journalfest 2010

what a great way to spend a few days (especially when one's birthday falls right in the middle)...

so was journalfest 2010...another wonderful teesha and tracy moore art retreat held at fort worden in port townsend, wa.

along with us regulars - janice, ty and marcia, and me...andrew joined in on the fun and became the newest member of house 9E.

all three classes were terrific! first there was roxanne padgett with her painted pocket journals. we painted and stencilled fabric with gay abandon. then we turned our fabric into two fun little journals.

next up was liesel lund and her fabulous travelling pocket journal. there was only six of us in the class plus liesel. it was a really fun, fun day. the energy was playful and light. thanks for setting the tone, liesel...and loved the end result!

last but by no means least, was ingrid dijkers and another one of her fabulous creations...a tunnel book - "through the rabbit hole"...with ty and marcia. I continue to enjoy working on this project since getting home. love the tenniel images and the whole structure and feel of the book. i have only begun to start doodling and there is still more collage and journalling to follow.

the masquerade party was also fun...the band surrealized was in the house.

steampunk corpse - winner of best overall costume

who is that masked individual...?

ty...on the side

bridget lookin' sassy

the weather was great and the trip was a blast. looking forward to artfest 2011!

sunrise on saturday morning

...been a while...

...okay,more than a while since my last post.

I'll have to try and do better...mind you, it is pretty much just for me anywoo, as I only know of a few people who might pop by now and again...or not anymore, seeing as I am so infrequent in my posts.

Since the last post, we have had Wesley's first trip to Las Vegas;

got him settled in his place in Palo Alto, CA for his four-month internship with imo.im

(Wes is listed under Interns); and Stephen and I got to spend a couple days in San Francisco before heading home.

Since we've been home, our Eagles concert on May 14 got postponed (rescheduled for this coming Tuesday); we've seen Eddie Izzard on his Stripped tour with the majority of the Stocker clan;

and Stephen and I went to the Arts Club Theatre presentation of "Buddy - the Buddy Holly Story", which was AWESOME!

Zachary Stevenson does an amazing job in the lead role.

Zachary and the lead guitar player from the play, Jeff Bryant have a band called "The Human Statues"...After the show they were signing copies of their CD so we picked one up.

Sort of a mix of styles...a hint of Beatles, some Crowded House. It's light and fun.

Yesterday, we lost Dennis Hopper. Sad day. At least we will always have his movies.

Today we got out to the Coquitlam Farmer's Market for the first time this season. Spent some time at Starbucks enjoying a beverage, reading the Sunday paper and got in a bit of journaling in my Vegas journal. Then we were off to see Robin Hood.

Movie was pretty good. Covers how Robin Hood becomes the outlaw he was known to be. Can anyone say sequel?

Wish the weather would warm (and dry) up...we actually had to turn the fire place back on the last couple of days because it has been so chilly.

Wes is having a great time in PA and we chat each evening via Skype. I am so thankful we live in a day and age where we have access to the kind of technology that allows us to see and talk to our boy like he's right in the same room.

Back to work tomorrow...argh. Weekends are way too short. C'est la vie.

Well, how's that for a catch-all post?

iSwitched

Well, actually it's 'we' switched, but that wouldn't work as well.

When we continued to have issues with our PC, that have been going on for a few months and progressively been getting worse, we decided it was time for a new computer, so off to market we went with our savy tech-spert.

The intention was to simply replace the CPU, but by the end of the day we were setting up our new iMac.

I think it will take a bit of time to get used to, but so far so good. Between Devon and Bapi, additions to the tech-spert team, we should be fine.

I've got all our pictures loaded into iPhoto and am liking the features so far...and the 27" screen, wireless keyboard and magic mouse are pretty awesome.

Here's hoping everything is as easy as they say...I guess time will tell.

CANADA WINS HOCKEY GOLD!! ...what a ride this has been!!

deb, stephen and rob celebrate with
(licorice) cigars after the big win

WOO HOO!! Couldn't be prouder to be Canadian than I am right now! This win is the "Happily Ever After" to these Olympic games!! WHAT A RIDE!!

The last 17 days have been AMAZING!! So glad we could be part of it all.

After losing to the USA in the round robin, I thought, "This is going to be Roberto Luongo's time to shine." He got to play the rest of the way and took us to the gold medal game where Sid the Kid scores in OT to bring it all home!

Canada has (14) gold medals...more gold medals than any other winter olympics host country...EVER! More gold than any other country in the winter games...EVER!!

WOO HOO!!! GO CANADA GO!!!

