ATC free for you

 

I woke yesterday too early with an idea that kept nagging at me to get up.

As many of you know, I am not to keen on the business end of things. I know I am so lucky to have Wally's support in this.  My commitment to my art has intensified his own and he is devoting stolen time from home improvement to his oil painting which is so good for him.

 

Anyway, my idea was to make some artist trading cards- ATC's as they are known-

inspired by the mixed media bird drawing I did in the previous post-

 to give away to those of you who would care to leave a comment at the bottom of this post with your email address that I can send you one- FREE of charge.

 

Yes! I just want to say thank you. Thank you for following my adventures in creativity and the encouragement it gives me to have you regularly checking in. There are about 20 of you. Surprise me and leave a comment and your email so that I may get your mailing address.

 I would love to do this for you.

 



So many people get up early to see the a beautiful dawn like this.

I was mesmerized by the growing light

and the colour it brought

Muji kept me company by the window

as the clouds flamed

to an amazing orangey pink

and the sun finally came up lighting the stage as people drove to work. Wally was long gone.

 

Looking southeast down the deck a short while later, the clouds clearing

 

By mid morning I had my ATC's drawn out: Birds and Tudor Roses

on 98lb./160g Canson mixed media paper

Instead of drawing the divisions, I lightly scored them with a knife.

You can see the beautiful Platinum pen I drew these with (without a pencil guideline) in pigment ink.

 

This was the progress I made by early afternoon. I will show you this finished sheet tomorrow.

 

Please consider signing up.  I would like to thank you with one of these little cards, signed and dated.

 

 I will keep this offer open through Valentines Day

let's call it a little mid-winter love offering.

 

peace

 

Two Snow Storms

 

This is what I'd been hoping for before Christmas. Well, here it is 2 days after.

 

a good old fashioned snow storm

Wally got let off work early- so he thought.

An hour later he was finished snow blowing.

But doesn't he look happy here! I couldn't have lived with a man who doesn't like winter.

Evening snow on the old lilacs

 

an amazing cloudbank to the south the next morning

 

The next day it snowed again- a lot, but a lighter, less dense snow.

That night: our new streetlight that throws a garish white light was softened by the falling snow.

(you may remember my post about the hydro worker changing the bulb a few weeks back)

Forget-Me-Not Cabin lit up in the night time snow

 

The same view through the back door, the next morning after the 2nd snow fall

Through the Hydrangeas, our concrete bench with a huge loaf of snow on it, thick icing on the hedges

I haven't been particularly focussed on my artwork which is inevitable this time of year,

but I have had fun playing with my new calligraphy pen

Muji got some lap time after this.

 

Love to you,

 in your life,

 in your thoughts,

in your destiny.

 

 

just wow!

 

 I might have posted these earlier if it hadn't been such a busy week.

 



This crazy cloud formation on Sunday morning was a mind blower as it seemed to grow out of the horizon.  It was actually heading for the horizon, the southeast, over Forget-Me-Not cabin's roof.

 

the Hydrangea in the morning light, the lovely orange of the neighbour's maple tree beyond

 

I head for the front of the house where the ash is glowing against a dark western sky. 

 

Another maple in another neighbour's yard is spectacular against this dark sky while the chartreuse and dull burgundy of our ash take on the bright morning light.

Below, a huge pile of hedge trimmings for me to break down before it snows.

 

I slipped a garland of fake apples and cranberries into my simple wreath of artificial ivy

 to make this autumn door arrangement. 

perhaps a few more grapevines would dress it up 

the homestead in the morning shadows

 

down our quiet street 

loving the wildness our across-the-street neighbours leave

 

Sunday was a gorgeous day so we made the most of it with more fall clean-up and 3 loads of laundry on the line. I was taking the 2nd load in when it started to snow tiny pellets. But it didn't last long.

 

 

This is one of those long posts where I put up several days' pictures.

 

It was an intense start to the week as we prepared for 2 trips to Halifax in a row.  Both trips started in the dark of the morning; on the first morning I amused myself with the Venus, Mars, Jupiter conjunction in the southeastern sky and the millions of stars in the black sky.

 



On the second morning I took great pleasure in the Halifax sky from an 8th floor window,

 

moody, dramatic and ever-changing.

 

These odd curls moved in with a teasing break in the clouds beyond

 

The clouds twisted

turned some more and began to break a part

 

while the blue beckoned beyond some even higher clouds.

