And Just Like That; It's Over.

What a loaded title,right?


Of course I could have been talking about how fast Summer seemed to fly by which it did:

We went camping, swimming, and to the park among other things. Most everything on our bucket list was crossed off and a few things were added in that were completely awesome; me being offered a job for instance. 

What's that you say? Yes I was offered a job at the beginning of the summer break right after the Peanut's birthday party. I am currently part of the teaching faculty at Burnaby's Artspace for Children. I teach toddlers and their parents, Preschoolers and school aged children art on Saturday mornings. It is so much fun and so nerve wracking too. Fortunately I have two tester kids to practice my classes on and tweak them accordingly. So far we've painted circles and op-art, drawn a still life and made an autumn leaf collage. You can see some pictures of me in action;  and some of the other amazing classes available at Artspace if you click on this link here
.


 
Also added in was a great night out for me and a friend where I got to go and hear one of my favourite authors read. While I would have liked to get a personalized autograph on my book I made due with a pre-signed copy I might have been waiting until 1AM had we stuck around. And then we were off on our camping trip and then back in time to scramble for the beginning of school. Which leads me to September. September just flew by.

It could have been that the first week is full of the unknown, new teacher, new class and nothing is settled until the second week. It could have been that I began teaching the second weekend and getting each lesson planned and organized takes up a lot of time. It could be that juggling our schedules has just swallowed up a lot of time and it could be that each week something new has started or finished or popped up and when that happens time seems to fly. In any case September is nearly over and I feel like I have whiplash.

How was your summer? What did you do? It's been so long, let's catch up.

this and that again again again

We've been doing laundry dryer free since before December of last year. It sounds like such a long time ago when I put it like that and then I think about it and it is a long time. On sunny days like today it's actually kind of nice, sheets and towels outside on the line is a nice image, even every one's clothes on the line outside is nice. The rest of the time we've been using the multi-tiered drying rack that we got from IKEA but it's slow going. Toss in a few days where the family has been sick and then it feels like we have laundry piles from a year's worth of living.

The Husband is in school now and re-shifting his priorities as he figures out what it is he wants to do.

I'm in the midst of a project that is taking me outside of my comfort zone and also hopefully bringing a happy moment to strangers in my city. On top of that I've challenged myself to submit a piece of art to an art magazine which is giving me something to mull over while I'm playing with the Bean or picking up the Peanut from school.

Add to that trying to get organized for my niece's wedding in less than a month and it's busy around here.

What have you been up to?

Deep Deep Breaths or There's nothing quite as exhilerating as jumping in with very little prep

Oh boy; so I went and gone and done it.

An assortment of snowflake ornaments

The Peanut's school's PAC sent home a request for items for a silent auction that they hold as a fundraiser every year. Last year the husband and I attended the event for a short hour and a half before heading downtown to see The Watchmen (one of our all time favourite Canadian rock bands) perform at a grey cup party. While we were there, we bought the Peanut's art pieces that she made for the sale and also a few other gifts for family and friends. This year we have no other obligations and are excited to be there all night long.

The Bean's Peacock ornament I made for her last year

I've been playing with the idea of approaching them next year to have a table at the sale. It's well attended and the people who attend are there to spend some money, it's a fund raiser after all and also an amazing place to get holiday shopping done and dealt with. So I thought to get my feet wet I'd dip a toe in and offer a set of three ornaments for their silent auction and perhaps inquire about setting up a table for the following year. They replied with an invitation to set up a table this year and now I'm awash in excitement and panic in equal measure.

This Year's ornaments for the girls; the first of as many
as I can put together over the next few weeks

We have about 60 finished ornaments sitting in boxes that can be sold right away and about 60 more that can be soldered if need be. Is that enough? should I include other things? The Peacocks I created last year? I have 5 of them in various states of finished; read all done to still needing a first coat of paint. The felt trees I've been making this year? I can make about 3 or four a day if I don't embellish them with stitchery and beads.

What do I have on hand to display with? What do I need still? What should I build my banner with? Should I have one? Should I price individually or use signage since all my ornaments are the same price across the board? A Float how much change should I have on hand? Packaging, business cards, mailing list, artist bio..... on top of keeping up with the laundry, feeding the family and making sure the Peanut is picked up from school and the Bean isn't drawing on the couch with permanent marker (true story) and also dealing with her recent habit of getting up at 4, 4:30 and 5AM. I have one pretty full plate.

