Weekly Haiku Challenge #12

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..Ronovan’s prompts are creature and study

Through paint, pencil, pen

Mythical creatures appear

As I study line

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – The Colour Blue

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….for more ‘blue’ photos check out Cee’s Photography

My Vegetable Dancer

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..we pulled the remaining beets and carrots from the garden this morning and came up with some unusual shapes and sizes

I started to play around with them and this is what I came up with. Enjoy!

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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Buildings

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….this week’s challenge is all about the entire building. Check it out.

A different take on buildings. An art piece of 3D buildings.

Two Different Ideas of a Good Time

Posted on August 17, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..this weekend my husband and I celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary

Last Friday we loaded up the car with our doped up little dog in the back and headed up north for a nice quiet weekend at the cottage. When we arrived it was slightly overcast but the rain held off until later in the evening. The next day (our anniversary) it poured rain for most of the day.

We decided to not let the weather interfere with our time together or prohibit us from doing things we enjoy. My husband was bound and determined to get out on his mountain bike this weekend and come rain or shine he did. As it turned out it rained on Saturday but he enjoyed his soggy trip through the woods anyway. He returned covered in mud and his clothes were drenched with rain water. Today it didn’t rain but when he returned he was still covered in mud from all the puddles he rode through and he came back with some new scratches from riding next to the thimbleberry bushes. This is my husband’s idea of a good time.

Look who’s wearing a helmet. Yeah!

Scratches from today’s ride.

Look how happy he is.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love to ride my bike as well but I’m more of a city rider.

My idea of a good time is baking in the rain. As you may or may not know, we don’t have electricity at the cottage so all my cooking is done on the BBQ. Every once in awhile I like to bake and seeing I had 5 very ripe bananas and it was our anniversary I decided to create a new recipe using what I had in my cottage kitchen. I really wanted the recipe to be gluten free because I wanted to share the banana bread with my neighbour (outhouse hole digger) who has a gluten intolerance problem. The final product turned out quite well and I will share the recipe with you later this week.

Baking in the Rain.

The finished product. Yummy, oatmeal banana bread.

As you can see our ideas of a good time don’t always go hand in hand but we both enjoyed the banana bread and after 39 years we’ve learned to let each other pursue our individual interests and hobbies. Later in the day my husband played his mandolin and then read his book while I sat down at the table and worked on some drawings of birds. I’ve never done this before but it was part of an assignment for the on-line summer art camp I’m taking. I really enjoyed the process and I think I will work on my drawing skills some more. I honestly didn’t think I could draw birds. The second assignment was one I’ve done with my own students and it’ll be nice to have a couple of samples to show them if I decide to do this with them again.

Art Through the Camera Lens

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…. an on-line assignment that involves taking photos that are not focused

In my Summer Camp art course I’ve painted with watercolour and acrylic, created drawings using oil pastels and pencil, sculpted with wire and made birds from scraps of paper. In today’s assignment I had to take my camera and walk about the neighbourhood and look for things I wouldn’t normally photograph and then snap them out of focus. The idea is to create interesting lines and shapes without recognizing what the object is.

Here is a gallery of some of my shots.

If you’d like more information about the on-line courses that I’ve taken with Carla Sonheim check out her blog here.

Painting on Cedar Shim

Posted on July 30, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..painting birch trees on a piece of carpenter’s shim

I’ve recently taken an on-line course called Paint Your Garden where most of the projects were done on birch plywood. I loved using this surface for painting. While at at the cottage I noticed that we had a lot of shim left over from a recent building project so I chose a piece and primed it with Gesso.

I’ve always loved birch trees and since I’m surrounded by them I decided to use the forest as my garden for this project.

Acrylic paint on 8 x 18 inch cedar shim.

Close-up of tree on the right.

Close-up of the base of one of the trees.

To finish this project I’m planning on drilling two small holes at the top and adding wire to hang.

One Word Photo Challenge – Rainbow

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Mama Cormier

This week’s one word photo challenge is rainbow. Anything that reminds us of rainbows or rainbow colours is worthy of posting. For more information on how to participate in the challenge check out Jennifer Wells’ blog: http://jennifernicholewells.com/2014/07/15/one-word-photo-challenge-rainbow/http://jennifernicholewells.com/2014/07/15/one-word-photo-challenge-rainbow/

Student art

Share Your World – Week 28

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Mama Cormier

Have you ever been a participant in a parade? What did you do?

I’ve watched numerous parades in my lifetime but I can’t remember being in a parade as a child and I know that I’ve never participated in a parade as an adult.

If you were handed free opera tickets, would you go or sell them? Why?

I would go to the opera. I don’t have a lot of exposure with operas but I’d like to change that and if it’s free even better.

Why did you start your blog?

I started my blog to record some of my family memories to share with my children and friends but it quickly became a venue to plot my weight loss and an incentive to stay on track. It worked and I lost 32 pounds.

I also wrote up recipes and started taking photographs of my travels, cottage and experiences around Toronto. Over the last two years I’ve included my own personal art and art that my students produced. I’ve also dabbled in poetry and I love taking part in blogging challenges.

What is your favorite tradition? (family tradition, church tradition, whatever)

My favourite family tradition is celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve. Being German, I’ve always opened presents on Christmas Eve and when I got married my husband embraced that tradition. It worked out well for us because we would celebrate with my family on the 24th and then go to my husband’s family on the 25th.

Even when my husband’s parents passed away we continued to celebrate on Christmas Eve and the kids loved waiting up and then hiding when Santa arrived. It was always magical when we walked into the living room after Santa left and we were made to wait and take in the lit tree and the newly arrived presents under it.

Now that the kids have all grown up some of the traditions have changed slightly and the focus is on the food, drink and good company that we all share on that special night. It has become my husband’s favourite tradition as well.

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 that Germany won over Argentina in the World Cup and I’m grateful that I was able to share the day with my husband, and my daughter and her husband. Thanks to technology we were also able to communicate with our other daughter and our son in the Netherlands during and after the game.

This week I’m looking forward to spending some time at the cottage. I’ve been in the city helping my cousins deal with their very ill mother (my aunt) and I’ve been in and out of the hospital for the last six days. She’s still there but I’m only a phone call away.