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.

play

I have been longing for an opportunity to learn howTeesha Moore creates her fabulous journal pages for a few years now.


At the end of January, I finally got my chance by attending Teesha and Tracey's journaling retreat 'Play' at Fort Worden in Port Townsend , WA. I was one of 45 artists who gathered for three and a half days of solid journaling . It was absolute heaven.


We spent the days in a large common room and were provided opportunities to watch several demos on a variety of journaling techniques. Being able to put out all of our supplies and not have to pack up each day was wonderful. At night, the Canadian gang from 6E (Janice, Mo, Ty, Marcia and myself) would gather a few supplies and head back to the house for dinner and evenings of wine, laughter and continued journaling into the early hours of the next morning.


The first night/early morning, I was awoke by an earthquake. It didn't last more than a couple of seconds, but was strong enough to make my heart race. I ran to my bedroom door to see if anyone else had felt it, but nothing but crickets...no one else stirred. I called my hubby back home, apologizing for waking him up at 5:30am to ask if he felt anything. He hadn't, but did call me back at 7:30 to tell me I wasn't crazy and there had been a 4.6(ish) earthquake approx. 35 km north of Seattle (pretty much right where we were located).


So I can honestly say that this retreat rocked my world!


I did have an art epiphany on the last full day. I was looking at what I had created and was so proud of what I had accomplished on my pages that I got a bit weepy (in a good way). I found myself an artistic outlet that allows me to create art on a daily basis...I think I may actually use some of the wonderful journals I have been making for all these years; although I do like the (16) page journals we made at the retreat (using one sheet of fabriano artistico watercolour paper).

I can't wait for next year! But up next, ArtFest at the beginning of April and the first reunion of the 2007 6W gang.


Here are a couple of the pages I created at the retreat. Stay tuned for more to come!

lisa vollrath - valentine's countdown

Another fab collection of goodies from Lisa. Get them (here) while you can!