One of my intentions for this coming year is to take any reasonable opportunity and keep up any momentum that builds so that I keep moving forward. I could have politely declined the offer of the table. I could have stepped back and made plans for next year instead. Instead I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and accepted. I've been reading up on doing shows, I've got a list of display items I'd love to be able to put to use, some that I can only dream of and others that I have on hand and or can put together simply and elegantly (I hope).

So the roller coaster is starting up that first big hill, the trick will be to keep those cars on track after that first hill. Any good advice out there?

Wow

The husband and I finally had a date night two weeks ago.

What did we do? We went to see Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra and it was one of the best live shows I have ever had the fortune of experiencing.

It's been a whole since I shared one of the treasury's I've put together on Etsy. This collection was inspired by the City of Stars print by LisaChow. I pulled each item using the ideas behind reaching for that ultimate goal, grabbing for your dreams, jumping out of faith and the idea of rebirth and new beginnings. Please, feel free to click on the image to get a much better view of the collection.

Trying Something New

A Painting the Peanut & I did together

can be daunting. Especially when you go from working in a medium that you have become so comfortable working in, that the process is mostly a focus on bringing about your vision instead of learning the aspects of that medium and how to work within the medium to get the finished product that is in your minds eye.

For example changing your drawing medium from pen and ink to brush and ink. With pen and ink you draw using lines, crosshatching or scribbles for building up your shadows. After a certain amount of time you don't really think about where your pen tip is going how your marks are being made you just look at your subject and draw, or int he case of drawing from your head you just draw. If one day you decide to try something different and pull out a bamboo brush and a jar of india ink the process of drawing becomes a little more about using that medium instead of the medium as a means to an end. With ink and brush you start with light washes, working from light to dark, it's a slower process, the ink dries in a specific way and the look of the sketch is softer. if you are working wet into wet you get unexpected blends and unexpected hard lines where the wet areas have dried. The process becomes focused on the medium and you start to look at your subject differently. When that happens there's growth in your art.

Snapshot from my phone

Of course one of the daunting aspects is that what you're making isn't going to be perfect, that there are going to be less than ideal and unpredictable outcomes. The trick is to use the newness of the medium to let go of the finished project. Make the process the goal instead of the final piece; at least until you've gotten to really really know the medium. Of course that's not as easy as it sounds when you put it down in words. Creating something be it a drawing, a photograph, painting or sculpting is a personal thing. Becoming invested in what you are creating is inevitable. there's the time invested, the money that goes into buying the materials, the imagination and the effort. All those things put together make it almost impossible to give up control, to relinquish the desire to put what is being worked on up on a pedestal. A good friend just posted about this very thing on her blog. She put is so perfectly that I felt I had to address the same subject here.

Why? well because I made a decision at the end of last year that I was going to reintroduce myself to the basics of creating. You know, in between dealing with a busy Bean and a precocious Peanut. It's not always easy but to motivate me I've started following the Sketchbook Challenge and I've started photographing on a daily basis with an iphone. (getting past the camera has to be a camera mindset helps a little. My camera snobbery was holding me back, especially when I was worried about braining the Bean with my heavy SLR when she'd need to be picked up.) I'm more prolific with the camera right now but that's not what's important. What is important is that I'm making time to create and the process is more important than the final outcome.

Doodles from my sketchbook a la
The Sketchbook Challenge

Giving myself permission to make mistakes, push past them and go too far, to reign it back in and push too far again to go so far that there's no turning back, no fixing it. To let go. It seems like taking advantage of that permission is the greatest challenge. So what about you? do you sometimes find that you are holding on too tightly to what you're creating that you aren't letting it grow? I remember a drawing class where after a set amount of time we stood up moved to the next space and continued on the drawing that our neighbor had just left... I still cringe at the thought of letting go of my ownership of that piece of paper...

Something Fun in the Works

We're busy acclimatizing to the new Household order around here so things are a little behind here as we all get settled into schedules. I do have a good sized blog post in the works i the form of a product review which is also translated into a special deal for you if you're into that kind of thing.

I've been getting back into a creative head space working in a sketchbook, photographing and getting a new line of ornaments for PeanutButterPie on the go.

I'm hoping to get the review post up by this weekend.

