Pssssst.......

I'm over here now....

COME SEE ME!

Some new information and a giveaway.....

I have some important information posted at the Prairie Fairy Blog, please please please if you love me.... head over there to read the info and help yourself to a free digital image that I will be posting a project video which you will need it if you want to follow along. 

Thank you!

Sorry!

Sorry for the duplicate emails. I set my soul food post to stick at the top without realizing it was going to keep reposting it! Sorry for unintentionally "spamming" you!

xoxo

the fairy!

Wonderfully delicious!

Where to begin....... Oh it was so hard to keep this under wraps!

 I have been invited to contribute to an amazing project:

What's this all about you ask?

Who's gonna be there you ask?

Mystele   Maisy   Heather 

have hand selected this lovely group of artists 

And we mustn't forget our wonderful sponsors!

Oh and by the way....... as this post goes live I am going to be at........

OMG

no way!

The LINCOLN CENTRE INSTITUTE in NEW YORK CITY!

Wahhhhhhooooooooo!

Will keep you posted. ;)

Winged Faith

Well I am back from New York, what a blast! I loved it there, not that I would want to live there. I missed my wide open spaces. 

What I loved:

We loved the people, don't get me wrong there were some wing nuts but for the most part everyone was more than willing to help us out and were polite and kind.

I love the enriched environment. Were else can you feed your brain with arts and culture like that!

Central Park! I wish I had a full day to explore that park. WOW. We wanted to do a handsome cab ride but it was way too hot for the horses so we rented bikes. That was a story all to itself. Riding bikes in the dark going the wrong direction which was HARLEM was an experience. I'll save that for later.

What I did not like:

Cement cement cement.

Bathrooms. Seriously! Public washroom ='d buy some stuff and then you can use it.

For the city that never sleeps and considering it was peek tourist season can you please tell me why all the public art galleries, museums, the zoo all CLOSED BY 5:30! Give me a break! How could I visit all these places when my courses went till 4:30. It was such a shame.

 GARBAGE! OMG, how people could stand the garbage and the stench of garbage in the streets. Yuck. I mean I get it, all they have is a sidewalk in front and they put their garbage out at night and they leak on the pavement and..........40 degrees............. eeeeeewwwww.

Anyways, I have a new video for you!

Some exciting news.

So many things have happened in the last month. Some I can tell and some has to wait! One very exciting bit of news however.......... It is official as of Friday that we (École Powerview School and I) were accepted for the ArtsSmarts program for next year. I am so pumped it is insane what we have planned. This time around I will be discreetly posting about it as I go. Last year I wasn't sure if I was allowed to as I was not when I did my public art installation. Different context when the focus is on learning and not the finished work. Myself, however, I can't see why we can't have both, awesome content and fabulous results to show off!

In a whirlwind day I met several people who led me here and there and shamelessly promoted me into a small video production which you will see eventually. So I haven't had time do anything of my own however, I do have footage ready so video will be coming soon. I will keep you posted and here is a little snippet of what is to come. 

Happy may long!

Auctioning an original for Dahlia House....

The Brave Girls are trying to raise money for Dahlia House, to help the victims of human trafficking. It's is a wonderful cause and I want to help. I am auctioning off my original painting "Infinite Goodness" over on my FACEBOOK PAGE so if you are interested in putting in a bid please feel free to head over and put one in. 

If you would love to have this little cutie please bid big. 100% of the proceeds are going to the Brave Girls for Dahlia house.

xoxoox

Just a pic.

I made this with my scratch paper. You know, the one that you scrape and mix your paint on. Yep. Don't throw that away.

xo

Have another video!

Been really playing around lately. Trying out new techniques. Its been fun, sometimes frustrating of course because it doesn't turn out the way you expect which of course is to be expected, lol.

I have been doing several small canvases which I find I can get my little arty fix and it doesn't take up my whole day. I guess I really should be doing journal pages every day but for some dang reason I just haven't gotten bit by the journal bug but I love them so I don't know why. Maybe that is going to be my challenge. Been thinking of doing some kind of "this" for the day for a month or whatever. Mmmmmm something to think about.

Without further ado, the vid. Hope you enjoy.

WATCH FULL SIZE ON YOUTUBE!

xoxo

the fairy!

I love artrage

I am right into apps for my ipad and iPhone. One that I found recently that I am having lots of fun with is artrage. I actually did a sketch on paper:

then I took a photo of my sketch and loaded it into artrage and started "painting". 

Love it!

PS you can get it for your computer too. Check out Artrage.

xo

A video!

A couple of weeks ago this years Strathmoore online series began. Workshop 1 is being hosted by Acrylic painter Robert Joyner. He also has several youtube videos as well and I really enjoy watching them so you should go check them out.

The assignment.......... use paper, water soluable pastels, and acrylic paint while creating with loose and playful brushstrokes. Harder than it looks believe me. 

Hope you enjoy my Pears.

Have a lovely weekend. I sure hope the sun comes out soon. I need it.

xo

moi

Hello!

I have to admit that I loved my time away, living. Did not get to do as much as I wanted do art wise. Good things are that I did get two considerable art teaching projects in the last 6 months yay! Better than starving artist but certainly can't hang my other hats. I am not complaining. 

I've really been exploring me, the directions I want to go with my art, and enjoying a bit of a reverse back to some old styles and I have really been enjoying abstract lately too. I think I would like to settle somewhere around abstracted realism-ish. LOL

I did have some time to fool around this afternoon and was happy with the results.

Hope to be here soon with a video and some more fun stuff including some workshop announcements.

xoxo

moi!

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!