Famous Chicken

Mrs. Chicken, an acrylic on wood painting I did las winter, was chosen to illustrate an entry of an intriguing website called Nature Works. At its helm is Doug Subbiondo, a gardener, landscaper and personal vegan chef. To see more click here.

Strawberry Time

Richard and I picked strawberries at a pick-your-own spot about 15 km west of here.


Pretty easy to spot a ripe one.


Richard is an old pro at it.


The sun seemed to be spotlighting the ripest berries.


Time to take 'em home and make strawberry shortcake.

Happy Birthday

Here's what a bunch of folks look like celebrating Canada's birthday.


Fun!

Happy Canada Day!

Today is Canada's birthday -- 142 years old. If you want to see a fun video from Expo '67, Canada's centennial, click here. It brought back lots of memories for me.
And if you grew up in Canada in the 1960s and 1970s, click here for something that will take you waaaay back in time.
Happy Canada Day!

Cat Tiles

I got an order for some 6" x 6" painted tiles with cats on them.


Each one has four felt feet on the bottom so it doesn't scratch surfaces.


They're perfect for a pot of tea or bowl of hot veggies.


I have a couple of them on my table and use them every day and they always make me smile.

Party Time!

Our monthly artist trading card (ATC) meeting was held last Saturday at our local recreation hall. Here we are setting up cards and getting them ready to trade.


Since our December trade had freezing rain, our party was limited to folks who could skate over, so we decided to have a Christmas in June party.


We also decided to hold a swap meet where folks could bring whatever they wanted to give away and also take whatever they wanted. In the spirit of ATC, no money changed hands. There was some great stuff: a fax machine, phone, back pack, DVDs and CDs, hand-made ceramics...folks who said they didn't want to bring anything home still managed to find things to take back with them.


After a busy time of trading cards and swapping, it was time to eat.


Here's our summer gang. It seemed a good portion of folks were away this weekend and couldn't make it...so we'll see them for the next photo op in December.


Natalie brought this cake which says it all: ATC Rocks!

Lupin ATCs

These artist trading cards, done for today's trade at our monthly meeting, were inspired by the combination of my wonderful lupins and painting them on my ceramics. Except instead of portraying them on china, I used watercolours and ink on heavy mat board.

Flower Power

My garden has blooming blue lupins and a cup and saucer in mid-air that fills with rain water. A four foot rod attaches onto the bottom of the saucer and suspends it, looking like it's the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.


Speaking of mad, I'm just crazy about this salmon pink Oriental Poppy.


I love this burnt orange "Devil's Paintbrush" that blooms in ditches all over the countryside this time of year. Kind of matches my hair?


I bought a package of seeds in Oregon in 2003 and these cheerful flowers now bloom every year in my front garden. Does anyone know what kind of flower this is?

Time Standing Still

I was poking around in a consignment shop yesterday and noticed shelving filled with digital clocks. These were the "old fashioned" type -- before LED readouts when little cards with numbers actually flipped over every minute.


I remember my brother Larry had one (it was transparent on the outside and you could see the inner wires and workings). I loved that clock and thought it was so cool. And now? Too old fashioned. Time has marched on...

Food and/or Art

I love photographing food. Mostly, I think art and food are almost interchangable. (Except it's hard to eat a painting.) But just look at the simplicity of these blood orange on the blue polka dot bowl. Art, right?


This arranged Insalata Caprese that I made years ago from my own basil and tomato crop, with creamy bocconcini cheese, is a little contrived art-wise but it tasted great.


Colour-wise the green in this plateful of food, made at the National Art Gallery of Canada in Ottawa's café, wins for boldness. I think it was a spread of a green pea mixture.


Okay, so this is art, right? Drawing a design right into the raspberry coulis.


The placement of this Italian ice cream with fruit coulis drizzles is set up to please the eye. Good, clean lines.


I just love the echo of the shape of the grilled sandwich and the oval soup bowl. Might be a tad symmetrical as art though.


Simplicity. A Pan-Asian meal in an unusually-shaped bowl featuring all sorts of textures and tastes in similar, beige colours.


Was Miro the sous chef that day?


Sushi is art. Plain and simple. No doubt about it.


Now this was just plain odd. I had it in Tadoussac, Québec a few years back. A savoury waffle stuffed with tuna. Definitely a stab at Surrealism, eh?

Junk Drawers

So there I was thinking I had a new themed art idea. Junk drawers. On a recent trip to visit Peter, I noticed his kitchen junk drawer and photographed it proclaiming, "What a great idea for a series!" Peter e-mailed me the following week saying, "Check out this print" and attached this URL.
It seems the artist Paho Mann has been photographing junk drawers since 2000. He says, "My work explores the persistent mark of individuality in a culture that brands, packages, and relentlessly promotes conformity. Even among those who attempt to fit into society, there is an amazing wealth of information each individual reveals in near-privacy, spaces such as junk-drawers..." Click here to see more of his junk drawers. (He does medicine cabinets too.)

June Bugs

On Saturday evening, we went to a combination summer solstice-June birthday party. We celebrated the birthdays of folks born in June also known as "June bugs."


I made a cake covered with "June bugs" made from icing and sliced almonds as wings.


Frogs on the Rigaud River croaked along as we were regaled with a round of Happy Birthday...


...and then we blew out the candles. Happy summer!

Purple Rain

It seems many of the flowers in my garden are purple. This Siberian iris, after years of neglect (mowed and whipper snipped) has been moved to safety in the middle of my wild garden. This is the first year it has bloomed.


Someone gave me these bearded irises and I kind of threw them in the ground near the drainage ditch. They went nuts this year and are much more prolific than my other irises that run along the fence. I suppose these have much more room to spread out.


These purple lupins are from seeds I bought in Oregon in 2003. The patch grows larger every year and soon I'll have my own little piece of the Pacific Northwest in my own backyard.

The Owl & the Pussycat

I saw this box of biscuits at Starbucks the other day and just had to have them! Richard bought them for me as part of the on-going birthday present.


And just look at these delicious butter cookies. The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear is my favourite kid's story of all time. I guess that's why I thought it'd be a perfect challenge to appear in the centre fold of a recent issue of ATC Quarterly. To see what folks came up with, click here.