A Thousand Words

Birds on a wire

The "I'm getting excited about photography again!" edition

An evening Out

So I'm still sans computer and because I've got me a sorry sad case of Mommy Brain keeping track of passwords is not my strong suit at the moment which means that I have a big rig-a-ma-roll to go through in order to sign in and upload a post here which is my long winded run on sentence way of letting you know that I'm still breathing and why it's been almost a month since my last post.

So anyway, Sunday night was my very first night out( that wasn't school related) since the Bean made her momentous debut last January. I went out for Dinner with one of my best friends and then out to An Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. It was awesome. Sitting in the packed theater it felt as though all of us in the audience had been invited into home, the effect heightened by the random false starts and stumbles made during songs, it was as if we were a group of friends all there to celebrate with song some dance stories and laughter. As a couple they are charming and the affection that is between them is damned near romance personified, the kind that allows for wisecracks, silliness, liberal use of the F-bomb and love poems.

Before last night's outing I had not been very well acquainted with Amanda's music but the moment she opened her mouth before the festivities began and then to sing the duet Makin' Whoopee with her husband I knew that I'd found my new girl crush. If you need to know why just take moment to watch this youtube video of one of the songs performed while I escaped for an evening (warning: the song below does make use of questionable language, if you don't approve of the f-word I'd love you to go and find Amanda's version of Radiohead's Creep"



And once my evening was over I was sent back to mommy land where the Peanut had been busy puking all over the place in my absence and the Bean who had been sleeping soundly since 7 had woken promptly at 11 to have to fight for attention from Daddy who was awash in sick Peanut (and the laundry that comes with a sick peanut) so she began to scream/cry herself back to sleep until I managed to get home at 1am.

It is Tuesday and the Peanut is still home with a delicate stomach and the Bean is out of sorts because the time change and I've managed to steal a few minutes to write about my amazing night and all that followed behind it... I'm hoping to steal more time here and there to post again soon but until then how have you been? I've missed keeping in touch you know.

Visual Diary

It's my birthday today. To celebrate, here's how I'd spoil myself given unlimited funds and a free hour on Etsy. What I did get was a lemon Meringue pie and a dozen roses from the Husband and a hand drawn card from the Peanut. The Bean let me take her for her 6 month shots. All in all one damn fine birthday, minus (you know) the part where the Bean got stuck with a needle.

A Visual Diary

Since the Peanut's been in a dinosaur mood lately it's leaked into my indulgence in her passion has bled into my list creation




Click for a closer look

A Visual Diary

There seems to be a running theme in my lists





a certain longing....

Click the image for a better look

A Visual Diary

It's birthday season around here and there's been a whole lot of wishing going on:

A Visual Diary

of what my imagination's been up to

A little visual magic seemed to be called for, but with a dash of edginess for good measure. If you'll notice I ended things on an optimistic note

Click on the image for a better look.

A Visual Diary

of how I've been feeling lately:

I've been building treasuries a lot lately, especially when the Bean takes up a little more time with her teething and solid food eating ways. When I get a few moments here and there but not enough time to really get my make on; I put together a treasury of images that fit my mood as well as my need to make something.

So now I share.
Click on the collection above to get a super view of my curatorial activities

Just for me

There are a few things I've been up to lately that are doing a wonderful job of (to put it all smooshy like) feeding my soul.



Picking raspberries is one. Harvesting the lavender is another. I love the intense blue violet of the tiny blossoms, the smell is divine and a big sniff can undo any amount of stress for even just a second which is so worth it. Also there's a soothing drone in my garden that comes from the bees who come to visit for the lavender and thyme flowers.

Also feeding my soul is the few minutes here and there that I've been able to be creative again. It started for the Peanut's birthday with a Chinese lantern chandelier, a stick a hat on Quack poster and a tiny tissue cake banner. Since then I've been playing around with image transfers.

I've been using images from the Vintage Moth blog which are fantastic by the way. I've almost perfected a transfer technique using liquid sculpey and my mind is whirling around ways to put it to good use. I recently bought some small cradled panels that I want to make into shadow box art pieces which would work well with a little translucent imagery.

So don't let me air out all my soul feeding ways alone; what's been feeding your soul lately?

And now I'll let the Husband speak

So, I was painting and playing and putting ideas together and there was this big stack of 1" x 3" wafers of glass coated in some intense jewel tones, glittering and sparkling with duo-tone colours. And the husband was sitting across the table from me; soldering iron in hand with wires and circuit boards, resistors and all sorts of electronic gew gaws spread around, building stomp boxes for his bass.

