My Homespun Santa Ornament

I had some old dowel end cuts and thought "what could I do with these?"

Some fabric scraps, wood end caps, a sharpie marker and a hot glue gun and voila!

And a close up of his cheeky face.

Here's to hoping everyone has a wonderful holiday season. Stay tuned the candy is a comin' !!!!!!

xoxo

the fairy!

remembering our veterans...

I feel like I am always apologizing for not being here. Oh well. Hopefully once I have everything that I have planned accomplished there will still be people here to see it! LOL.

This is a short tribute video to our veterans, of a poppy painting I did recently. I am so sorry that it is only the last phase of the painting that I caught. I just kind of felt like roaming my studio while doing that painting and I didn't record it.

                                                             Thanks to our veterans.

Artist of the month

And so it is here, October. So many exciting things. First, I was invited to be featured as the artist of the month at a wonderful ning group called Community Thrive. The group was started by Mystele Keering. A fun place to learn and play, you should check it out. One of the requests was that I do a video for them to feature over at the site. Here it is:

Another bit of exciting news and a reason why I have been a bit of an absent blogger too is the ArtSmarts program that I mentioned in my last post. The Manitoba Arts Council has so kindly approved a grant for myself and Ecole Powerview School. It is a fantastic program where artists work with teachers to teach through art! It has been a blast so far. I spend two afternoons a week with the kids and there are two classes, 21 kids and 25 kids. It can get pretty pumped up in there. It's all good.

I am also in the process of working with my web guy to update the shop a bit so that I can start selling original artwork and prints as well.

I am also daydreaming up some rubber stamps for artists to use on mixed media canvases. I have a company lined up to produce them for me.... he he so watch out for that.

I am also working on some online workshops and mini ecourses. I mean, not just your regular old ecourses. I am sharing it all. Photoshop, digital art, how I create my stamps, mixed media, water-colour, I mean I could go on all day. It all takes time and I have just stick to it and somehow find the time to pull it all together. I've said it before and I will say it again, I wish I didn't need to sleep!

Stay tuned for more good stuff.

xoxox

A quick hello

Popping in with a quick hello. Lots of things going on here, mostly good but really keeping me busy. One of those things is I am working a couple days a week with one of the local schools doing art! The vice principal and myself applied for an ArtSmarts grant though the Manitoba Arts Council and we got it! I have done a few collage classes with the kids already and I think they are pretty pumped. 

I will come by soon and fill you in on all the goings on, and I have so much news. 

This is  a short video demo I did for my two classes this week. I had them write journal pages with their personal local history on it which they were to paint and collage over a portion of it. Thought it would be cool to share the vid.

Be well

xoxo

the fairy!

Hello fall.....

Yep, it's here all right. When it is cold enough at night that you have to turn the furnace on in the morning to warm up the house you know it. That's ok, I love fall. Love fall colours, just love it all. 

I scooched off to my studio today to work on a video that I am doing for Mystele's ning group. I am excited to have been offered a spot in October as their featured artist of the month. It's exciting.  

I am just going to share with you a little something I like to do with old book pages to clean my palette. I literally mop up the left over paint with the pages, I hate to waste the paint.

Now, I did use one of them for an accessory on one of the paintings I was working on today. Here is a sneeky peek. If you want to see the full painting including video you will have to run over to Mystele's ning page in october to see it ;)

Hope you tune in to see the finished painting, would love to see you there.

xoxo

Bloom Forever

So labor day weekend is here, the end of summer. Sniff sniff. It just flew by for me. I guess it does for everyone doesn't it. I will miss my flowers, I have always loved flowers. I used to steal them from the neighbours yards. One of my favourites are poppies. This is a short video I made of a painting I did of poppies, I hope you enjoy.

xoxo

Keep Hope

Summer has been rolling along. We had some plans to take the kids and run off for a bit but with dad not being well, the surgery and now his post op care ( his wound got a nasty infection) it just wasn't possible. Really, it's ok, there are much more important things to do right now. Dads dressings need to be changed twice daily, the home care nurse can only come once a day, I do the night change. I gotta tell ya, I have a pretty iron clad stomach but stuffing a wad of fabric into a hole the size of an egg into your dad's stomach is pretty unnerving. I am just so happy to be there for my dad though and he is healing well, after a couple of ups and downs during the healing process. I don't have tons of time to spread around though and I just have so much I want to do. I wish I didn't need sleep.

On a high note, I am totally excited about the fact that I have recently acquired my very own ginormous studio!!!!!! AHHHHH whahoooooo. I just love having my own space to escape to and store all my stuff. My poor house was stuffed. Stay tuned for more info. I will be holding workshops galore in there but it needs some work first, arg more time needed, so little to spare.

