Care Package for a Four Year Old

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Mama Cormier

….every other day my husband and I have been making art for our granddaughter

Earlier in the week our daughter asked the family to send mail to her daughter because she was missing her family and friends. Kevin and I quickly pulled out our art supplies and started to make fun pictures and booklets. Winnie is very much looking forward to Easter so most of our projects have an Easter theme.

In our first package I made a video of what we put in the envelope but my storage space is full with WordPress so I can’t post it here. Those of you who follow me on Facebook may have seen that video. For the second envelope I made another video but I also made photographs.

Winnie and her Mom want to decorate the house for Easter so I made a bunch of hand painted Easter eggs on watercolour paper and Kevin drew her some more bunny pictures. So much fun. We hope she gets them soon. In the meantime I’ve been finding classic children’s stories on Youtube and have sent her the link so that she gets a story or two a day sent by her Oma (that’s me). She loved Strega Nona and The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Art on the Beach

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Mama Cormier

….art installations on the rocky shores of Lake Ontario

Much of the beaches in Col. Sam Smith Park in Toronto are man made and made with landfill. Large of chunks of concrete and rebar and lovely old bricks line the shores of the park and the lake. Over the years people have lined up the bricks and laced them onto the rebar to create interesting sculptures. A couple of weeks ago during one of my walks along the beaches I noticed this interesting sculpture made with rebar and bricks.

Yesterday I took a similar path when I went for my daily walk and specifically looked for this same sculpture. As with most pieces of installation art in nature it was no longer there. I did see another piece that I think was mostly created by nature but it did seem to have some human involvement.

I was inspired to try my own hand at making a piece of sculpture with found objects. The rocks and bricks had such interesting colours and had been worn smooth from the crashing waves. In the second photo you can see that I used bits of wood, seashells, speckled stones and a piece of scrap metal. Can you see the face?

From This to That

Posted on March 24, 2020 by Mama Cormier

…yesterday I showed you two blobs of colour that I would transform

Today I completed a cat that looks like it was crossed with a mouse and a leaf eating dragon. Here’s what I started with…..

….and this is what I ended up with

Starting With a Blob

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Mama Cormier

….when you don’t know what to paint start with a blob of colour

Today was the first day of Sketchbook Revival, another on-line free series of classes to get your creative juices to flow. The program is hosted by Karen Abend and today’s guest artist is one of my favourite teachers, Carla Sonheim.

Carla started by encouraging all artists to journal daily with what she calls box journalling. Basically she draws a box in her journal and divides it into sections and writes and draws in the different spaces. She writes random thoughts, to do and idea lists and draws doodles in one of the smaller squares. All of these help give her inspiration for the rest of her day. She also finds it very meditative.

Blob drawings are a great way to start making art when you’re in a rut and don’t know what you want to paint. You literally lay down a blob of paint onto paper and smear it or spread it in a random fashion with a credit card or palette knife. Here are two examples of blobs that I have laid down on the pages of my sketchbook.

Later this evening I will probably turn then around and see what animal or creature I see and start adding detail with a black marker or with ink. For the one that I just finished I used a water based ink so that I could go back in with a wet brush and add shading by just going over the black lines.

In my first blob I clearly saw a bird flying through the air. Here is my finished piece.

Tea Biscuits and Doodles

Posted on March 22, 2020 by Mama Cormier

….trying to keep busy and watch less TV

My husband finally got bored watching TV and felt well enough to play in the kitchen. For some reason he’s had a craving for tea biscuits so he started to research for a recipe where we had all the ingredients. I haven’t made biscuits in a long time but I do remember that they were pretty basic with simple ingredients. It’s amazing how many variations of tea biscuits there are out there. Some called for evaporated milk and lemon soda pop and of course there are all kinds of add ons like raisin and cranberries.

We finally decided on a classic recipe. My husband also made his own clotted cream and we had a wonderful afternoon tea break with hot biscuits and cream. The only thing missing were the fresh berries to go on top.

Later in the evening I went on the internet and found a new site hosted by Mo Willems, the children’s book author and illustrator. It is very much geared to children but I enjoyed his show ‘Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems”. Check it out if you like to doodle and/or if you have children who like his books. He demonstrates how to draw Pigeon, Piggy and Elephant.