2010 opening ceremonies dress rehearsal

Thanks to Sandra, one of our Properties employees that was seconded to the Olympics, I, along with Stephen and our friends, Cindy, Zoe, Ann, Warren and Marianna (apologies if I misspelled your name) were amongst a group privileged to attend the dress rehearsal of the 2010 Vancouver/Whistler Olympic Games last night.

While swore to "not unwrapping the present" by talking about what took place last night, I can safely say that it is going to be one heck of a show and you won't want to miss it!!

I, for one, can't wait to see the entire performance with the real athletes instead of the volunteers who eagerly marched into BC Place Stadium.

So, tomorrow evening, we will all gather to celebrate the opening of the 21st Winter Olympic Games.

The buzz and energy in the downtown core has been growing steadily by the day and as tomorrow will be my last day working downtown until after the games, I am looking forward to heading home in the opposite direction of all those lucky individuals who will be taking part in the opening ceremonies. I plan to take my camera and hopefully capture some of that excitment on my way home from work.

Here's to what I hope will be a wonderfully successful games and that Vancouver gets to showcase itself to the world in a very postive light.

We live on the gorgeous west coast of, in my humble opinion, the best country in the world.

Welcome to everyone who is here to take part as an athlete or a spectator. I hope you enjoy your stay!!

Let the games begin!

play

apparition

...just got back from 'Play' journaling retreat at Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA, hosted by Tracy and Teesha Moore.

Five fun filled days with amazing friends, art and wine.

Tracy taught us how to make polymer clay journal covers. I completed two journals during the retreat, as well as loaded up a bunch of pages in my new ROD journal. (I'll post some pics of this soon). Didn't expect to spend as much time with the clay as I did, but found it very relaxing and the best part of what I accomplished was adding the eyes to the face on 'apparition'. Ty explained how I to add the eye lids, which really brought the piece to life.

Here are a couple shots of Marcia and Ty's work...too cool.

ready, set...CREATE!

Happy new year to one and all...I hope everyone has enjoyed the holiday break.


I was recently reading Teesha Moore's blog and saw that she had signed up for Mary Ann Moss's "Remains of the Day - a shabby journal of scraps" on-line class. I clicked on the link and after thinking about it for a bit, I thought...what the heck. I have joined the yahoo group that MAM set up for the class and I was pleasantly surprised that a few people I know, besides Teesha, are also taking the class.

The only reason I hesitated was that I recently signed up for DJ Petitt's on-line class "Memories and Manipulations" which starts on January 4. I'm really looking forward to this one! If you are interested, check it out soon as registration closes on Monday!!




Here are a few pics of my journal cover and the start of my signatures for the journal. I used some painted fabrics I made in a Traci Bautista class some time ago as the base of my cover.


So, I am off to a strong start on the art front for 2010. Wishing everyone a creative new year. Cheers!

sherlock...not

...so, it turns out I never made it to the sneak preview after all. A killer headache that came on around 3pm that afternoon prevented me from attending so when I got home from work, I went right to bed. As it turns out, when Wes returned from the movie he had an interesting story to share. The theatre stopped the film before it finished and an usher announced to the audience that not only had they misplaced the last reel of the film, they had mixed up the order of the reels they had played. Wes said that explained some of the continuity issues that came up.

They did get a free pass and discount on concession for a future date. How bizarre.

...still haven't managed to see the movie since it came out...maybe tomorrow.

We did see Avatar with some friends last night. AWESOME movie! I highly recommend it.

sneak preview

Tomorrow night I will be attending a sneak preview of Sherlock Holmes!

My son, Wesley and his buddy, Bapi won the tickets by taking part in a scavenger hunt that had them running around Vancouver taking pictures of various Sherlock Holmes displays. In total, they won (3) double passes and Wes was kind enough to invite me to go with him.

Should be fun.

impulse collage

...was the name of the Anahata Katkin class I took at Journalfest back in October. I have long admired her fabulous artwork and finally had the opportunity to take a class with her. It was everything I had hoped for and more. She is a wonderful teacher with a lovely spirit.

Here are a few pictures of what I did in the class. I was really pleased with what I produced...I am especially fond of the page where we had to start with a white background.

lisa vollrath - christmas countdown

Lisa has done it again...check out her countdown to Christmas for some fabulous free goodies!

another zentangle

Here is another zentangle I have been playing with...again, the image just kind of worked its way out.

circle craft goodies

I recently attended the annual Circle Craft Christmas Market. I really enjoy wandering through the booths. There are several booths that I always visit. Kama Soap (fabulous!) and becki rose, and her wonderful primitive patties, among others. This year I was thrilled to come home with this Laura Gibson piece.

