Snowy Little Houses

I've been slowly working on a snowy village to decorate our mantel. I was at the dollar store with the kid and picked up some cardboard houses with ugly pictures on them. I picked the pictures off with an exacto knife which was a pain the a**because, of course, they wouldn't come off in one big piece but in a zillion little bits.

Once the images were peeled off, I cut windows out of each house and painted them white with regular acrylic paint. The fact that I butchered the cardboard trying to get the images off added a nice "stucco" a-la-greek look to them.  I put little fake LED candles inside and looks like some gnomes are home eating dinner. (I unknowingly bought candles that flicker which I'm happy about). A few trees from IKEA and a full moon and presto; a snowy Christmas scene!

ugly boxes

scrapped and painted

(I wish I was good at thinking pictures in the dark-but here they are-a glowin'!)
 

 Snowy village

Creative Energy

I hung up my painting up the other day and now it's back to the sewing machine! Yahoo! I had a lot of scraps from making the kid's big boy quilt and made up some bookmarks. I recently bought some fabric paint and wanted to try it out so I added little stencils on them. I was thinking mostly about my husband who has a pile of magazines, books and his "Porsche Bible" on his bedside table, while I have a stack of my neighbor's borrowed novels. So there, you go, 2 bookmarks for my husband and 2 for Marie-Anne.

I also completed a pair of lined wool pants for the kid. I was guesstimating how to attach the lining to the pants and ended up with two pairs of pants attached at the bottoms, oops. A bit of seam-ripping, some head scratching and presto!

 

The No-Nap Painting

There's something about having a coffee in neat neighborhood cafe in a new city that makes you completely content with life; a perfect moment. In fact, that's common with any activity you do while traveling, something as simple as riding a bike or reading the paper on a bench becomes more vivid, more "interesting" than if you were doing the same thing at home. Your friends say "wow" when you tell them about the time you did the crossword overlooking some suspended bridge or water fountain.

I've had a long serie of these moments these last summer days; sucking on homemade popsicles, watching the kid play with the hose, sipping wine with the neighbors, seeing the salmon jump the hatchery ladder, painting a large canvas and many other deliciously simple activities. I've enjoyed these slower days and relish them just as if I were on vacation away.

Sometimes I regret, for a moment or two, especially on long weekends, not having planned something more extravagant: a road trip, a camping adventure, or a romantic getaway with my husband, but I quickly get distracted with daily trips to the park, having snacks with the belugas at the aquarium and having the kid's friends over for old fashioned bed jumping.

My no-nap painting

It's been a week since my son has decided that naps were not part of his daily repertoire of favorite activities, much to my exhausted dismay. "I no close my eyes" he says as I set him down in his bed for "quiet time". As he's spending a good hour talking in bed and inventing scenarios with his stuffed animals, I've been downstairs painting away. Clearly, my frustration with the no-nap situation was transferring itself onto my canvas, because I think I've changed the colors of these darn triangles at least a zillion times all the while hoping I wasn't nearing that "gesso it back to white" moment when you've gone too far and it has become a big puky mess.

So much to my delight, the boy has broken his no-nap pattern today, and I am here finally back to my blog, listening to piano on CBC and feeling the breeze on the patio. Another perfect peaceful summer moment at home.

Rainy Day Tulips

Another rainy day afternoon...

Little Art Project

Here's a step by step demonstration of a series of paintings I did over the month of January. I was inspired by the mountains on the North Shore.

I used:

1. a piece of maple wood which I purchased and had cut at the hardware store.
2. a package of heavy duty eyelets.
3. fun paper.
4. acrylic paints, brushes, medium for varnish and pastels.
5. a surface away from Baby. Notice his little curious hand....

First I made a stencil out of paper to create a "frame" for each of the pieces of wood and I outlined it in pencil.

Then I started painting/pastelling. I took turns with each piece and used the same colors to add continuity. There were many times I thought: "Man, this is ugly!", like at the moment I took this picture, but just kept going.

I bought some really cool paper which comes in a pad at the local art supply store and cut up shapes that I liked.







And glued them onto my mountains.

Then I used "Clear Tar Gel", which is this super gooey medium to make sure the paper bits would stay on and to give the whole piece a nice shiny finish.

Then I decided I didn't like the border pale and redid it in purple.

This one reminded me of Rio de Janeiro. I painted Copacabana beach and a slum, but no Corcovado.

This one reminded me of Vancouver. The beach, the coastal mountains and the Rockies. I made the clouds more festive than they usually are.

This one reminds me of the Gulf Islands, so I put little boats in the water....

Finally I measured the middle point and screwed in an eyelet in each piece of wood. Maple is really soft, so I didn't need a drill. Then I tied them together with string.

And ta-da! 3 mountain paintings.