Our Salad Days

A household innovation story:

My dear, handsome Husbo came home from a working week away with big plans for our fridge. See, while visiting the land of Academia he spent all his lunch money at a cafeteria with a nice salad bar and now he wanted that salad-fixin'-luxury at home. 

So, off to the container store we went this weekend (I didn't even know there were whole stores dedicated to containers until very recently). 

Now we have a big box 'o salad stuff in our fridge from which we can throw together delicious, nutritious salads very easily and quickly (because of course the hassle of eating salad is all the annoying chopping, chopping, forever chopping). 

So far, I like it... we'll see if it helps us eat more salad in the long run. I think it will. 

I share this story in case you too have been harbouring secret-salad-bar-fantasies. It can be so!

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It takes up a whole shelf of the fridge - but it basically stores all our veg in an orderly fashion. The actual veg crisper is full of beer and bubbly water. I don't like keeping plant matter in the crisper drawer because it's not see-thru and therefore too easy to forget about... (but I never forget about beer or bubbly water so that's safe).

Easy to take everything out of the fridge in one smooth motion. Lift with your knees!

See!? Orderly!

Look at all that easily accessible nutrition! (The challenge is to eat it all before it goes bad!)

Salad-makin'

Yum! (That was easy!)

The End

Love Triangles in the Royal Courts

Here's a thing I made after I saw one on the Inspire Me Now tumblr and followed the link to the instructions at site, George Hart's website. It has to do with math and stuff... but I just thought it looked neat.

Apparently, "the form derives from the third stellation of the rhombic dodecahedron..."

OK. Thanks George!

Anyway, I had to make one... (something to do while watching my poor hockey team lose their shit.) 

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In progress, fractal moose:

Completed, and sitting with some other novelties:

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I used the face cards to make my card sculpture. 

Some interesting relationships in the Royal Courts were revealed in the process...

In the land of Clubs the king is suffering unrequited love... but not from his wife: 

The king of Hearts doesn't have the same problem... and the queen is pissed:

Everyone's lovin' everyone under the sign of the Diamonds:

...but there is no love at all in Spade-town:

So, this was fun. Try it yourself... if you like puzzles...

Ned Hanlan - Forgotten Canadian Sporting Dude and My Imaginary Boyfriend

OK. Here's another "restyled/remixed" thing. 

I cobbled this together to fancy-up the "gym" area of my living-room. If you live with your workout equipment in the room where you also go to relax, you have to try to make it bearable for your eyeballs... or at least I do. Plus, I have all these odds and ends hanging around that I'm compelled to either purge or make stuff with. Also, it is inspiring to workout under the watchful eye of a sports hero. Ha!

The little heart came from this plastic "Visible Man" I had until very recently when it met it's demise at the hands paws of a clumsy cat.  Sad. I like the old-fashioned word "hale" (meaning "hearty and healthy"). I won't bother describing where all the other little bits come from or what they mean to me (but I'd tell you if you asked).

There it is, hanging in place near Silken Laumann (that's what I call my rowing machine). 

When I started rowing I discovered the story of Ned Hanlan - a Canadian World Champion Sculler. Do you know the site "My Daguerreotype Boyfriend"? Well I nominate Ned for that site. He was a hottie with a body. I think the gay dudes at the nudie beach on Toronto Island, Hanlan's Point (named after the family's hotel that used to be there) would agree with me. There is a pretty manly statue of him there.

Anyway, Ned was quite a character and a tricky/funny sportsman. You should totally read up on his antics in the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (because I'm not going to spend time rewriting them all here).

Here's some pictures of Ned that I stole from the internet:

Ned was called the Boy in Blue because he wore a blue shirt. And if you want to see Nicolas Cage portray him on the small screen, YOU CAN! Because they made that movie in 1986! I'm downloading it RIGHT NOW! 

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I hope you enjoyed this relatively uninformative but link-filled heritage moment.

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Building Blocks

I don't know what to call this. Art? I'm not sure that's the right word... maybe "restyling"?

Anyway, here's a thing I made. I found the book, "Toby Joins the Circus" in the laundry-room-give-away-spot. I took out the pictures I liked and embellished them with some watercolours. 

I was inspired by this necklace to add the shapes. It has a masonic/esoteric feel but I think of it more as just the "basic shapes" (of geometry, architecture, art-making, etc.) I paired the shapes with the primary colours because they are also the basics you need to make everything else. Building blocks.

I didn't read the actual book but I made a little story with the pages I picked. Is it a life-lesson about self-acceptance? Maybe it's about a young lad reaching puberty. Maybe it just looks cool? Perhaps it's all or none of the above... 

Here it is:

A young kid with a monkey on his back tries to escape his problems by running away. 

On his journey he learns many uncomfortable but necessary lessons. 

Eventually he makes peace with himself and spends quality time with his monkey - who is still around, no longer a burden but a pleasure. 

The End.

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On a completely unrelated note, I noticed this morning what my friends do with my decor when they are cat-sitting!! Hahaha! Good one K&E!

And another unrelated note, I made these "Confetti Bars" after having some on the weekend. They make me think of potlucks in the 50s. Maybe next I'll make a jello-mold with fruit-bits in it...

The End II.

drawing experiments

A few new drawing-things. Experimenting with drawing on different backgrounds... not totally successful but kinda fun...

I found this old beach scene (from Trinidad) in a thrift store in Montreal. It was in a sloppy old frame. I was thinking about re-framing it and when I pulled it apart a 3-way photo of the young lad (below) fell out!

Due to my lack of wall-space and the amount of water damage to both images, I decided to play around with them instead of hanging them up. 

I drew a Sailor-Jerry-esque hula girl on the beach scene (I'm having a really hard time drawing leaves in a pleasing shape. I hate these ones): 

I surrounded the young man with tattoo-flash that I thought his bad-ass-inner-self might like:

I was charmed by what "Ian" wrote on the back of the photos (another reason I didn't want to put it in a frame where I couldn't see it anymore...)

"To Pop from Ian

May '43  St. Ridley, Canada

I don't think much of the middle one."

Oh! I also updated my florescent cowboy. I didn't really like the script so I added some florescent duct tape and a new "Howdy". I want to paint his cheeks florescent pink too but I find myself plum out of flor pink paint! Imagine that!

Off on Easter-weekend-travels! See y'all later!
Thanks again!

Howdy: more flash practice

Here's a cowboy from the Russian Criminal Tattoo book. I put him on florescent paper to be anachronistic (and because I had to go to in the mall this weekend and saw that florescence is all the rage... so y'know, just thought I'd jump that bandwagon. Ha!)

OK. Back to the ol'timey look... these are all based on Tatts Thomas from the Vintage Tattoos book by Carol Clerk. 

Tarter build up:

I love this guy. Smoking kills. Ha.

Here they are before colour:

Thanks again.

What's Red, Green, White, and Black All Over?

These recent paintings that's what!

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This one is based on Bob Maddison and Ben Corday:

This one is the Jantzen Diving Girl swimming with a generic traditional shark:

Thanks.