Catching up on my blog posting

I posted a couple of blogs that have been sitting in my drafts file for a very long time and am feeling a little guilty that I have not posted anything current.  Time, how does it get away on me so easily.  I guess it's just life and mine swings from being extremely busy with house building and gardening in the summer to a wonderful relaxed winter, full of lots of time to paint and visit with friends.  I guess it's like being retired part time. 

The house building went great this past summer and we made enough progress to actually move into the place.  Yahoo!  Running water instead of running for the water.  We take our comforts for granted and living without them for even a short time really makes you appreciate them.  A stove, hot water, a flush toilet and a washer and dryer actually in the same building as your dirty cloths are all things you can do without but boy is it nicer to live in a house that has them.



I learned how to bake fruit cobbler in the BBQ.

We will be back to work on the rest of our house in the spring, the bottom level is still unfinished and we will have to decide on some type of flooring even if Bernie thinks that plywood floors are wood floors and will be just fine.

The bottom level is where my studio is going to be and I am very excited to put that space together. I have all kinds of ideas floating around in my head and my pinterest board is filling up with lots of pictures of other people's studios.  It's going to be a great big space with room for classes, workshops and art retreats. 



Here are a few pictures from the past summer. 



We built a green/hot house and some raised garden beds.



I had a booth at the Cathedral Village Art show and at the Tobin Lake Art Show.

Went for a couple of hikes in the forest around our place and found this little Earth Star.

Tiling the kitchen island was one of my jobs.

I did a little doodling on the top of a lidded box that sits beside my chair and holds a bunch of my art supplies.

I tried paddle boarding.

Our hops survived and thrived and we picked our first crop.

Cut firewood in the fall.

Enjoyed the wonderful view from the deck of our new home.








 

Pines to palms and back again

My internet connection was very limited last spring and I never got a chance to post this blog.  This blog post and the previous one as well have been stuck in my Draft for quite some time but I can post it now.


If you have followed my blogs for any length of time then you know that we split our year between two homes, one in Saskatchewan and one in Texas.  We are back in Saskathewan now and the transition from one place to the other was a little tougher on me than I remember.
ln Saskatchewan we are building a new home.  While the house is being built we live in "the shack" and though very comfy it lacks a few comforts like a bathroom and stove. We make do and its usually not that hard but its been a very cold spring, we woke up to minus temperatures this morning and it's May 7th.  So running out to the biffy and cooking outside is just no fun when you need to dress up in winter coats and mittens.  We have lots of firewood so aren't cold but have no motivation to go out into the chilly weather.

  I've been stuck inside and could easily be really bored and lonely but instead it has been a great time to get some painting done.

I can warm up the shack with the wood stove, spread my pens and paints over the kitchen table, make a pot of coffee and just disappear for hours at a time in my colours.

When I need some inspiration I often go to my tablet, browse through pinterest, etsy or the blogs that I follow.  I will end up seeing something that sparks my interest, maybe make a quick sketch of it, maybe even try painting it and this process more often than not, leads me into creating something new.

This is exactly what happened this past week.  I saw this amazing picture on facebook.

Then I made this drawing.

 

Then I put all those away and sat and thought about the colours and how fun they were.  I wanted to make something with lots of sunshine and the feeling of a warm summer day while I was stuck inside.

And so far I have painted 8 of these sunny farms.

I love teaching.

Watching the marker react to the alcohol.

During the winter months when I live in Brownsville I happily teach an Arty-Crafty class every Wednesday morning in our community hall.  I love sharing my ideas with the residents and am always looking for new and interesting ideas for the classes. 




Sharpie marker silk scarf painting class in Brownsville.

One of the students favorites has been learning Zen doodling.  Teaching one class usually leads to more and I have to convince the ladies that we should try something else once in awhile. 

When I moved here to Nipawin, I made some inquires about the local Art Club and talked to some members about joining.  Building a house and being too pooped to get off the couch in the evenings kept me from going to any meetings though, Im afraid, so I had not met any of the local artists.

Imagine my surprise when I got a phone call from the Nipawin Art Club asking if I would come and teach a Zen doodle drawing class.  I jumped at the chance.  I love teaching!  How did they know I have taught Zen Doodling??

It seems that one of the ladies that I showed Zen doodling to in Brownsville, Texas was sitting at her cabin at Lower Fishing Lake in Northern Saskatchewan drawing when a member of the Nipawin Art Club noticed and inquired what she was doing.  My name was mentioned and I was called.  Now is ours a Small World or what?? 

On Saturday I had a class of 15, women, men and a teenager!  I gave them the best instructions that I could, loaded their brains with Zentangle history, philosophy and patterns.  They did amazing and I hope that at least some of them continue to find tangle drawings an enjoyable endeavor. 

I met some amazing people and got to spend the afternoon doing something I Love.  Teaching.

What I did this summer.

I went to bed way to early last night so now it's 4 am and I am awake and sitting in front of my computer wondering if there is anything interesting in here.  After catching up on a few of the blogs I follow I got feeling guilty for not writing in my own blog very much this summer.   I have thought about sitting down to write many times but other things just got in the way like building a house I suppose.  Well here goes, a little up date on what my summer has been like.




