(I put a lot of blankets around to protect things from the cat's claws and fur... plus, it feels cozy...) 

So, without further adieu, the pictures (you can click on them to see them bigger):

the planning stage

reconditioned wood (top), bottom is the arm of the matching chair (which is the next project)

I'm not sure I like my fix on the left. It's paint over wood-filler but it looks too much like black tape. I can always change it later if I think of a better idea. I moved the visible metal brackets added by my Dad (right) to the inside of the couch, making them invisible during normal use. 

I really love the lines of this couch. I'm happy I could bring it out of the basement and resurrect it

Cute as a button.

The matching chair. It will be the next project... although, the floral fabric is kind of growing on me and it's in better shape than the couch... so I'm in  no hurry.

The payment for my work: it's true, spare change really does fall into the crack of the couch.

Thanks for looking at my couch rehabilitation project. 

BTW, tumblr POD

I'm doing a "Picture-Of-the-Day" Project (or "POD" for short) this year. 


I did this before back in 2008 and it was a fun creative outlet... so I thought I'd revive the magic. Last time I posted them in Facebook but this year I'm posting them in Tumblr.


Here is the link:


Rosy Croix * (a.k.a.  http://vanderlucks.tumblr.com/)


It will sometimes overlap with what I put here... 
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* I forget what I meant when I named it Rosy Croix - it related to some esoteric thing that I was momentarily fascinated with at the time I created the Tumblr... so don't ask me about that...

Dress-Like-Your-House... again!

Happy Hudson-Bay-Day!


Yeah...I made that up... Just another excuse to do another "dress-like-your-house" photo because I acquired another Hudson Bay coat today ($15 at a local thrift store!!) and it happens to match another Hud-Bay blanket I have.


Admittedly, it's starting to look like The Bay circa 1964 up in here.
But it's winter and it's cozy and it's part of our (canadian) heritage so I'm going with it.


***


sans chats:

avec chats:

***

For context, here's the first time I did this with my other coat and another blanket (my friend gave me this coat because it was too big for her):

Here's the stylist-shot of the new/old coat:

(I got the thrift store lady to throw in the cool hanger!)

(For the record, until I took this picture I had totally been reading it as "Unicorn Record" - which is why I wanted it... but "Union Record" is also neat. (I am maybe slightly dyslexic?))

And lastly, some outtakes from the photo shoot starring Pinkerton-The-Ever-Present:

G'night!

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Stay Inside, The Weather Sucks

There's freezing rain and general grossness in the out-of-doors so I stayed cozy in my nest all day (which, honestly, isn't very different from most days, but today I had a good excuse).

I think I'm having some post-holidays/wintertime blues or something. All I really want to do is nap, eat cookies, and read books... and then nap again.

Here are a few shots of the in-of-doors that I took today while battling the blahs:

1. Cat facing off with the Bold-Ass-Starlings that have recently joined forces with the Party-Pigeons on my ledge,

2. The current state of the sideboard: deChristmasified but still winterized,

3. Oh. And another cat shot (they never cease to amuse me and this is my blog sooooo...)

This is a new spot for Pearl. I guess she wanted to curl up and sleep in the company of a lot of other black, circular things...

Gawd, I hope the weather and my mood improve soon... 

I guess I can sort of control one of those things eh?

Norm!!

Remember in that show Cheers how everyone yelled Norm's name when he entered the bar? I always wanted to be like that - but without having to be a fat bar-fly...

Oh boy. I haven't even started and already I digress... 

This coming Saturday (Jan. 14th) would be the 101st birthday of Norm Collins (a.k.a. Sailor Jerry) if he had lived so long. So today I painted a sailor-gal based on a tattoo of his... well... part of a tattoo of his. 

I feel really out-of-practice since the holiday season (when I did nothing but visit relatives and eat). The FW Inks are giving me troubles. This feels way too messy... but at least today I completed something (I've had a bunch of false starts lately).

Anyway, I really liked the red-background-curly-cue-thing... how it rotates around the face.

Here she is before colour.

In a frame I have kicking around, waiting for the right image to compliment the anchor (which is cut out of the mat)... this is not the right image but I thought I'd check... just in case it was...

With the picture I took her from (in Sailor Jerry Collins - American Tattoo Master)

Below is one of my "false starts". Too many blobby lines to continue with it. Shouldn't have used that rusty, old nib! I'll try doing some pretty flowers again soon though as I haven't done too many flowers yet... and they are pretty...

Well, there she is, "in the can" so to speak... with apologies and birthday greetings to the late, great, (horribly right-wing but we'll let it pass) Sailor Jerry! 

Thanks for looking!

The White Elephant Game

Oh yeah. I have a blog...

Well. 

Here is what Husbo and I created and contributed to my family's "White Elephant" Christmas game this year. I'm proud to say they were very sought and fought for. 

We painted them at one of those paint-yer-own-ceramics places. We meant to do two owls but they only had one owl-mug left so Husbo (a.k.a. Robert Bateman) painted the owl and I had to freestyle on a plain mug - but I knew if we picked trendy animals at least the teenagers in the crowd would want them... so a fox and an owl were the natural choices.

Overall I'm really pleased with how these turned out and I think I might start making and giving more as gifts.

 

OH! 

and...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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