"Tea in the Afternoon"

Her art always makes me smile. I love her tongue-in-cheek style. If you go to her website, do check out "Tippi's Making Some Friends"...and you should have seen "Well Hello, Benjamin", a tribute to Mrs. Robinson. It's a great piece. Unfortunately, it isn't on her site...must be a newer piece.

I also acquired another Mud Puppy Clayworks piece. Michelle Wilson creates, what I call, wonderfully Seussian type pottery houses, amongst other things. I still haven't gone all the way and purchased one of her high rises, but my little house is a good start...maybe next year.

teesha inspiration

Teesha Moore has recently produced some great YouTube videos on her journaling techniques, with her fabulous hubby Tracy working the camera.

Having had the opportunity to learn from her first-hand last year at Play [can't wait for next January...it's and awesome way to spend four days...I highly recommend it], it was great to be able to watch each step in her process again. I have watched each one at least twice already and can't wait for more.


So, after watching the videos last weekend, I pulled out my journal and painted a few pages. Then I added some collage borders.




This is one of the pages I have a bit further along. I have also incorporated a bit of what I learned from Anahata.


Thanks for the continued inspiration, Teesha!

seredipity of doodles

I have always doodled...for as long as I can remember.

When we received our registration confirmation for Journalfest (which I attending in late October - more to come on that in the future, if I can get my act together) we were given a small journal and a bunch of images from the teachers, as well as Teesha and Tracy. One one of the journal pages I airbrushed a grey background with Copic marker and attached one of Tracy's images to the middle of the page. The intention was that if I couldn't think of anything else to work on, during our evenings around the dining room table, I would continue his doodles. Part of our goodie bag, when we arrived at the Fort, was a (0.1) Copic black multi liner marker. I knew how to put that to use. I ended up working exclusively on this page for the first two evenings at Journalfest and the first picture is the end result.

Then in Ingrid Dijker's class (Octopus's Garden), she had some doodled images in her journal and called them "Zentangles". I hadn't heard that term before. I have recently been googling them to get some additional inspiration for my doodles. These ARE really relaxing to do. Guess that is the "zen" part of the title. Who knew? I just thought it was doodling. :)

I started a new page with some random shapes and began doodling around and in them. Last evening, as I was working on it, I looked down at the page and saw an distinct image that had evolved inside the doodles, totally on its own. I decided to stop and take a picture (the second one attached).

The last picture was the additional work I did to enhance the image. I loved the serendipity of the whole thing. I call the piece "balancing act".

Give it a try sometime.

mushrooms, anyone?

Well, first of all I guess it is a good thing that I "blog without obligation" otherwise the guilt for not posting for seven months (to the day, I might add) would be immense!

Last week we made our weekly trek to a local farmer's market that we have been going to all summer. I was talking to Cyrus, our 'Mushroom Guy' and asked where I could get my mushrooms after the market closed for the season. He told me about the winter market, which is a great start, and then told me as we were regular customers, he gave me one of the mounds of dirt (?) he had under his table. He said, "Take this home and find a spot that gets indirect light and is between 18-20 degrees celsius. The shitake mushrooms will start to grow and when they do, remove the plastic and put a large plastic bag over the mound like a tent.

We thought, how well can this work...

Well, it appears we found the perfect spot. One week later, this is what we have! It's crazy...the mushrooms seem to double in size every day.

We took our pictures back to the market yesterday to show Cyrus and he said we had indeed found the right spot with the right temperature and most importantly, the right amount of light, which is why they are growing so big.

He told us what a mature mushroom should look like and that we could harvest them at any time. We are curious as to how big they will get, so we are going to give them a bit more time before we harvest, but it's pretty cool...don't you think?

happy 90th birthday, nana!

Today is my Nana Anne's 90th birthday and I was fortunate enough to be able to take the day off and travel to Vancouver Island to share in her celebration.


The sun was shining and best of all, it was one of her good days.


She recognized just about everyone who attended, and those she didn't immediately recognize, mentioned their name and then you could see the twinkle in her eye as that was all the prompt that was required.


I saw relatives and old family friends...some whom I hadn't seen in many, many years.


By the time the party was over, Nana was pretty pooped, so we gathered all the wonderful flowers and cards she had received and took her back to her room for a well deserved nap.


My mom and Auntie Fern, along with our friend Missy, put together a terrific gathering.



Happy Birthday, Nana!! I love you very much. Your first born grandchild, Deb.

journal pages

I scanned most of the pages from my first journal (much better than trying to take pictures of the pages). There is still work to be done, but some of them are pretty much finished...for now.