And this is where the idea to work together started. The rest of this post is about the Husband's role in the process and because it's all about the work he's putting in I figured it should be in his words; Reader's meet the Husband:

I guess it started as my sweetie said above....an idea about glass pieces bound together with soldered-copper. When she asked me if I could solder them, I said (of course)...sure. Of course, I had no idea how difficult or different copper foil soldering would be from electronics soldering.

Soldering itself is a bit of an art form. I got into basic electronics a few years ago, and I'm probably still not as good as I should be (even after 50 or so projects). That's why I push myself to do as many as possible; to get myself better. Soldering electronics or art pieces isn't something that can be necessarily taught. It just takes lots of practice to get the perfect bead.

The main difference between electronics and the sun catchers that we are working on is the type of solder used. When I'm working on my electronics I use a 63/37 mix of tin and lead. For the sun catchers, I use a tin/copper or tin/silver copper solder, otherwise known as "lead free". Lead is not necessarily good for the environment, or me for that matter (maybe that's what's wrong with me), but lead-free solder is a royal PITA to work with. Actually solder in general is a royal PITA to work with.

The trick with soldering is adhesion, and that depends on two factors: the getting the right temperature and keeping your surface clean, clean, clean.... If you do not have either, then the solder does not flow and becomes an ugly blob called a "cold solder joint"; more of an electronics term, I know, but seems to apply to doing art pieces as well. The metal (or copper) and the solder have to be at the right temperature to flow properly. Either way, blobs are not good and look ugly. What you want is the solder to melt onto your copper foil in a smooth liquid finish called a bead.

My biggest challenge with doing our project was getting the solder (PITA) to stick to the copper. At first we experimented with different sizes of lead free solder. When we started, the glass supply store where we got our stuff sold us this plumber-sized stuff which was essentially useless. It was quite thick and I could never get it hot enough. After doing a little digging, I switched to a 1.0mm lead free solder (bought at my local electronics store), and that was easier to work with. I have more control of the bead I'm producing and it gets to the right temperature quickly.

The other part is the "clean, clean, clean" part. Metal, specifically copper becomes oxidized with exposure to air. "Flux" (a chemical cleaning agent that facilitates soldering) is used to clean the joint before soldering to remove the oxidation. At first we used liquid "acid" flux which we bought at the previously mentioned glass arts store. In Electronics, the solder is typically impregnated with flux, and it is usually "rosin" based as opposed to acid. Over time, I found the acid liquid flux hard to work with, it was messy and because I had to apply it as I was soldering it lengthened the process. Through trial and error I ended up switching to the impregnated flux, and I found it made a better (cleaner) solder joint which was much quicker.

The copper banding that we use for our project tends to oxidize very quickly, so we started to rough up the copper using scotch-pad it as well. Another PITA, but necessary for everything to look good. I'm reminded of a post on a electronics forum with respect to why a member's pedal wasn't working. The obviously-experienced response was; "well, it could be one of three things"

1. Bad or cold solder joint
2. Bad or cold solder joint
3. Bad or cold solder joint

Meaning your solder wasn't the right temperature to connect or there was no connection made with the solder. I guess my biggest challenge (once the equipment and supplies were sorted) was just getting a nice bead without "lumps". In electronics, you just need a nice little "volcano" where the component meets the circuit board. With a sun catcher, I am actually working on a much bigger surface and I want it to look nice as well!

All in all, it's lots of fun (like I need an excuse to solder) and it's great to be doing something together with the love of my life (and no, I'm not talking about my bass).

Tickety -Boo

The Husband and I have set up a release date for our co-operative project. We have a handful of tree ornament/sun catchers in near completion and on the to do list is packaging, photographing and shipping research. Not to mention description writing, tagging and pricing that will cover all the photographing, packaging and shipping. On top of all that, I have the Peanut to occupy; unfortunately she's spending an obscene amount of time sitting in front of the TV. So wish me luck in the balancing act.

I'd like to say that things are going tickety-boo but I'll maybe save that phrase for once the release is all done and I'm adding things to the shop. I don't want to jinx myself.

