Settled in the Maritimes of Canada, surrounded by the forest and Acadian Mountain Chain, I live a simple life of gratitude. This blog is a journal of my art, food, furkids, garden, home, my life and my thoughts. Thanks for reading!
A special request 💘: We all know what's going on in our world, let's try not to dwell on it. Let's keep positive and hopeful. Let's stick to the rules. Let's enjoy our time at home and let's be grateful for what we have. Let's learn from it and be better and more conscientious, healthy and self-reliant people. And please, keep any negative or "doomsday" comments off my blog. I don't think it's productive to attempt to instill doubt, fear and anxiety in people as we all deal with this situation. Thanks! 💘
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Easter. I hope everyone out there has a lovely Easter weekend (if you celebrate!). We managed to get a bunch of Easter chocolate the last time we went out shopping so we're good! 😊 Isn't Tweety Bird a cutie, all dressed up for the Easter Parade?
I have a memory of when I was very young...dressing up for Easter in Montreal...I don't remember where in the city I was or if there was an actual parade, but I do remember my bonnet was green and I was wearing white gloves and black patent leather shoes. I also remember being so happy to see tulips growing. Up north though, there are no tulips yet, we are still buried under snow.
Here is a fun scene from the movie Easter Parade with Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. I love this scene! Fred Astaire sure knows how to move! Love his spats!
I made some Mushroom Burgers the other day and they really are delicious.
Alex made us pita pizzas and fries...lots of comfort food!
I've packed most of my art studio...all I kept out are my drawing supplies so I won't be doing any charcoal or painting pieces for a little while. We'll (hopefully) be moving in about a month! Thanks for popping in! That's all for now folks! But please check out the link widget below to see more Easter artwork!
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Water bubbles splashing up from a raging waterfall (Orford Qc 2007)
April 16th: Next Thursday's theme is Bubbles and Bubbly. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨
Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! The link gadget expires Sunday at noon (EST).
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Stencil Art. I decided to turn Bugs Bunny into a stencil for this week's theme, I love how he turned out!
I had some fun colouring with my Sharpies! I dropped by the site Just Color and downloaded/printed this stencil - it reminded me a lot of Jack! That site has hundreds of free downloadable stencils for colouring. Without mentioning the obvious, life is stressful these days...add buying a house and moving to that equation...colouring is very relaxing, you should try it! Jenn, that would be a great (free) way to get the grands into art!!
What did you create this week? Please share your art and check out the link widget below to see more Stencil Art artwork!
Speaking of my baby Jack...he's recovering from a sprain. He slipped on the ice outside and the poor thing injured his hip. This is the same injury he had a few years back that kept him from walking for nearly a month. This time it wasn't so bad, he should be back to normal very soon. The plus is I get to spoil him even more and mother him unbearably! 😊
We opened up the last Jarlsberg cheese that I made in January. Look at those eyes! It's such a delicious cheese!
I've been meaning to post this photo...we've been seeing a flock of wild turkeys in the backyard for a few weeks now. There are 5 of them and they just hang out back there, walking back and forth. We've noticed that they venture out of the woods into the yard on rainy days, pretty cool to see them!
Stencil Art Watercolour (2018)
Where I take my art classes for anyone interested:
Last week, Andrea asked me where I was taking my art courses. Since so many of us are staying at home these days I thought I'd share this in case anyone is interested. At the end of December, I did belong to a "virtual" online art school for a few months, but had a very devastating 😩 critique from the professor there who was pretty insensitive and flippant when I asked "did I do anything right?". It was my Caribou that he critiqued. I was publicly (by recorded video on that art school's site) told that it was "flat", "messy" and "not well thought out"...there was no "movement" and that I needed a "lot" more practice to "get it right". Oh and to boot? He critiqued it on my birthday! After a few days of balling my eyes out and contemplating my talent, I shook it off and canceled my membership. I'm actually very happy in hindsight that this happened because I realized that this particular virtual art school was bleeding me financially because of the "necessary" and very expensive supplies the teacher required for each class. I won't advertise him on my blog, but if anyone wants a cautionary warning, I'll let you know by email the name of the school. You can send me a message via the Contact Form on my sidebar.