We went from a hole in the hill in May to a house built in September.

 It will still be a while until we are living in it but at this point we are pretty much done what we wanted to do for this year. 

 

The house is sealed up for the winter, windows, doors, roof, siding.  That is where we had planned to be by fall as we will go south to Texas for the winter. We did manage to get a few extra things done.  We added on 3 decks and we used trees from our yard to make the log railings and posts around the high deck and the logs to hold the deck up.

 Bernie also built a fantastic entry way and is now building us a green house so we can start growing as soon as we get back to Saskatchewan.


Meanwhile we are living in the little shack cabin and I have to tell you that it is COLD in here!!  I have a heater going, am wrapped up in a blanket and the temperature right now is about 14c.  Usually we have a fire going and if I didn't have to go outside to get the wood, it's 0c out there, I would build one.   We usually have wood inside, but I guess Bernie was chilly last night after I went to bed because it's all gone. 

This blog is supposed to be about my art and even though I have not been writing about it I have still been creating art.  Maybe nothing really interesting to show you but I have kept my creative juices flowing by making ATC's (Art Trading Cards) and trading with other, usually Zentangle, artists.  I will quite a big stack of ATC's, will count them and show you some of the really amazing ones real soon.


I took a Cob oven building class this summer.  Cob is an old English word for Lump!  And a cob oven is made from sand, clay and straw all mixed together - with your feet!  Then the cob lumps are built into a round igloo shaped dome that makes the most amazing pizza or bread oven.  One day I hope to build one of my own but not until I have figured out where I want to put it in the yard. 

That is me in the purple shirt and overalls!

I also have my first teaching job here in our new town!  Just a Saturday afternoon drawing class but I am really excited to meet some other local artists and creative people.  The class is next weekend and I'm so excited that I have had the lesson planned and everything prepared of over a week now. 

It's been a really busy summer, just flew by.  We had lots of company, all the kids came a couple of times each, our closest neighbor was around quite a bit building his cabin and we have made some great new Nipawin friends. 

My Grandson and his dog, Molly.

Life is Good! 

Tangled Tropical Garden Card

I should be better at writing these blogs.  I have been doing it long enough now to know that it's not that hard for me to find something to write about.  I have been creative these past weeks, in a whole lot of ways actually. 

I have a great little space set up in the cabin with all my favorite art supplies within easy reach and my pens and some paper by my favorite chair just in case there isn't anything interesting on TV in the evenings.  I have been drawing, doing a little painting and even taking some pictures of my work.  It seems that the only thing Im not doing is writing about it. 

I think I get distracted by all the wonderful flora and fauna around me.  It's so beautiful here at our little piece of paradise.   And there is that other little thing that gets in the way, building a house!

 

Since I have been taking pictures and don't have much time to write, how about if I just show you the last big project I finished.

 It is a card I made for my mom for Mothers Day.  I got the idea from the e-book Tropical Tangled Garden by Cheryl Moote.  I took 1 sheet of 12 by 18 watercolor paper and cut it in half the long way giving me 2 sheets 6 x 18.  I stitched those pieces together again the long way, 6 x 36 inches and accordion folded that into a cover sheet to make the card.  Then I got busy and drew lots of plants, flowers and leaves on both sides.  In total that makes 6 feet of drawing.  When I was happy with all the plants I painted the whole thing. 

I used Koi water colors, Peerless watercolors, Intense pencils, Blick watercolors and my Tombow brush pens. 

So here are a whole bunch of pictures of the card. 

Enjoy!

 

Wow, You made it all the way to the bottom!  Thanks for looking and I hope these pictures inspire you to make a few Tangled Tropical Gardens of your own. 

 

Leave a comment if you want, I love to get feed back, good and bad, but mostly good I hope! 

 

Lori

Creative Juices

I have really settled into my lovely crafting and painting space and finally have something I think is worthy of showing you.

 I try to do some painting every morning and right now that morning time is stretching into afternoon and evening as well. 

Hey, when the mood hits I need to go with it cause it won't last for ever and I want to allow that creative juice to flow through my body and out of my paint brush just as long as it wants to. 

 I started out with a graphite sketch of some mushrooms and some lines that later became the grasses and ferns.  Then I added a wash of watercolor and in this case used my Dick Blick liquid water colors and a water brush.

 
 
 Next came come pen lines.  I gave the ferns and leaves some substance and myself some kind of idea where things were going to go.  I used Copic Multiliner SP because it is water proof so won't care if I paint over it.

If you look close you can see I put down a little masking fluid.  I am not careful enough to leave the highlights on my watercolors so it comes in handy.

 Now I have started to add some color to the mushrooms.  I used Tombow watercolor markers and a water brush to set down the basic color then went  over them again and again adding layers of color with all kinds of other mediums.  I used more liquid watercolor, some Inktense pencils, Dylusions sprays, an old set of Prang, even some Sakura pens, basically pulled out my stash and had at it.

 

The final step was to add all the tangle patterns, doodles and swirls, lots of dots too. 

I worked on four paintings at the same time.  That allows me to let one dry enough before going over it again and not drag my arm through the paint, smearing it and making a mess.  It also gives me a series of paintings that are all similar in color and style.



                                       So here is a little show of the paintings I just finished.