A New Art Form for Me

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….acrylic still life

I’ve done still life in watercolour and pencil crayon and I’ve played with acrylics mixed with glazes. In the last two weeks I’ve been checking out Bob Burridge’s youtube channel and decided to try his technique of laying down lots of colour and then painting in the negative space to create a vase of flowers. Here’s one example of how I started. It is actually the second piece that I painted.

It’s hard to imagine that the finished piece came from the first painting but it did.

I had so many positive comments on my first piece using this technique that I decided to donate it to our school’s silent auction. Here’s what it looks like. I have since framed it.

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I went on to painting a wine bottle using a slightly different technique but the application of light and dark and adding a shadow are the same.

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Finally I painted a pear using a very simple circle/triangle technique to create the pear and then adding dark and light to the background and a shadow to create depth.

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If you’re interested in the technique I used for the flowers check out Bob’s video.

Bob Burridge

 

The 50 Mile Coat

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…last weekend I attended the closing day of the EHS Inspires show at the Neilson Park Creative Centre  where the 50 mile coat had been completed and was on display

A good friend of mine is a member of the Etobicoke Handweavers and Spinners Guild. They recently undertook an enormous project that took 800 hours to complete. They designed and hand made a coat that used materials that were accessed within a 50 mile radius of the the studio where the materials where assembled and put together.

It started with the shearing of the wool from sheep in Pelham. The wool was then cleaned and carded and spun by hand into yarn. I don’t remember the numbers but there were several spinning wheels at the centre where members took turns spinning the wool into yarn. Neilson Park is in the middle of a naturalized park area and ladies of the guild collected plant materials to make natural dyes. One of the plants they used were marigolds. The yarn was dyed and then the loom was set up with the warping threads.

Once enough cloth was woven for the coat, the pattern (designed and made by one of the members) was pinned to the fabric and cut out. The entire coat was hand sewn with thread that was also handmade. The buttons were made from wood that came from another members property and carved into beautiful shapes. My friend made the felted colour for the coat.

I’m sure I haven’t done justice to the long process that was involved in making this coat and I’ve probably missed some steps. Now that the coat is done it is going on tour. I’m not sure where it will end up but it certainly should be in a museum somewhere so that many more people can enjoy it.

The show also featured many other beautiful works of art made by the members of the guild. All the felted pieces featured here were made by my friend ML and the one piece at the top of the gallery of photos she describes as ‘a memory of the colour and textures of the Aran Islands on the west coast of Ireland’.

Share Your World 2016 – Week 20

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….thanks to  Cee for hosting Share Your World

When do you feel most connected with others?

I feel most connected to people during those quiet one on one conversations over a cup of coffee or tea. I like that intimate personal time with people where you can really get to know them.

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Tea and Panettone

What daily habit would you like to introduce to your life?

I would like to do one creative activity every day. I paint and read sporadically  now but I’d like to be more consistent. I’d also like to do some volunteer work.

What one mini-little-adventure would you like to have in the coming week?

This week I’d like to visit the art gallery or the museum. It’s a long weekend here in Canada and sometimes it’s a good time to visit places in the city because so many people head north to open their cottages.

List things or events that changed your Life: It could be as simple as a book or meeting a certain person?

• meeting my husband 43 years agowedding photo

• the birth of my childrenIMG_8312

• graduating from university and becoming a teacher

• the death of my mother

• meeting my best friends AB in 1976 and LC in 1989

• learning to drive when I was in my 20s

• my first art class where I learned how to paint with watercolour

• building a cottage next to my good friend DM

• the birth of our first grandchildIMG_6535

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I’m grateful for being able to continue on my weight loss journey and for the support of my husband and my friends at work. My husband has lost 26 pounds and I’m down 18. My new passport arrived this week and I can check off one more thing from my to do list before I go to Italy in July. I’m also grateful that my photo isn’t the worst passport photo that I’ve ever taken. I have to live with it for the next 10 years. IMG_8311

For the rest of the week I’m looking forward to our girls’ soccer tournament on Friday, visiting our daughter and her family in Hamilton on Saturday and seeing my older daughter on Sunday or Monday. Since it’s the long weekend here I’m also looking forward to planting some things in the garden and firing up the barbecue for a meal or two. It’s also suppose to be a spectacular weekend, weather wise.

Here are a few photos from this past week.

 

Sunday Trees – 235

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…..a cold weekend but a few minutes of sun now and then

Thanks Becca for hosting Sunday Trees. It was definitely a strange weather day for the middle of May. It was cold and windy and then the rain started, off and on for most of the day. I jokingly asked my husband if he was expecting more snow because our snow shovel wasn’t put away. He scoffed and told me not to even think like that. Too late. An hour later we experienced snow and hail. Luckily it didn’t last long.

Later in the afternoon I took the dog for a short walk. It was still cold but the sun made brief appearances between the clouds. I like the light in the late afternoon but I had to act quickly if I was going to get that perfect shot today. The trees are starting to sprout their leaves and I love that light yellow green of spring.

Same tree, taken minutes apart and at slightly different angles. Not exactly the perfect shot. The light that I like disappeared very quickly behind the clouds.

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Georgia O’Keefe Inspired Art

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….a great lesson for symmetry and using oil pastels

My grade 1, 2 and 3 classes were given a quick introduction to Georgia O’Keefe’s flower paintings. I had some beautiful calendar pages that featured some of her florals. I pointed out how she blended colours and how the whole page was filled with her flower image. Most of the classes had studied symmetry in their math classes so I showed them an example of symmetry in nature and one that was man-made.

For this lesson I wanted them to try and create a flower that had at least two lines of symmetry. I showed them how to divide their paper into equal quarters and then I started the flower from the middle. I demonstrated how to blend colours and over lay colours using oil pastels.

Most of the students got the concept and many loved adding more and more colour. When a student didn’t like their colour choices I showed them how to add white or peach to lighten or soften their picture. They were so open to trying this technique and most came back with a completely different picture and much happier with their project.

The first slideshow is work from my two grade one classes and the second one features larger samples from my grade two class.

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