Driftwood Art

The other day I went for a walk along the Westsong Way, a walkway that follows the north shoreline of Victoria Harbour from 'The Blue Bridge' to Westbay Marina. It's a gorgeous walk.

About halfway along, you see this:



It's a sort of shore boat made of driftwood, constructed by local folkartist Rich Rico. You can climb aboard, sit on a bench inside and kick back and enjoy the view. See the people in the boat?



It's quirky...



and whimsical...



It has clam shell teeth... chomp! chomp!



and it's surprisingly structurally sound...



It also reminds people of important stuff...



But beyond the zen and folly, there is a more important message here...



It's about biznus weenies wanting to exploit the natural beauty of our public spaces to allow a parking lot for the floating winnebagos of the rich. No. Fuck off. Go park your 'I have a small penis' yachts in the snotty yacht club in the Uplands.

And breathe, Marnie...

Save Victoria Harbour cos I love it just as it is... and so do they:

Naked Ladies

Yesterday I went to a local art gallery (The Avenue Gallery) to see 'Leonard Cohen: Art Work' - a "collection of his Jean Cocteau-like sketches, features multiple self-portraits, as well as images of Leonard Cohen's homes in Montreal and on the Greek island of Hydra..."

Her Hand in the Sand

While I was meandering print by print, I crossed paths with a man and a little boy. We all stopped in front of the same print above and the boy said, 'he sure liked drawing naked ladies' as nonchalantly as if he could have meant drawing apples. Priceless.

I enjoyed the exhibit very much and was drawn to this piece in particular.

Deeply Familiar

But the $2,600 price tag is beyond what I'm willing to pay, especially for a print. Still, I do like it!

You can see all the entire collection here, though they look a bit different all framed up hanging on the gallery wall.

Artskool.

A few weeks ago I jumped back into painting and signed up for another painting course.

I like to paint with acrylics and I'm currently taking a painting course from Alesha Davies Fowlie - she's great! I've taken a few painting courses over my many years but I've learned so much from her in such a short span of time it's insane and, most importantly, it's been a lot FUN!

This week's assignment was to bring in a 'shit painting' or a canvas you're about ready to chuck in the bin 'so that we can make abstract masterpieces from them.'

'Yeah, right,' I thought and decided to make it challenging and take to the course something uber-ugly; a canvas that I've been using to get rid of excess paint from brushes:



Ain't it pretty?

But after two hours of playing with a t-square, bits of rice paper and various acrylic paints, mediums and gels, I ended up with this:




I realise it might not be to everyone's taste but I fucking love it!

It was so fun to do and difference from 'shit painting' to something expressive and, imo, visually interesting is amazing to me.

I just need to paint the side bits of the canvas and sign it. Oh and give it a name. Any suggestions?

Happy surprise!

Yesterday, I came home from my appointment with Shrinkychick and a round of food shopping, soaked, chilled to the bone and frazzled... oh, how I love this climate during the rainy season.

But all that faded away, when I checked my mail. A surprise! A wonderful book from someone in Scotland and the nicest thing that's happened to me in a very long while.

The blogosphere has been a surprising experience, fer shure.

(blows a kiss to Mr Scotland) ;-)

I love the internet!

Some of you may remember my tampon rant. I bitched about the insidious and intrusive marketing of them and how one day I had had enough.

As a proud owner of a new DivaCup, I have a near full box of tampons collecting dust. I'm also still maintaining an ongoing New Year's Resolution to only make gifts for people instead of buying stuff. So, this site www.tamponcrafts.com just may come in very handy for me.

Here's a sample from the site:

The Menstrual Militia is now recruiting! Arm yourself with a Tampon Shooter and report for target practice and tactical tampon maneuvers...

Is that cool or what?

Anyone have a birthday coming up? Get your orders in soon to avoid disappointment. ;-)

Vegetables.

Veggies. Veg. Edible plant matter.

Do you like vegetables? Do you have any favourites? Do you like them cooked to within an inch of their lives or do you like them raw? roasted? stir-fried? etc? Are there vegetables that you've never tasted? Do you think vegetables are evil? Are there some vegetables that you can't stand? Do you eat your veggies? Any interesting vegetable tales to tell?