I have carted a lot of my supplies over to my studio and had a chance to sneek over a couple times to play around and I managed to make a video of it. I was inspired by a quote I read on one of my dad's cards he got while in the hospital. It really summed things up for me with all that has happened over the summer. We have an appt with dad's specialist coming up and we will find out the results of the pathology test. Many things run through your mind while you are waiting but mostly you try to focus on today and as always try to be hopeful.

If you could, please continue to keep dad in your prayers and thoughts.

xo

Being thankful hopeful and empathetic

Well dad is a trooper. His nurse laughed today and said "you are doing so good, what are you doing here?" All kidding aside he is recovering well. There is an awesome nurse here, I call him Billy Blanks. Reminds me of him. I call him dads personal trainer because he is always getting him up and going, moving forward. We are so grateful for all the warm thoughts and prayers and we still need them. We still have a road ahead of us.

You know, is it hard to be here, among all these wonderful people. People who are suffering and some who are struggling with loosing hope. There is always someone worse off than you. I am so thankful to be here with my dad, that I can be here for him. I am hopeful that we will have some more good fishing days ahead. One day at a time.

There is a fellow here, we spoke with his wife at length today while we had supper. It is so hard to see that hopelessness in someones eyes. Her husbands brother comes to visit and bring her back and forth but for the most part she is here alone with him most of the time. We share our struggles with each other, and I pray for her husband. It is one thing to bear a burden but having lived a full and blessed life can make it easier. It stings a little less, and you say "well no matter what happens, God doesn't owe me anything." But for those who have to bear these burdens when they are young, when they have hardly made it out of diapers, or those who worked their whole life, who almost reach retirement, only to be slapped with the insult of possibly being faced with only months to live.

We go along our merry way in our lives, blissfully unaware of the alarms ringing in the hospital wards, the pain and suffering, moaning about our parking tickets. Don't. Take every negative you have going and turn it into some kind of a positive. Think of the lovely couple across from my dad today who smiled ear to ear so happy to be getting married, here, in a hospital. Thankful because he survived a head on collision with a rock face. He survived his scull being crushed in by his eye, the brain trauma, the massive wound to his leg which has him unable to walk on his own yet, though he swears he will. He wants to take his 7 month old daughter for a walk with his beautiful, now wife, her great big smile with us all day today.

Hug your spouse. Tell them every damn day how much you love them, and tell them why you do. Even if it is just because they make you breakfast every morning. Play with your kids, forget about the housework it will still be there tomorrow. If someone tisks at you for your messy house tell them if they came to visit your clean house it is not home right now!

Be thankful for what you have. Always be hopeful for the future and what wondrous possibilities it may bring you. And never, not matter how mean someone is loose empathy for others. Sometimes they are mean because they are faced with difficulties we don't know and all they need is your patience and empathy.

I am thankful for all I have, including still having my dad.

I am hopeful that he will beat the odds

I am sending out my love and empathy to the universe in hopes that those who need it will find it.

xoxo

the fairy.

Poor dad. I grabbed the wrong glasses for him and we all laughed so hard at him last night. He looked like a toothless Mr. Magoo! He would kill me if he saw this. HAHAHAH!

Prayers, positive thoughts and sending out love...

Wow, this feels so weird. You haven't heard from me for a while. Honestly I can't remember the last time I posted. 

I have been busy, some good, some bad. My dad has been keeping me fairly busy these days and he is why I am here today. I am off to sleep right away, I have to be up in five hours. Mom and I are following my dad into the city for surgery,( he is going by ambulance). It has been a long two and half months of emergency rooms, hospital rooms, CT's, ERCP's, some SOB's but mostly lovely wonderful healthcare workers. Tomorrow my dad should be in surgery for at least five hours and up to 10 or twelve. Of course there are risks for anyone but the older you are the higher the risk and my dad is in his early 80's. He is a tough ole bun yack (Ukranian), but this is going to be very tough on him and he needs your prayers, positive thoughts.

I drew this image over a year ago and it actually is a sketch of my dad with my son, after we had gone fishing. 

 I am giving this image for free right now and I will leave it up until my dad's surgery is over tomorrow. In exchange I would appreciate:

1. If you pray, please pray for my dad, Norman, that his surgery goes well and everything turns out good. If you belong to a prayer group or have a prayer chain in your parish, please add my dad to your prayer chain. Also, could you leave me a comment letting me know if you did and how many are on your chain. I would love to tell him how many people are praying for him and from where. 

