Strange Winter Weather

The last three weeks have been an example of the kind of winter we have experienced here in Toronto. Three weeks ago when I wanted to go for my neighbourhood walk we had a dumping of snow. Two weeks ago it was raining and today the temperature was nice and the sun was out long enough for me to go on my walk and now it is raining/hailing/snowing outside. So bizarre!

This morning I could hear the birds again and saw my first Robin. In front of many houses, furniture stood at the curb. It looks like Spring is a season of new beginnings in more than one way. Not much is growing outside yet but I am sure that in a few weeks we will see the buds starting to appear on the trees again. It is about this time of year that I started my Neighbourhood Journal and I still have a few pages left to fill. It has been a really nice project and has gotten me out to walk each week throughout this year. I've come to know my neighbourhood a lot better and have discovered some places I would like to go back to for a closer look.

My car covered with snow

Inspired by Artists of the Past

"As a painter, I rank green as one of my least favourite colours. But as a naturalist, I view green as soothing to the eye, especially that chlorophyll-laced green of the first leaves in spring. I liken this luminous lime-yellow colour, which the French call chartreuse, to a warm bath for the soul. And when I see that shade of green, I think of the ravine behind our Toronto house on Chaplin Crescent, in what was the village of Forest Hill. The first forest I came to know, my own private woodland, my own The Wind in the Willows world. Would I have become a painter and a naturalist had I not lived where I did as a boy? Hard to say, but that ravine enchanted me and drew me in from the time I could walk."

So begins the new book I picked up at the library yesterday. If you are familiar with Canadian Artists, you may have concluded that the painter who wrote the paragraph above is none other than Robert Bateman who was born the same year as my father, in 1930. Bateman was born in Toronto General Hospital and grew up in Forest Hill which then was a much different place than it is today. Chaplin Crescent is in the Yonge and Eglinton area and his house backed on to a  small ravine which once had a railway running through it but which is now a walking/biking trail. Bateman spent much of his time in the ravine sketching and trapping small birds and animals to research.

The book is called Robert Bateman: Life Sketches, A Memoir. I love to read the stories of artists and this one is especially interesting because he is Canadian, having grown up in Toronto and he is still alive at 85 years of age. Bateman is a wildlife artist and naturalist now living in Saltspring Island, British Columbia. He paints very realistically and I admire his work very much.

The book is filled with his sketches and photographs of the author's life and experiences. It is also a very interesting historical description of Toronto as well as cottage country where Bateman spent many summers.

Some of Bateman's Sketches

A Bateman Painting

I find it a nice break from actually making art to reading about how others make or have made art and what inspired them or what their favourite mediums were and how they used them. I honestly think we can also learn much from those who have gone before.

An Important Note

I wonder if my blog followers could let me know if they received an email alert about this blog. Some people have stopped getting these email alerts and I wonder if others are missing them as well.
If you did get the email alert for this blog, could you let me know?

Thanks so much.

Plans for a New Art Quilt

Each year the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), of which I am a member, holds a Benefit Auction to raise funds for the organization. The funds are used to put out the Journal Magazine, a publication of SAQA, as well as organizing and putting on shows and exhibitions. The Auction is held online so anyone from anywhere can bid on the quilts.

There is no theme so we can put together whatever we want but it has to be 12" X 12" in size. The early bird Deadline is April 1, 2016. Anyone sending in their work before that day will be eligible to be included in the Benefit Auction Promotional Brochures.  The final Deadline is June 1, 2016 and the auction begins on September 16, 2016. On September 16 ALL quilts will be available for $1000. each. The quilts will be divided into 3 bidding sections. It was a complicated system when I first was introduced to it so I won't explain how it works until closer to Auction time.

Quilts from all over the world will be available and I find them all beautiful! The quilts we make are completely donated and shipping them to SAQA is also our responsibility.

Here is a sketch of my quilt idea.

It is inspired by a photo I took of some leaves on my well worn back deck. The deck wood is gray with bits of the original paint still clinging to it in some areas. The leaves are fall colours. It is a fairly simple plan and I hope to make it pop with lots of stitch to bring out the detail in the deck boards. We'll see how it goes.