I love most vegetables and eat them all sorts of ways. Favourite: onions! Green, spring, sweet, firey, red, raw, roasted, soup-ed, stir-fried, roasted, tempura, bhaji, pickled at the bottom of a gin martini...

Brussels sprouts are evil! I hate them. Hate. Hate. Hate them! According to my poll, it looks like I'm out numbered but I have the science to justify my loathing (more later). I don't like eggplant/aubergine very much either. Or lotus root. Bleugh!

I'm sure there are many veggies I've yet to try or even know about!

Who's next?

BTW, the portrait in the top left is by a wonderful artist called Giuseppe Arcimboldo and the painting is called 'Vegetables In A Bowl Or The Gardener' depending on your perspective:

The Art of Finishing.

Does anyone remember this?




In January, I started a night school painting course and started about half a dozen paintings; each week we experimented with different subjects and/or techniques, so new canvas for each.

I've also been painting, painting over and then starting over again the big penis flower painting. And I'm also painting a gift for a friend.

Not finishing anything started to bother me but how do you know when a painting is finished? Well there are wise words written about that but today, I defined finished as: "good fucking enough!" ;-) and voila, a finished 'painting'...




It's not really a painting painting; it was an exercise (here and here). It's not something that I would choose to paint and it's quite 'flat' but I'm proud of my patience with painting those tiny precise shapes and those flippin' black lines and most of all I'm happy that it's just finished.

I've no idea what to call it. What should I call it?

Seeing red, or rather, primary magenta!

I have spent some time painting. I'm quite happy with it so far. This is a very preliminary stage where the point is to just get colour onto the canvas. It's very blotchy and flat, devoid of detail, etc... but I'm liking it. I'm painting from this photo.

One nugget of advice that I really appreciate receiving was when my painting instructor encouraged me not to think about starting a painting as if it was some big deal, something you had to get right, right from the start. She said, and I'm paraphasing here, "just shut up, grab a brush and slap some pigment onto the canvas" ... "cos you can always paint over it" (as I now know!).

I use to feel nervous before starting a painting (oooo, what if I fuck it up?). Now, judging from the number of painting I have still 'on the go' it seems to be my favourite part... sigh...

;-)

New fresh scent!

I have found a new flower to paint!

After going through all my own photos and strolling around the neighbourhood with my camera in hand, I turned to a few photography blogs that I follow in search of something to catch my eye.

One of the first photos I saw was on Sara Chapman's blog. I enjoy her blog as she's just across the water from me in Seattle. I can recognize the similar climate and plant life in her photography and she really does take great photos.

I was instantly wowed by a close up of a rose on her site but I kept searching and searching various blogs, flickr galleries, smug mug galleries, etc... Suddenly I realised that I was always comparing anything I found to that rose that I saw on Sara's blog.

So I pondered...

Ideally I wanted to take my own photo and paint from that but... well... it's a while until roses start blooming and I am itching to inhale paint fumes, so I email Sara, "Can I have permission to paint your rose?"

"Of course you may paint it."

Yes!

And here it is. I just love it; the shapes, the colours and Sara has assured me that its scent is wonderful!



It's already sketched out on the canvas. No photo of that though as I sketch lightly and my crap photography skills can't pick it up! And! The final product will likely look much different - realism ain't my style. I'm not sure what my style is yet but I'm not too fond of reality!
;-)

Ah-huh! and OMG!!!

I am learning how to paint.

For a few months now I have been working on this 'flower explosion' painting. I huge 4 foot by 3 foot painting of a photo I took of some lilies in a local park. A very close-in shot, painted much larger than life.

I struggled and struggled with this painting. The compostion was great and I loved the colours but something had been bothering about it since I started it and today it finally hit me....

I HATE THE SMELL OF THESE LILIES!

One whiff, instant headache. Once I had this revelation, I could barely look at the painting without getting that 'lily headache' feeling. The psychological effect was that strong.

So, what to do... what to do...

I whipped-out the gesso (acrylic primer) and lilies, their 'stink' and many painting hours, be gone! Gulp! OMG, what have I done?