Today I'm researching boxes for shipping. On my mind? buying boxes vs making my own. I've come across some excellent templates that I can adjust to make the size of box that would be perfect for shipping the ornaments, my fears are that they won't be sturdy enough and that making my own boxes will be too time consuming and expensive. If I buy boxes that takes a lot of work of my plate but the boxes will be slightly too big for the ornaments (not really a bad thing packing wise as the ornaments will have added cushion to keep them safe) and won't fit into the dreaded slot of doom at Canada Post (not such a good thing because that will raise shipping prices considerably which is something that I've wrestled with since day one on Etsy)

I'm also feeling a little guilty about all these photographless posts. I promise some images soon.

This is how we started

It's a bit of a family tradition that we get a new tree ornament each year. Growing up I always had a new one to put on the tree Christmas morning (in fact my Mom still sends a new ornament every year attached to a gift), it's something we've been doing with the Peanut since she was on the inside and something that we'll be doing for the Bean starting this year.

Last year I bought some glass microscope slides with the intention of sandwiching some hand sewn illustrations on the inside (which didn't work the way I wanted it to and is still on my work table collecting dust while I adjust my plan to accommodate the snag that came from my first try). I did happen to have a stash of glass paint from a stint of wine glass painting we'd done as gifts another year so I pulled them out to do a little playing.

I brushed and smeared the paint onto the glass, added some pigments to the mix and smooshed the slides together while the paint was still wet to see what would happen. I put some paint into an applicator and doodled, I pulled out a stamp I'd cut out of safety cut for thank you cards and stamped into the paint... I played. Which as any other creative type knows is how new projects and techniques are born. Some of my attempts were awful, others pretty and still others simply stunning. All that was left was to get some stained glass supplies and solder the edges for a cleaner look. And that's where I hit a snag... the little procrastination monster reared his head and the new stuff just got put off and off until my birthday rolled around. By then I'd decided the danger of me wielding a hot soldering iron was too much and the collaboration between myself and the Husband was born.

Once we got our fist batch finished we had some pretty fantastic tree ornaments for our holiday tree. I'll be posting a bit more on the project over the next few days with a guest post from the husband in there so he can explain his process and why I roped him into this project.

How about you? have you ever started working in a collaboration with another? What was that like for your process?

Shifting the balance

My posts lately have been very heavy on the family life theme. It's been easy to get into that vein, what with the Bean growing daily, The Peanut snuggling up to us every chance she gets, family moving close, parents coming to visit and the myriad of related activities that go along with all those things; there's not much time to focus on the creative side of life.

It's not that I haven't been doing anything creative, I just haven't had the chance to write about them until now. I have been working on a few projects over the last few months. The hand embroidered ladybug curtain I started 2 years ago for the Peanut is nearly finished, with less than a foot left to fill with ladybugs and then finishing off the back the end is in sight. I opened it up for my parents to see when they were here and it is stunning. I can't wait to hang it up in the Peanut's room.

I've also been working on some Fairy Godmother blessings for some new arrivals and one overdue little bundle. I've created small pieces of nursery wall art that incorporates the babies names as well as some special wish gifts for the babies whose walls will be adorned with my little paintings. I first did a nursery blessing a few years ago when my oldest friend gave birth to her first child. Each little ladybug had it's own little wish attached. My latest paintings are a little more illustrative; for the painting I am working on for my Cousin's baby, who was just born last week I've painted a small landscape with a tree, grass and sky where a little husky dog sits. My newest cousin's name is Connor (strong willed, hound lover) Russel (little red). I'll be adding my wishes today and tomorrow and then I'll be sending the finished product off in the mail with a few more baby goodies. Once it's made it to it's destination I'll post a picture here, until then I'll keep it under wraps so that the new parents get the first peek.

But that's not all that we've been up to around here. I mentioned a little while back that the Husband and I have been working together on a new project for the currently empty PeanutButterPie (PBP) on Etsy. We were fortunate enough to find a buyer for our first batch of sun catchers through a contact of the Ma-in-Law. Since our full inventory was cleared out, PBP has remained sadly empty. But not for long. The husband and I have been busy working on more inventory and I have plans to unveil our new product line to PBP in the next few weeks; just in time for the winter holiday season!

I'll be posting some project specific posts over the next little while to share with you what we are making, how we're doing it and some of the ideas that led us to our new project. I have to say that it's been an incredible growing experience for the both of us as well as a fantastic way for us to spend some time together.

What have you been up to?