Out Walking in the Snow

Although I haven't been posting many of my neighbourhood walk sketches, I have been faithfully going out on my walks no matter what the weather. It is amazing what you learn about your surroundings when you walk and observe. Many of the older neighbourhoods are transforming. The small older homes are being knocked down to make room for massive modern homes that have no yards. It is really a shame because the history of the area is then lost. Some of the older homes are so beautiful and speak of days gone by. They have wonderfully large yards with beautiful gardens and areas to sit and enjoy company. There are large old trees around these homes which are sadly lacking when a new home is built. The fact that our neighbourhoods are changing gives me the desire to get some of these older homes down in my sketchbook before they are gone. Below are some of my sketches from the last couple of weeks.

The front of my church building

Inspired by the Passing of Time

We are already more than half way through February 2016! It seems to me that time is passing much too quickly. It didn't pass quick enough when I was a youngster impatiently waiting until I could wear high heels, learn to drive or start dating. But now that I have accomplished those things, if feel like if I don't do the things I would like to do, one day I'll run out of time!

It is always good to set goals and timelines if you strive to get something done. And so, a calendar is an essential tool for that. With the passing of time, I thought of calendars. You can get a calendar with scenery on it, or flowers, or even your own photos plus lots of other subjects.

I've made small calendars in the past of my artwork which I put together myself and have given away to family and friends. I've also made birthday calendars that can be used from year to year. In January, I started to make a calendar that I hope to have printed professionally.

I started with a 14"X14" sheet of watercolour paper and started on the month of January 2017. The theme of January is Winter, obviously. It became a collage as well as watercolour page.

It is in blues and purples and has a painting of birch trees in the snow as well as some blue hydrangeas. I also printed some of my photos of the ice storm from a few years ago onto card stock and glued them to the page. As well I included a text from the Bible.

February is also on a sheet of watercolour paper and its theme is....Love.

 This page is in pinks and reds and includes hearts painted into the background as well as some cross stitched hearts which I glued onto the page.

When I started March, I thought I could use the theme of Art or creativity. I decided then to make the March page from fabric. In my sketchbook I sketched some of the tools I use to make art. I then traced the sketches onto tracing paper and used the tracings to guide my stitching as I transferred the sketches to my page.

The fabric for this page was an experiment I did one time with liquid dyes. The calendar section is also stitched, as is the word March. I also stitched the numbers for the dates and the brushes and pens. The pencils are cross stitched and sewn to the page with a zigzag stitch.

So now I am thinking about April. What will the theme be? What colour should I make it? What media shall I use to make it?  The first three months were easy but now I have 9 other months to do. Do you think you could help me out and send me some theme ideas, colour choices and different media to use? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Looking forward to hearing your ideas!

A Glimpse of Things I'm Working On

I didn't go on my neighbourhood walk this morning. I had all my warm clothing on...long johns, undershirt, turtleneck sweater, etc. The temperature was -16C with a windchill of -22C. I was really debating but thankfully I got unexpected company for coffee. The temperature is supposed to get up to -8C which is a little more manageable. So maybe I'll still go for a walk later today.

Once again I am busy with a number of things in my studio, so I thought I'd give you a glimpse. You can try to figure out what my projects are by the following photos.

Sketchbook Skool Inspiration

In January, I enrolled for Sketchbook Skool again. This is the fourth Sketchbook Skool course I have taken. The first course was called Beginnings, the second, Seeing, the third, Playing and this one is called Expressing. Each Friday, for six weeks, I get a new lesson emailed to me. Tomorrow will be my fourth week in this session. The lessons are very inspirational and they get me trying things I wouldn't otherwise try. So I am building my library of tools and techniques each week.

Our first lesson was on Lettering. I have always found my lettering lacked luster and professionalism. Honestly, I really didn't spend a lot of time on lettering, just wanting to get it done. But I found that if you spend a little more time, the result is really pretty nice to look at.

Here is one of my practice sheets

Here I used several different
types of lettering.

The second lesson was about documenting things in a handmade book. I have made some of my own books in the past, such as accordion books. Our teacher taught us how to make a 6 page book out of one sheet of paper.

Canoe Trip Accordion book

Our third lesson was about Info-graphics. These are drawings with commentary which tell something about the drawings. Below is my info-graphic.

I am truly enjoying the new things I am learning and trying to use them in my art regularly.