=:-o

Back to square one and literally a blank canvas...

The non-painting painting class.

Last night was my painting class. People were the object d'art for the lesson and we were to bring in photos of people we knew, or whatever, to paint. Most people brought photos of their children or them and their spouses. I brought 'whatever' in the form of a woman doing some sort of yoga torture posture. I thought it looked cool and would be fun to paint.

Oh, but no...

As I've said elsewhere, I'm not very good at drawing and trying to draw this yoga woman proved very difficult for me. Ms Painting Instructor Woman, Hazel Medlyn sensed my frustration and offered some excellent advice: 'If you can't draw feet, make it really obvious that you can't draw feet'... and went on to say that (paraphrased) if your brain doesn't want to draw feet, don't force it to, play with the feet... perhaps your brain has a better idea that you need to listen to... go with what you perceive as a "weakness," flip it around, play with it and turn it into a strength.

So I did... I can't draw feet, hands or heads and so I let them be silly. I have to admit that I'm quite pleased with the results! Ms Yogasnorkelgirl will eventually be painted but in last night's class is was her time to be figured out.



No paint but an excellent lesson! And a generally unseen part of the process of what goes into a painting. Two and a half hours of a painting course with no painting done is not necessarily a waste of time; it's just two and half hours of time in the process of painting a painting.

I finally had my camera with me!

It was a glorious day again today! This has been a wonderful winter; lots of varied weather from freezing, snowy days to wind storms to 15C sunny, spring weather. All very different from the usual winter grey damp dullness. I went to Esquimalt Lagoon and the Breakwater today to soak it all up, camera in hand... and the wildlife cooperated!

Who remembers Bob Ross?

And his 'happy little trees' and his 'ooooh, let me clean my brush'... whap-a-dee, whap, whap!

I'm not very good at drawing and, well, I'm taking a how to paint course for a reason. Last night's lesson was about painting a still life. 'Oh crap!' I thought as I gazed at the posing vegetables. I didn't know how or where to start. Suddenly, Bob Ross and his 'fro popped into my head... "We don't make mistakes, we just have happy little accidents."

Wasn't he the coolest? Although aesthetically his paintings were not to my taste, he was a pure pleasure to watch and listen to. His 'Joy of Painting' was quite possibly the most hypnotic TV show that I've ever seen. He really emphasized that painting can be just for fun and it was with that attitude that I approached last night's still life. It's not finished yet but, so far, I'm quite pleased with my 'happy little tomatoes!'

Picassos'mores

All the base colours applied and that's that until next week's class. It's growing on me, like a fungal infection and if anything it's certainly an interesting exercise in composition, which is my strength, and colour, which does soooo not.



I'm going to go get some more canvases or maybe just boards and do some more of these using different colour combinations as it's apparent that I've inherited my Dad's eye for colour... I thought his red suspenders with his bright orange shirt looked ok, too.

Picas'so-so'

I'm taking a painting course! I love it, it's great fun; a friendly group of people and an enthusiastic and encouraging instructor. We're jumping right into Cubism, as you do, to explore colour and composition.

I think all that I'm doing is re-exploring the ugly mosaic mural found in a circa 1970s gymnasium in southern Ontario... memories of jungle gyms, dodgeball and floor hockey...

But! It's fun! And Ms Painting Instructor Woman (Hazel Medlyn) says that these sorts of Cubist paintings always start off looking 'quite ghastly'. Haha... confirmed!

This is how the pseudo-Cubism goes --> Find a bottle, glass, pepper mill, whatever... sketch it. Find another... sketch it but think about the compostion but don't put one object infront or behind, draw right through each object. Repeat until happy. Fill in the shapes with colour... again thinking about compostions and experimenting with colour relationships. Then 'add life' to each colour shape. Not there yet... but here's where I'm at:

Snow!

Some photos of Sunday's weather.

Ok. Post number two...

I'm going to attempt to embed something from YouTube. Here goes...




Ta-dah! It worked!

The clip is a slideshow I made a couple of weeks ago after I went for a walk with my camera on a beautiful day.

You can see other creations I made here. I'm just learning!