So I ventured more into the site Patreon. It's a site where you can subscribe (or become a patron) to many artistic channels. There are a lot of very talented artists on there who offer recorded real-time tutorials, live classes and even one-on-one classes. These are the Patreon artists that I support and from whom I take classes:
Will from Unmask Art: He does coloured pencil and pastel tutorials and live lessons twice a week. I pay $5 a month and have access not only to his current classes, but dozens if not more of the past ones. He also has a great You Tube Channel with lots of free videos. He's such a nice guy and he has a wealth of art knowledge, no question is a silly one with him. I never knew I could create such wonderful art from coloured pencils...you guys have seen my Aging Face, this was one of his live coloured pencil classes; and my Candles was one of his live pastel classes. This is by far my favourite channel.
Kirsty from Kirsty Partridge Art: She does charcoal, watercolour, graphite, coloured pencil, mixed media...she is a delight to listen to and her tutorials are extremely easy to follow. She has so many free You Tube videos. I pay $5 a month for her Patreon channel and again, I have access to her new classes and all of her old ones. She has no live lessons, but her recorded ones are amazing. It was because of Kirsty's channel that I started charcoal drawings, my first was her tutorial, The Elephant. I really love Kirsty's style and the way she shows you how to create art SIMPLY and without expensive materials.
I also follow Steve from The Mind of Watercolor's You Tube Channel. He offers SO MUCH free content about watercolour. I also support his Patreon channel for $1 a month to help him continue to offer great videos. He's taught me so much about watercolour, which has really improved my technique and opened up my creative style when it comes to "loose" watercolour painting. And he has a great sense of humour.
One note about Patreon: it is excruciatingly slow to load at times, and I mean "pull out your hair" excruciating....but once you're on and if you're patient, it's a delight. I have yet to discover more artists on there!
House Update: As most of you know, Alex and I bought our house. We live in Quebec, the house is in New Brunswick. What bad timing for us. Due to new provincial regulations, we can't travel from province to province without self-quarantining for 2 weeks. I was going to travel to New Brunswick to sign the deed on March 31st, stay a few days at the new house then come home. Though there really isn't any legal way to enforce this new regulation, I wanted to comply. After much discussion and research on their part, my NB lawyers deemed it perfectly legal to sign the deed by video call. Alex took this photo, that's me, very seriously signing papers while on a video call with my lawyer. I just thought that it was so neat that we could do it all virtually! As you can see, we are already well into packing up. I'm just wondering how our move next month will be affected, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. We are moving ourselves with a Uhaul...maybe it won't be so bad considering we don't have to rely on a moving company.
I've decided to link to Paint Party Friday this week in hopes that I can get back into the swing of things!!
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Not quite Easter eggs, but here is a photo of a robin's nest that we found in our lilac tree last year. It was fun watching them hatch and seeing the babes learn how to fly!
April 9th: Next Thursday's theme is Easter. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨
Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! The link gadget expires Sunday at noon (EST).
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is based on March's weather lore: In Like A Lamb, Out Like A Lion. I'm hoping that March will go out like a LAMB!!! It sure came in like a LION!! Actually we still have a lot of snow and my logical side knows it ain't over yet!
To represent the lamb part of our theme, I drew a Looney Tunes scene based on the short "Steal Wool" from 1957. (Click on the link to watch the short!) Sam Sheep Dog and Ralph Wolf are always at odds during their work day. Sam guards the sheep/lamb while Ralph tries to steal them.
Ralph looks suspiciously like Wile E. Coyote, but according to Mel Blanc's book, the two differences are their accents and the colour of their noses! Ralph Wolf has a blue-collar accent with a red nose; Wile E. Coyote has a proper upper-class accent with a black nose.
Check out my Lion Fish, done with Prismacolor pencils. What fun this was!!! At first I turned my head at this course, it seemed way too difficult, but once I got started, I really enjoyed it! You can see the texture of the paper through the dark blue, which I'm not crazy about. Next time I'll use the smoother side of the paper to help the colours blend better.
