Gabriola Thanksgiving Artwalk

Thought I'd share a few pictures with you of our trek around Galiano Island.  I've already shared our experience with Bruce's allergies, but notwithstanding, we had a great time!

This piece was on display .. not for sale ... at one of the artist's studios.

We grabbed a coffee first thing when we landed on the island .. this was the first work of  art
that Bruce and Richard enjoyed.  It was in the parking lot beside the coffee shop.
You can see why boys fall in love with chrome on their vehicles.

The Dorothy, viewed from the wee loft in the workshop.  To the right, you can see the original
painting of the artcard I purchased, below.

 The Dorothy is Canada's oldest sailboat and she's being loving restored in the workshop of Art Grove. To see the full story and perhaps contribute to the documentary being shot during the restoration process, you can head over to dorothysails.com.  Under the stern of the boat was an area where a young Gabriolan entrepreneur was selling taste samples of his island-crafted beer and brewing up some return business.  Richard tried a porter and while I stuck with a more traditional amber.

I loved the bright orange on this boat and the simple style of the painting.

Céc was looking for a purse that she'd seen at another fair.   None of these came home with us
but the artist was generous in letting me take a picture of the colorful display.

Outside the studio of an artist whose work was done with a shopvac (I kid you not),
we ran into a delightful garden with a variety of little outdoor rooms

Lunch at Drumbeg Provincial Park.  Cécile packed a picnic!
At least, I think its Drumbeg .. could be Sandwell for all I know.  Have I mentioned I get lost
when someone else navigates?

Loved the front of this old van almost as much as the pontiac at the top.
Seems to me this old van could tell stories.  I'm still not sure what color it really is.

There's something about boobs that make men go silly.
These two are about to burst into a 12-year-old giggle fit.

It's been a while ...

Before I pelted through our yellow front door yesterday to jump into my car, I'd scrounged through a batch of boxes marked "office" that are in the storage room and had managed to dig up my set of pencils.  The grade school lime green case makes me smile when I see it because I know the friends that are waiting inside.  I briefly searched for my coloured pencils, but gave that up because I was a bit late, having forgotten the date I'd set.  Thank you, my husband who often reminds me of things I can remember quite well on my own, thank you very much anyway.  In this case, however, it was a good thing he did.  I was having one of those "I know I'm supposed to be somewhere" days, but thought it was for my workout that was getting pushed back farther into the day as I sat at my computer and got lost in time, as I often do.

Cécile and I sat down at her big teak dining room table where we'd planned to spend the afternoon drawing a still life. She set up a beautiful stargazer lily and then wandered off into her artroom, coming back with treasure after treasure in the form of art media.  I settled down with a cup of herbal tea and my pencils, but before the first half hour was out, my fingers were covered with pink chalk.

Four hours later, the result was this piece of work.  As it goes, its got a batch of faults, but I'm happy to have my hand back and having produced a semi-respectable piece.  As a starter piece to remembering my art, its acceptable and I'm happy.

Leaving the station

I currently have about 15 browser tabs open, as well as a graphics program.  That's because my entertainment is right here in front of me .. usually in words of some sort, sometimes in games, often in pictures or video.  Those little tabs are like train tracks departing my desktop station ... and they've taken me places today I've never dreamed. 

Here's what my day has been like:

I started out opening my mail to find that I had correspondence from Andrew Wheeler, the blogger behind Antik Musings, in response to an email I'd written him.  I won't go into the details of the mails, as most can be surmised by reading the column that my mail inspired, What Makes a Good Review.  From his page and linkbacks in comments, I discovered other sites that have since been bookmarked; so many bookmarks that I just took about five minutes to reorganize and categorize them.  (Can't be having bookmarks get out of hand and underfoot, but never there when you need them.)

In searching through the sites, I came upon this one from T.N. Tobias where authors discuss the need for likability in characters.  I brazenly huffed, in my review of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books, that books were supposed to "give me characters I can care about, despise or be intrigued with."  The TN Tobias post and subsequent viewpoints in commentary often concerned a more literary view of what the character does in order to make the story come alive, not necessarily so much for its own sake.  So now I wonder if I have a naive view of what it takes to make a good story.  Am I still pre-programmed to the happy ending and redeemable characters?  I think I need to know more before I blithely abandon my feelings about characters and what I expect from authors.  So my search to educate myself took me to farther pit stops on the internet, one that has been enlightening and delightful, if not always strictly on topic.  A note here .. I'm pretty sure that I'd make a horrible research assistant .. shiny things distract me.

So without further pre-amble, in no specified order, are things that caught my attention today.

Works of art created on Styrofoam cups. Cheeming Boey is the cartoonist.

The site of Jan Chipchase, whose office is literally the world.  "Today's Office" can be seen at Future Perfect.  When you click on the link on Mr. Chipchase's name, you'll find an interesting article on the Warren Ellis site that propelled me toward Future Perfect.

 

The Worlds Without End site where I played with the wallpapers behind their logo.  Shiny thing ...  'nuff said.

The King of Elfland's Second Cousin, which might actually teach me more about writing ...

An article about surprise scupltures appearing in different Scotland literary locales.  Please read the article .. its amazing.

The sculptor (wordsmith might be a more correct turn of phrase) is still unknown, but is speculated to be Su Blackwell.

2008-the-snow-queen-video from Su Blackwell on Vimeo.

indah-video from Su Blackwell on Vimeo.

Not sure of the song, but the imagery is amazing.

Dutch Master

The headline today read "Dutch Master Artist Paints Airport Mural."  As headlines go, I suppose it lacks a certain wow factor, but it does contain the words 'Dutch Master.'  To be compared alongside the likes of Dutch maritime masters Jan Porcellis, Simon de Vlieger, Jan van de Cappelle, Hendrick Dubbels and Abraham Storck might be embarrassing for my modest friend Cecile, but those of us who know her and have seen her work and how diligiently she works at her passion ... we know she's one of a kind.

To view her work progress on the Nanaimo International Airport, go here.

Happy birthday, Cecile.

Ancestral Aunt

Sharon gave me permission to reprint one of her works here.  This one is entitled "Ancestral Aunt."

I don't have much more information, but Sharon .. if you can .. please share your medium and surface, and date of creation.  And where, if we were in the beautiful Okanagan valley, we might view more of your work.   :D