Wow! I had so much fun at the Busker Festival. It was a bit rainy for a day or two, but I managed to paint between the raindrops. I am working on making a photo album, but that will take a day or two. For now, here's one of my favorite images:
(thanks to Jason for being my photographer on the weekend ! :)
I am off to Toronto to do some street painting at the Toronto International Busker Festival. I have all my colours mixed and ready for some wild street art-fun. I'll be painting on Thurs and Fri, so come see me work in action. If it rains, painting will be postponed to the next day. The festival runs all weekend and sure to be very entertaining, what with all the artists and performers showing off their talents.
Here's an image from the Junction Arts Festival in 2004. One of my favorites.
I have been trying different mediums lately, and watercolours are one of them. I'm no watercolour expert, but it is a good excercise to put paint to paper once in a while. I often think that one medium informs another...working on small detailed pieces, helps me focus for working on bigger pieces. Just like making banana bread (from the previous post), is just as much a creative process as building something, gluing, or playing with wire. I like to mix it up so I don't get bored, but infact the mixing part is what keeps me going, challenging me to the next and the next. How else would the world have new ideas if artists/designers/engineers didn't keep coming up with them?
There's nothing nicer than taking a few minutes on the weekend to bake a lovely loaf of Banana-Blueberry-Chololate Chip- Walnut Loaf. Yum! Is supposed to be a recipy for Banana Bread, but I added all the other things and it turns out just as well. Its so nice that is it not so hot these days to acutally have the oven on.
The painter John Barkely paints thick oil paint canvases and this is what his pallettes look like at his studio:
Since he has no use for them when they get so thick with paint, he gave them to me. Lucky me! They had to be cut up to be transported. They are very heavy. So much paint!
I love how thick and goopy the paint is. Mmmmmm...look at all those layers:
I am not sure yet what I am going to do with these pallettes, but I think taking pictures of them was a start. Right now, they are just airing out on the porch, waiting for something to happen to them. For now, I will just enjoy all the beautiful colours!
What is a long weekend in the summer for, but getting things done. So this is just what I did.
I have wanted to compost for a really long time. It seems silly to be throwing all that lovely veggie stuff into the 'poubelle' when it can decompose so nicely in the backyard. Here in Ottawa, there is no municipal composting program (nothing like the Toronto's super green bins), nor does the city of Ottawa subsidise compost bins. I took Mike The Engineer's idea and made my own with a much cheaper garbage bin with some holes drilled in. Now I am happy that I have a place to throw away all my compostables. So sensible!
This weekend also took me out to the country to see friends new puppies, Fleur and Hershy (can you guess who is who). Is it hard to take pictures of 3 month old puppies? They do not stay still for very long! This also leads to the web site I stumbled upon that is too much fun: CuteOverload.com. Why did I not know about this page? Too much cuteness!
I was doing some rummaging this weekend and found this article on Colour that I had photocopied a few years ago. It is from the textbook Colour Psycology and Colour Theory (1979). It is a bit American-centric, but I do like to think about how colours make us feel and the associations we have with colours.
I just added some images of my studio to the photo albums!
The weekend was spent at a friends cottage with a bunch of pals. Jason took this lovely picture in the early morning. How relaxing to spend time on a porch reading, laughing, and enjoying! Thank you Rob and Amber!
Jason posted more images here.
Update on blog! I have added some Photo Albums to the left and more to come!! I have so many photos and on going documentation on various subjects. I'm so glad I finally figured out how to upload them!
I had such a nice visit to the Big City. Fringe plays, visiting friends and galleries, eating lots of sushi, dim sum, falafel, indian curry near the airport with Lisa, and bike, bike biking. Tania took a nice picture of my bike on the car here. So cute, basket and all! Toronto is a big city to bike with no gears, but it was worth it for lookin' good. Next time I'll bring the old rusty mountain bike (with gears) and get around better.
Here are some interesting things I saw in the city:
This is what we'll have to do to all the cars when they become obsolete:
I saw this nice white bike/art locked up at Dufferin and Bloor.
I got to meet my fav. textile artist Allyson Mitchell at the opening of Fray at the Textile Museum. Here are her funny little pink squirrel-y creatures:
Ah, tea with Tania in her new sweet home:
A drive home along Hwy 401 wouldn't be complete without a stop at the Belleville Value Village where I snagged with nice wall hanging for $5. I think I'm going to live with it for a while, but I'm sure it will incorporated into some art in the near the future.
At the corner of Wellington and Spadina in Ottawa, a book store closed and there is a pile of Free Books!!! Go get 'em!
I am off to visit Toronto for a few days. Adieu!
What happened to last week??? I guess I got lost in a blur of summer goodness...Jamming, pie baking, biking, working on new art in my studio, oooh camping in Algonquin Park over the weekend. (Pals have posted images here and a camp song here). I have been spending morning-time with tea pouring over this crazy Van Gogh paint-by-number. Its a nice way to start the day with tiny coloured lines and numbers.
Its also nice to see that my friends Marmite and Sot finally have their place in the blogspere. Those two are constantly getting up to no good.
The strawberries were lush and plentiful:
It didn't take long to pick 3 baskets:
The jamming went well, only 1 major sticky spill, and now jam for all the toast all summer :) And time to make more angel food cake...I'm in berry heaven!!! It must be Summer!
Look at the score I got from the Belleville Value Village last weekend. All this lovely string and wool and bits was only $6! It was in a couple bags and I had to immediatly colour cordinate them as soon as the bags were opened in my studio. Hmmm, what to do with all this stringy colour?
Today is the first day of Summer, infact right now, at 8:00am-ish is the official start of summer. I celebrated by having my favorite summer dessert for breakfast: angel food cake (made last night ) local strawberries and whip cream . Yummy! Happy Summer to All!
Jason and I took a drive in the country to see my friend Lori in a play in Stirling ON. It was very good. Unfortunatly, I couldn't take pictures of the show. On the way home, we came across this burned out restaurant along the highway. What a good place to stop and take a few artsy pictures. I always like that about road trips, you never know what you'll come across. this must have been a massive fire.
I have finally made sense of my new studio space. It is about 1/3rd the size of the pallatial estate I had on the second floor of the building. But I got rid of a lot of stuff and put a few things in a storage locker. (I'm still trying to decide if I need to keep the things in storage...how useful are they if I don't even want them around anymore?) This new space and cheerful and bright and I am much more organized than before. I have already been testing the waters of making some new things, and I am pleased with the results. Smaller space means making smaller things (which I love) and being more focused and tidy.
The weather has been so dreary here for a few days that I needed something colourful to cheer me up. I couldn't resit the new issue of one of my favorite eye-candy magazines, Beautiful Decay. It worked. All that lovely colour....Mmmmmm.
I made this big box to ship some sculptures to Marten Art Gallery in Bayfield ON. The show isn't until the end of the month, but I wanted to be sure it got there early. The box is big, but atleast it was light (It is smart to make scultpures out of lightweight material :) The box turned out to be a weird little Tim Burton-esque coffin. I especially liked making the 'Fragile' and 'Keep Upright' Labels. It made me feel like a shipping company.
It did rain all day on Saturday, so I painted at Art in the Park today. It was a really nice day today and the painting went well. I tried doing things a bit different this time, and tried some different shaps and designs. It was super fun! And then end of the day, it was good fun to watch the kids make up games hopping from one colour to the next. I even caught a few adults enjoying themselves too. Its after days like today that make the slogging and grunting and trying-days all worth while. Yay for Art and sharing it with people!