Here is a little video of Charlie, she has spring fever, she's about to start her heat and she's shedding. I've had lots of different breeds of dogs throughout my life but my gosh, the amount of fur that the huskies shed is unreal, I could build another dog with what she's shed so far...it's a hairy situation! 😲
Thanks for popping in! That's all for now folks! But please check out the link widget below to see more In Like A Lamb, Out Like A Lion artwork!
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Watercolour stencil art I did a few years ago
April 2nd: Next Thursday's theme is Stencil Art. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨
Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! The link gadget expires Sunday at noon (EST).
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Light and Dark. I decided to go with a good and evil spin for this week's theme. I love the Jeckyll and Hyde story, and the Looney Tunes did it several times. This is a scene from "Hyde and Hare" where Bugs is adopted by a lonely old man who happens to be Dr. Jeckyll! Here is the video link, I can't find where to embed it on Daily Motion!
I finished my aging face coloured pencil drawing. This was a nice class, I learned a lot about colour theory and layering!
Alex and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary last week! We had a Smoked Cheddar Fondue with Homemade Bread. And we opened up a bottle of bubbly that we've had since 2013! We were celebrating buying our home too.
That's all for now folks! But please check out the link widget below to see more Light and Dark artwork!
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Typical Mid-March weather here in the Laurentian Mountains...more snow! We always get a huge snowstorm around St-Patrick's Day and this year didn't disappoint!
March 26th: Next Thursday's theme is In Like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨
Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! The link gadget expires Sunday at noon (EST).
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Luck. Did you know that it's good luck when a bird poops on your head? That has actually happened to me lol...and poor Sylvester...Tweety Bird is so sneaky tricking him like that! But at least it'll bring him some luck! 😀
Here is the progress on my aging face drawing. Last week I finished the nose and cheeks. This morning I think it's going to be the mustache and maybe the mouth; then the finishing touches. It's been a great class to take! It may be my last class for a few months!
My weekly posts are going to be short and sweet for the next few months and I may have to do a few pre-scheduled ones. I'm kind of overwhelmed at the amount of work that's involved in the home buying process. I think my least favourite task to date was sitting through home insurance quotes from 7 different companies...but I found the best rate and at least that's done! Moving to a different province is also proving to be tricky and time consuming in the planning stage. Wish me continued luck my friends! 😊
This is a photo of the "Sun Room" which will become my studio. Look at that beautiful view! 😊😊😊 That'll be all for now folks! But please check out the link widget below to see more Luck artwork!
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I took this photo in 2010 when I lived on Prince Edward Island. It was December by the ocean - oh that cold ocean wind!!! It went right into your bones! But those skies...the beautiful sunsets lit up the darkening skies with such magnificence!
March 19th: Next Thursday's theme is Light and Dark. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨
Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! The link gadget expires Sunday at noon (EST).
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is What Do You See? Bugs Bunny is seeing his dream come true with a giant carrot garden right before his very eyes!
I started a coloured pencil course two weeks ago. The subject is an aging face with lots of wrinkles. I thought I'd give you an update on my progress since it fits well with this theme! I'm really loving the coloured pencils and learning a lot. For the Bugs drawing, you can see that I just basically used the pencils to colour things in. In this drawing, I used lots of light layers, shading and colour combinations to create a realistic looking face. I wish these courses were more than once a week!
We got BOMBARDED with snow last week...all I can see is a white world out there. I'm so tired of it, I can't wait for spring!
Who did I see coming in from shoveling the driveway? Baby Oscar in the window looking very focused!
My laptop crashed and I have to post via my phone. I don't enjoy smart phones at all...they give me a case of the horribles...😬To make me feel better, Alex made me a yummy dinner of grilled cheese with fries.
It looks like we have about 2 months before our move...we have so much to do! It's very exciting!! It's going to go by so fast!!!
Well, that's all for now folks! Please check out the link widget below to see more What Do You See? artwork!
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It was great luck that I saw the realtor listing of our new home when I did! We got an offer in quick as others started to pop up! Note: Earlier, I had a photo of the actual house here on the blog, but it kept disappearing so I finally just took it down. Here's another one that shows a view of the backyard that our agent took just last week!
March 12th: Next Thursday's theme is Luck. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨
Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! The link gadget expires Sunday at noon (EST).
