Leap of....

[detail of sketch, available on eBay]



Leap before you change your mind.....or, according to this Italian saying, literally, leap before you sour!

Weekend update

[photo courtesy of FairyDavis]

Last night, my ATC group met at the Hive. The theme was water. It was a difficult theme, I thought, and besides I hesitate with themes because I find them a little difficult (give me free rein and I can fly...) But it's also good discipline, so I let the word percolate in my mind for the whole month. A line from a song stuck in my mind: "Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink." And since I couldn't dislodge it, I decided to work with it.

At the eleventh hour, I came up with a boatload of people in the middle of the sea (not a drop to drink), and the alternative described with found words. Click on the image to read the words.

Have a fun weekend.

A special birthday

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 83 years old, almost twice the age she was when she died. I think of her every day... Love never dies.

She taught me how to read before I went to kindergarden and my love of books and reading comes from that, and started me on piano lessons at age 5. She believed I could be a concert pianist, but she never reproached me when years later, I didn't have the passion for it. She took me to see Scheherazade and West Side Story. She told me I could be anything I wanted to be, and she gave me this great piece of advice when I was still in my teens and hurting over a perfidious boyfriend: It's easier to get out of a bad relationship than it is to get out of a bad marriage. Most of all she was an example of great courage because she did the right thing against all opposition (yes, Mum, you were right).

Cover art

There's something about this book cover..... I have no idea what it looks like inside, although Siraudeau's books are usually beautiful, so I expect it would be the same here. It's just that this cover really draws me in. Which is exactly what a book cover should be designed to do!

Poppy/coquelicot

Detail of a gouache painting, available on eBay.

Be well, be safe, be happy, .

In my world

In my world, kindness begets kindness. I don't think about it, it comes naturally, so these fishes are flying across land and sea and more land to one of the nicest people I know who has shown me nothing but kindness. And kindness can be just a note saying: How are you?

My challenge (and it's getting easier) is not to react to negative things. For example, I will not let meanness beget meanness. Not in my world, anyway. That doesn't mean I always ignore it; sometimes you have to state your case, but do it calmly and clearly, and then walk away. Happily, this is happening less and less in my life, and for that I am grateful.

How does your garden grow?

My garden is mostly on paper.

I plant with my brush.

I water with paint.

The pot is old paper.

Growth is instant.

Cleanup... well, you always have to clean up!

Chat

CHAT:

Does Proust affect you terribly? Emotionally, I mean?

Nao, not rahlly. His prose does have that sort of...glittering texture, rather like the feeling one gets from the best émaux limousins. But, nao...his peepul...thin, you know, thin, dull, stupeed.

But surely...surely Swann...?

Ah, yes...If all his geese were Swanns...

Myles na Gopaleen (aka Flann O'Brien) writing in the Irish Times.

City scapes

Toronto is a very negotiable city. I don't own a car, I take the subway and I walk. And this is what it looks like.

Ashley's China, view from Balmuto St.

Indigo bookstore (Stampington magazines sold here)

Looking north on Yonge St.


Bird feed containers at Indigo

A stationery tree (Ashley's)

In other news, royalty is visiting Canada: the Emperor of Japan and Paul McCartney (although not together!)

Family

He's the father of four bonnie sons, husband to one of my favorite women, and he is my youngest brother-in-law. When I married his older brother, he was a just a young boy, the youngest of four brothers, waiting for me on the steps of Trinity College Chapel, holding the perfect single red rose tied with an elegant trail of ribbons that was to be my bridal "bouquet." That image of him is one I've never forgotten.

Now in his 40s, he is my trusted friend, whom I love and respect. I can just see his face when he gets this collage!

A good way to start the week

Once again, all those magical beings at Stampington have produced a luscious Somerset Life. From my own magazine work experience, I well know the satisfaction of seeing that first copy come off the press and the pride of a job well done.

I'm lucky to be in this issue too, and I couldn't want a better showcase for my work. Some might call this eye-candy; I call it Dufflet for the Eyes. (For non-Canadians, Dufflet is Toronto's premier pâtissière, whose non-pareil carrot cake I've already featured on this blog.)

My first love

Painting is my first love. Whatever else I discover and do and enjoy, I always go back to painting. I am self-taught: that is, I started with a fervent desire to paint; I studied the masters and their use of light and perspective, among other things; I spent hours in art galleries; I read textbooks; I experimented, I practised, practised, practised, and practised some more. I figured out techniques by trial and error. It took years before I would let my work out before the public. And even then I knew I would have to keep learning. I am still learning.

While working at the bookstore, I was looking through a book on interior design and saw a photograph of a white dress, or it may have been an Edwardian petticoat, hanging on an armoire: more than anything, it was the composition that grabbed my eye. The image stuck in my mind and I knew I wanted to paint it -- not the photograph, but the idea of it, which in my mind became a white, ethereal, almost ghost-like dress floating timelessly in space.

Totally hot....

.... the weather, that is. I've been out more than I've been in, minding the store for a friend, a job not unlike the bookstore, and thinking that my life right now is something of an adventure. That's what happens when you stay open to possibilities.

I'll be back with a weekend update. Meanwhile, the birds say hello-tweet!

[Paintings are available on eBay]

Going with the flow

Set of 4 paintings available in my Etsy shop

I'm having a lot of fun with my growing bird population. Each one has a name and will have a couple of descriptive sentences. When I was a child, I often lived in my imagination because it was a far better place than the actual world around me. Books helped me do that, and so did nature where I had my secret little areas where I took refuge (and where I made up stories in my head).

To this day I cannot do without reading, and I still love wild, tangled gardens.