Share Your World – January 15, 2018

Posted on January 15, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..thanks to Cee for hosting Share Your World

Complete this sentence: I’m looking forward to….

….doing more painting and art projects. I’ve been reorganizing my studio space for the last few months and even though I’m still not finished I have started to work on small projects.

What is your favorite comfort snack food?

My favourite comfort food is anything with carbs but I’m not suppose to eat them too often because when I start I can’t stop. My all time favourite comfort food is pasta.

What was one of your first moneymaking jobs (other than babysitting or newspaper delivery)?

I remember working in my parents’ milk store when I was 14. I did that till I was 16. When the store was held up for a second time and I was working that night my parents gave up the milk business and opened a fabric store.

What inspired you or what did you appreciate this past week? Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination.

This past week I spent time with a friend who is going through a tough time. I helped her check out nursing homes for her partner and I consoled her on the phone. It made me realize how quickly life can change and how important it is to live life to the fullest. I also spent time with a couple of other friends. With one we went out for lunch together at a really nice restaurant in a hotel and afterwards we walked downtown and browsed around in a few stores. With the second friend we drove to the mall and had lunch and did some shopping for a gift. Then we went to Costco and did our shopping together. We ran into another friend from our teaching days and quickly got caught up with what was happening in our lives. Each moment with all these friends was special in it’s own way.

On Sunday my sister came to visit with her daughter, son-in-law and her baby grandson. She lives about 3 1/2 hours away and she had to cancel a couple of times after Christmas because of weather. I knew that my husband and I had a funeral to attend on Sunday but I didn’t want my Dad to be disappointed again so I didn’t call her back to let her know we wouldn’t be there. Luckily they arrived before we had to leave so in the end we had a short but sweet visit and my father was able to finally take them out for lunch.

At the funeral we were able to reconnect with some of my husbands cousins, got caught up with up was happening in their lives, learned a few things about the family which we didn’t know and promised each other that we wouldn’t wait for the next funeral to get together.

365 Days of Art – New Books

Posted on January 15, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….the last two days have been very busy

Days 13 and 14 are still brewing in my head. I haven’t yet learned to just grab my sketch book and draw whenever I have a spare moment or two. Today and part of yesterday I cleared away some of the Christmas ornaments and tidied up the house for my sister’s visit today. The unfortunate part was that I only spent about 20 minutes with her before my husband and I had to run off to attend a funeral out of town. I didn’t want her not to come because she had cancelled so many times since Christmas because of bad weather and I didn’t want my father to be disappointed if they cancelled again. When we got back from the funeral my father talked at length about the nice visit he had with my sister and her family. He took them all out for lunch before they had to head back home.

The funeral was out of town for a family member on my husband’s side. We’re glad we went. The service was pretty long but it was clear that our cousin’s husband was dearly loved. Afterwards it was nice catching up with some of the other cousins and promising that we would have a family reunion in the near future that wasn’t at a funeral parlour. Most of the day was spent driving to and from the funeral and spending four more hours at the memorial service.

Just before we left a parcel arrived at my door. On Friday I ordered two art books that were recommended by Evelyn Flint on her blog. Jill Kuhn also used the collage book and recommended doing the 50 collages challenge. The first book is called The Collage Workbook by Randel Plowman and the second one is Atmospheric Watercolour by Jean Haines. I’m looking forward to reading both books and am very excited about making more watercolour art. Stay tuned for more 365 Days of Art.

365 Days of Art – Collage – Day 12

Posted on January 13, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..thanks to Jill Kuhn who introduced me to The Collage Workbook

After reading Jill’s post today I was inspired to make some 5 minute collages. This is the first assignment in the The Collage Workbook by Randel Plowman. I’ve ordered the book and hope to work on my collage skills.

Here are four 5-minute collages.

365 Days of Art – Paisley in Red

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..day 11

I’m continuing with my red theme in patterns. I love this paisley activity from Lisa Congdon at Creative Bug.

365 Days of Art – Mostly Red

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..day 10…playing with patterns

I’ve subscribed to Creative Bug for a few years now and I love the variety of classes you can take. There are knitting, quilting, watercolour, acrylic, sketching, photography, weaving and sewing classes, just to name a few. You can try it out for free and if you like it you can subscribe for about $6.00 a month. Classes that you really like you can hold in your own personal library to pull up whenever you want.

The latest class that I’m following is demonstrated by Lisa Congdon and I love her work. Every day for a month she is filming a video challenge on pattern drawing using watercolours or gauche. Yesterday I worked on a chevron pattern and a harlequin pattern.

https://www.creativebug.com/classseries/single/daily-painting-challenge-31-patterns-to-paint?auto=1

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365 Days of Art – Ribbon Lettering

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..Day 9

Some of my art will involve lettering. I’m thinking about taking a calligraphy class. Today I went to Creative Bug and watched a video on ribbon lettering.

365 Days of Art – Day 7

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….I’m a day behind because my new computer was uploading 23 000 photos from the cloud

I’ve continued with the theme ‘threading lightly’ from Carla Sonheim’s year-long class. For this abstract piece I used yupo paper and inks for threading. I love the acrylic inks because they are so vibrant. I filled the spaces with watercolour. The piece is 9″x 12″.

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365 Days of Art – Day 5 Threading Lightly

Posted on January 6, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….this comes from the first prompt of the new year long course that I am taking with Carla Sonheim

Threading lightly is a technique where you run cotton thread through wet watercolour and randomly lay it onto paper and press it with a brayer. We could leave it as an abstract piece or look for a shape within. I decided to find a shape and discovered this quirky duck. Tomorrow or later in the week I’m going to try this technique with ink and perhaps try a landscape.

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365 Days of Art – Day 4

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….decided to switch it up a bit

Today I found some leaves pressed in one of my sketch books and I decided to use it as a collage element. I was also inspired by Herma from Studio Mastarre who draws very whimsical portraits. I haven’t tried to copy her style with today’s post but at some point I’d like to try my hand at it. I did use pencil to start with and I added some watercolour to finish.

365 Days of Art – Days 1, 2 and 3

Posted on January 4, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..meditative and fun to do

I’m loving my personal challenge so far. Three days in and I’ve managed to produce three pieces of abstract art. I won’t always do the same type of art and I will eventually move onto larger pieces. I may even take some of these smaller pieces and use them as inspiration for a larger piece using a different medium, perhaps acrylic or ink.

January 1st, 2018

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