2. If you do not pray, maybe you are of the positive thinking family, and believe in asking the universe for what you want, could you send out positive thoughts and wishes into the Universe for him. 

3. If you do neither, just love art and that is what brought you here, then could you please take this image, make something lovely with it and give it to someone who could use some cheering up. Send some love out in the form of sharing your gift/love of art and craft.

Big thanks from my dad!

Faith

Yes, though sometimes it is hard to find and even harder to keep, it is necessary. Without it, who would we be. 

I often have a hard time keeping faith in what I am doing as I work on a piece. You have this fabulous idea that looks so good in your head. Then it starts to pour out and feels even better on the canvas. In the beginning the colours are pure, the strokes are free and you just flow. Something emerges and you go with it.  Then it hits, that deep dark ugly part that you try so hard to avoid. Slap some more paint on that might fix it, or I could move in this direction.... then yuck. What now? Pull out some rubbing alcohol and some sand paper and take out all your frustration on that canvas and when you have something left that you would like to add something to... you go with it. 

You hooooo.....

Eeeeeek. i didn't even look at the date of my last post. I don't want to know, I have an idea. Here is not where I have been.

I feel like I have been on a journey....

Where you ask? Where have I gone. "Here and there" I say. Mostly there I guess. What can I say, I am fickle. I go where the wind blows me and lately it has been away from the computer, the internet, etc. I often wonder how so many people seem to find the time to have kids, jobs, successful blogs and Facebook pages, post enough things to keep people interested and manage to keep there houses clean too! I guess I just started to feel overwhelmed. I had so many things that I wanted to do, things that needed to be done around the house. Bike rides to take and walks with hubby. 

It is so easy to get caught up in social networks, there seems to be new ones all the time. You just feel this stress... the need to keep things fresh and keep it coming. It is sometimes this delicate balancing act and it is hard to perform. I have a few things on the go right now. A collection of mixed media acrylics, some e-courses, yes e-courses (mixed-media, water-colour and photoshop). So much to do so little time and only so much sleep you can skip hahaha......and laundry. 

I'm looking... hard, and I think I am slowly finding myself. I don't think I will ever completely find myself because I will always be looking... and that's a good thing.

xoxo

Be the seed pods...

A while back Millande had a journal prompt a day with the theme "Be the seed". It was fun, for the first two days, then poof, stuff just got in the way. I did record most of the process however and this is a little short video of it. Hope you enjoy it.

Can you believe it is like 20 degrees here! We can practically wear shorts here!

xoxo

Festival du Voyageur slideshow...

Sheesh has it really been so long! Ouch. New stuff is coming I promise. For now here is a little video I did of a trip I took with my sons class to a local festival we have annually. Lots of fun and full of local culture. If you are ever in Wpg in February check it out! 

Our weather here is crazy! We are supposed to be in the double digits tomorrow. Our snow is melting like crazy! Yeahoooooo!

xo

Handpainted paper video

Before I check out for the weekend, hubby is home and the weekends are so short. No time for blogging. hehehe.

Sharing a video I did couple weeks ago. See you next week.

Candy!!!!!!

Wanted to let you know i have candy posted on my stamp blog. Gorgeous stamp set that could be used on canvases toooooooo......

GO and ENTER HERE.

Wanted to share this...

And if you have the time to watch this one, you have to watch it! It is so intuitive. Amazing.


Have a wonderful, empathetic day.
XO

Quick post

Just popped in to say hello.... I am still here! I am doing this fabulous and did I mention free workshop with Traci Batista HERE and this was one of my doodles unleashed! I actually made a video of it, it is not edited yet. Someday I hope soon.

When Traci messaged me and asked if she could showcase it on the blog I was tickled. She is a lot of fun if you want to come a check it out.

For now I will leave you with these words of wisdom I gave my hubby today. We were talking about personal growth, and the inevitable failures that come along with it. I told him in a text Fail=Grow. He replied "you're right, but failing hurts."

My response:

"not when you change the way you think about what it meant to fail."

 If you see each failure as an opportunity to have figured out what didn't work and a chance to figure out what will then it turns failure into success.

That is Roberta's words of wisdom for the day. I still have a hard time seeing my failures as discovery successes myself. I like that, Discovery Successes. I should write a self help book.

xo

Happy Holidays

Another year has passed, does anyone else think time is going faster than it used to? How would we really know? There is never enough time for me. Finally, after a month and a half dry spell due to unforseen circumstances, I was able to take the time to create a little something.

Here is the finished piece.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to all. xo