 

It was a cool morning though not nearly as brisk as the day before so we decided to "chill" from the busy morning by strolling the Halifax Public Gardens, a short 2 blocks away.

 

 We chose the path to the right

 

Some gigantic bulrushes

 

spectacular colour

 

tender, almost "too delicate for this world" scented roses

blooming on ridiculously tall stems

 

The bandshell vista

and that evening's sky over our back yard with a hardy half moon

 

*

 

 This morning's sky sent me running for the camera. Honestly, we get some crazy, beautiful, dramatic skies out here which must have something to do with our proximity to the ocean.

The southeastern sky over Forget-Me-Not Cabin.

Like a long draught of water, I can't seem to get enough sky.

 

Babu appreciating the morning too.

 

And finally, a drawing I started in the car on Tuesday afternoon, engrossed, when suddenly I saw Wally waving, as he drove. He said that our newly re-elected MP (Member of Parliament) as of last night, was celebrating by waving his thank you's from his car, parked on the side of the highway. Too funny.

 

Anyway, here is the drawing:

 

I call this The Faerie Queene after Edmund Spenser's epic poem of the same name.

 

In my search for a rich black, I bounced between my Derwent Colorsoft Black and Koh-I-Noor's Progresso coloured pencil in Black. The big surprise came when I scribbled over some of my drawing in the Derwent Colorsoft White.  The creamy effect indicated a brown tinge to at least one of the blacks.  I worked in my 7x10 inch, 98 pound Canson XL mixed media sketchbook.

 

Between my Derwent pencils made in England, the Koh-I-Noor made in the Czech Republic, my sketchbook made of French paper but bound in Poland, and my drawing made here in Canada, I find myself quite amazed by how these connections are made in today's world. I'm amazed even more when I consider all the human beings involved, the investments, business, advertising and travel that brought this all together. Not to mention the Internet, Google, Blogger, Telecommunications and Electricity!

 

Just Wow!

Quietly slipping into March

The last two weeks are a bit of a blur to me now. I have pictures here that span most of it:

Starting with February 15th, I am looking out the bedroom window toward our buried vegetable garden and the hayfield beyond, now officially called the snow field.

 

Along this same deck looking towards the big ash tree at the front of the house

 

There won't be any getting out this back door for a while 

Wally clears a path for the oil man to access our delivery,

and for eventually blowing out the back deck.

 

The following morning

 

At our driveway entrance, the ash casts its shadow across the street

 

Babu watches the world with me

 

A picture of Babu 5 days later, fast asleep

 

Meanwhile,Wally finally has time to get at the back deck that morning.

Our car is dwarfed by the snowbanks. Eventually Wally blows out this deck too.

The next evening, a gift

 

the sky on fire

 

Muji shares it with me from the stairs.

(Yes, Muji has a bum shoulder, but you should see him move when he chases Babu!)

 

And so it goes, or should I say, and so it snows.

 

Sometimes Wally has to come home from a long day of work and snowblow after yet another snowfall. My evenings are bunched up with meal prep, keeping to Wally's new diet, which isn't as easy as the old days now that we have excluded potatoes and pasta, sugar and minimal salt. 

 

The hedge completely buried now.

 

Often Wally tries to accompany me for a walk in a big box store that is not so treacherous as the icy hills around here (if you don't include the off-gassing from so many chemicals), but on nights like this we stick to the business at hand and live a quiet (not including the snowblower) life.

 

After almost 2 weeks of sorting through the possibilities, necessary to justify our new workbench that will serve as an industrial twist on countertop, we have scrapped our plans to keep a 2 piece bathroom incorporated into what will be... the new kitchen. While the bathroom would have been accessed through another room, saving door swing, it needs more space than I imagined.

 

We've decided to borrow space from the traditional dining room of this old house that we are presently using for office and food storage. Ironically, my ego was discombobulated to give up all the work I'd done to try to incorporate the 2 piece (which I've since decided must allow for a vanity large enough to hide the kitty litter box) into the new kitchen space that must also allow for dining and the hidden space guzzler, traffic flow. The new plan makes so much more sense. It will allow for a small pantry. We are both eager to get at it, but that won't come until we can move the bedroom upstairs... and the upstairs still needs a lot of work.

 

So with that I wish you peace and joy in your own life. I hope I will be able to share some creative work with you soon. Until then, I hope you can bring some creativity into your own life, so good for the soul..