Me & the Big Blueberry

Richard and I made a blueberry pie and froze it, to bring to his sister's annual Thanksgiving dinner next weekend. Made me think of big blueberries, like this one taken in Oxford, Nova Scotia a few years ago. I think it's number 11 in my "Big Things" collection.

Out of Your Gourd?

It's that time of year again. My butternut squashes are almost ready to be picked, waiting for the kiss of the first frost. The gourd above was drawn with coloured pencil on a purple background, making it quite royal, I think.

Smoky and Shadow

I spend a lot of time talking about my cats and drawing cats but on occasion I draw dogs. I drew my sister's two adorable poodles but instead of putting them in a backyard, I put them in a big corn field in winter. Makes them look more rugged or something. Cute dogs.

Hot September, Eh?

Hard to believe it's autumn. I know it's only the first days of fall but the temperature here in Eastern Ontario sure felt like mid-July yesterday. Even my garden is confused. My lupins are starting to bloom again and they're supposed to be spring flowers. Nice to see them because I know pretty soon the frost will be on the pumpkin (and the snow not far behind that). So I'm enjoying the heat while it's here. Anyone up for a swim?

Garoni Coffee ATCs

I found the most fabulous coffee at Winners. Thank goodness it tasted as good as it looked. I went back twice and bought everything I could find because the images on the packaging were so fantastic and vintage. The front had the 2 little ones with an ancient car. The back had "mama" and the babes under a parasol. How could I resist?
I'm trading these ATCs at this weekend's trading session in Dunvegan.

Koolaid Cats

I worked on more tiles this weekend and came up with, what I call Koolaid Coloured Cats. I'm really enjoying doing them. Hope everyone else likes them as much as I do.

Campbell's Soup Artists ATCs

This is perhaps my favourite set of ATCs. And I didn't use PhotoShop. Instead, I bought lots of canned soup, tore off the label and cut out the actual soup part in the bowl. I replaced the soup with bits of art. Or I put bits of art into the soup. It depended on what worked best. Cream of famous artists soup! All those years of art history classes finally paid off.
And check out Cream of Oppenheim. It's a play on her Fur-Lined Tea Cup, considered one of the archetypal works of the Surrealist movement. In this case, it is the Fur-Lined Soup Bowl (and I used a tiny piece of real fur).

This Week's Tiles

I fired a batch of tiles in the oven yesterday. Thankfully, the weather has been warm so all the windows were wide open. Man, does that stuff ever stink! Even painting it is kind of gross. But with the warm weather and open windows, I have been in high production mode. I've completed 31 tiles! I'm about halfway there.

Roasted Root Vegetables

Richard came over for one of the last barbecues of summer; it was 27C and gorgeous. I decided to root around (get it?) in the garden and see what I could find. I pulled out fingerling potatoes and purple carrots (they actually have orange interiors). I also found 4 of last year's red potato crop (these were the ones I had neglected to pull out last year, so they grew again this year). There was an errant parsnip from last year too that got thrown into the mix. And a volunteer sweet potato squash grew from my compost. (The onions and garlic were the only things that were purchased.) I baked it over an hour at 400F with some olive oil, sea salt and pepper. Yum!

Nutmeg Catches a Mouse

Around 1:30 a.m., I was sound asleep and I heard the strangest noise coming from Nutmeg. She was sitting beside the bed and kind of peeping. Sort of urgently peeping. The noise woke me up and I said, "Get on the bed, Nut." When she didn't and her peeping became louder, I turned on the light and there she was, proud as a peacock. Beside her sat a dead mouse. I petted the cat on the head and flushed the mouse down the toilet. Yuck.
The other cats were asleep in the patio and Domino (now 17 and mostly deaf, is retired from the whole mouse catching thing) was sound asleep in her bed.
Nutmeg always takes second (or third) fiddle to the other killers in the house. This was a first and she was tickled. (So was I.)
The illustration above is from a colour journal round robin I was involved in last year.

Pink Cat Tile

Lately, most of my tiles have been of flowers. I took a break and did a big, pink cat which is modelled after Andy Warhol's cats. I got a calendar at the AGO last year which is filled with Andy's drawings of cats. They are all pink, blue and green. Why not?

Birch Bark Nature Notes ATCs

I did these artist trading cards out of birch bark I had taken off a fallen tree. It was a large tree which had been chopped down. The crown had snapped; a victim of the ice storm a few year previous. I took a knife, dug out sheets of thick birch bark and rolled them off the log. These ATCs didn't need to be mounted because the bark I made them out of was as thick as a hefty cardstock.

Nutmeg

It's been a while since I've posted any cat photos. Here's one of Nutmeg I took a few moments ago. Of all the cats, she's the one who hangs out with me all day in the office. And she sleeps right on top of me all night...all 17 lbs. of her. It's no wonder my back is a little sore most mornings.

Tile, Tiles and More Tiles

I've been working like mad trying to get more tiles painted and fired and have been inspired by the fall flowers in bloom around my house. Cold and rainy today...I have a feeling there are more tiles in my future.