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Leaps and Bounds. Bugs Bunny and I brainstormed our idea for my drawing this week. We were out of ideas until we bumped into February 29th, and boy does that fella have issues....with a good expensive course of therapy, he'll be just fine. 😉
Do you know anyone who was born on February 29th? I kind of wish I was, I like the idea of being able to say I'm just 13 years old lol! Actually I did have my birthday last week and Alex made it very special. He got me a set of pastel pencils that I've been wanting for months.
He also designed a very sweet card including my birthday dinner menu and a sweet message! I'm a lucky gal! 😊 Oh and by the way, I've been celebrating my "39th" birthday for 14 years now!
He made me a delicious Swiss cheese fondue and baked the bread...it's shaped like a heart!!!
And to my surprise, he'd already cut up the bread on the inside. He just lifted the crusty part off and we were ready to dunk into the cheesy goodness! 😊
After our fondue, he made a cold Irish Coffee cocktail with a chocolate ice cream Sundae. I love Kit Kat chocolate bars, so he loaded it with those and he made a layer of whipped cream spiked with Benedictine Liqueur! Benedictine is an herbal digestif. The whole meal was delicious and so thoughtful! 👏👏👏
This is my Ostrich that I did for a charcoal class. I wanted to draw one in action, leaping and bounding, but I decided to focus on his head! I'm trying really hard to draw fur and feathers! (All of my charcoals are black and white, I don't know why my camera decides sometimes to give it a sepia tone!)
Here's my Humpback Whale leaping through the air into the sea. I really enjoyed drawing this one!
Drum Roll Please.....🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵
WE BOUGHT OUR HOME!!! Okay, to be official, our down payment has been transferred and now we are just waiting on the bank to finalize the verification and send it to our lawyer for closing! (this may go to end of March)
We found a really nice little house in Southern New Brunswick (we are in Quebec). It's one hour from the ocean and one hour from the Fundy Bay and the Hopewell Rocks. (I did it Louise!!! Near the Fundy Bay!!) 💘 It doesn't have the land we want, it's only one acre, but it's a quiet property surrounded by 3-season cottages on a private road. No neighbours year-round! It's zoned "Unzoned and Agricultural" so we can have our chickens and goats and as many dogs as we want! We have river access for kayaking and fishing, the property below us is vacant, back in 2012 the cottage burned down (you can see the burned house in this old satellite image). In the future we will contact the owners of the land and try to buy it to add to our acreage. The area is filled with wildlife...oh Friends...I'm so dog-gone happy and grateful! I'm leaping for joy! (I think I cried for 2 straight hours after getting the news lol) Stay tuned for more updates!!! 😊😊😊
On that note, that's all for now folks! But please check out the link widget below to see more Leaps and Bounds artwork!
I visited Buffalo Land Provincial Park on Prince Edward Island in 2010 - this intimidating buffalo was really giving me the eye! I wonder if he saw me as friend or foe?
March 5th: Next Thursday's theme is What Do You See? Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨🎨
Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! The link gadget expires Sunday at noon (EST).
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Wisdom of the Ages. Here is Bugs Bunny posing for my drawing of Rodin's "The Thinker".
This sculpture has been around for well over 100 years so he must be pretty wise by now with all of that thinking he's been doing!!
According to the Smithsonian, sharks have been on this earth for over 400 million years. Talk about Wisdom of the Ages!! They have continued to exist in our oceans for eons despite how the world has evolved around them...instinctual wisdom! 😊 I created this fella in one of my mixed media courses with a watercolour under-painting on blue toned paper, then charcoals and pastels for shading and details. I've never mixed all these things up before but it was fun seeing it come together!
💋 Thank you so much Friends for all of your lovely comments lately! I'm in the thick of the house hunting process...something may be on the horizon very very soon! I should have some news for you all next Thursday but it's looking like we may have found our home!! Wish me lots of luck!!! Thanks for popping in! Please check out the link widget below to see more Wisdom of the Ages artwork!
February 27th: Next Thursday's theme is Leaps and Bounds. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨
Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! The link gadget expires Sunday at noon (EST).
