Pass the Peas, Terry

When I was living in Toronto some years back, my friend Wendy and I had a small but successful cake business. Many of the cakes we baked were for the film and television industry. We made prop cakes, cakes that blew up, cakes in the shapes of ninjas and police badges, and hundreds of cakes covered with icing flowers. Our most famous cake creations were for Mike Jagger's son and Lauren Hutton!

The other day, my friend Kathy Gillespie asked me to make a cake for her husband Terry's 60th birthday. Tonight he is performing with his band The Granary Blues Band upstairs at The Priest's Mill in Alexandria and she wants to present the cake to him there. But what kind of cake to make?

At first I thought I'd do an electric guitar but I figured that was too cliche. My boyfriend Richard and I were talking about it and he mentioned that my favourite tune of Terry's was "Pass the Peas." And that's when it hit me. Make a crazy cake for Terry based on a classic Granary Blues Band favourite. I sure hope he sings it tonight!

Spring has Sprung

I am supposed to be drawing for my upcoming art show in September. What with the distractions of a newly unemployed boyfriend and spring in the air, I have not produced very many pieces.

The crocuses are coming up in my lawn (I decided to plant them there instead of in my garden) and the raccoons are out of hibernation and have raided the sunflower seeds that were intended for the birds. As much as I love spring, somehow the long shadows in winter inspire me. A temperature of minus 30C also has a way of inspiring one to stay indoors. Above is a colour pencil drawing I did on a cold day in February a few years ago.

What's New Pussycat?

My family adopted Cat Ballou when I was six years old and I've loved cats ever since. I currently have five cats (although I swore I'd stop at three!). This ATC series was inspired by two of them: Domino and Oreo who are both black and white. Domino was my dad's cat and she's 17, very slim and short-haired. Oreo is one of a pair (her sister is Cookie) that I rescued six years ago. She's very playful and fluffy with long-hair.

Having had cats for many years and taking them to the vet annually, I had lots of rabies tags saved in a glass jar. For this set, I painted different black and white cat faces and sewed the tags onto their collars with fishing line pierced through the cardstock.

Black and white cats are a marvel of nature. No two ever seem to look alike. To see more cats like this, check out a site where they call them "Kitlers" (only cats with Hitler mustaches need apply!). http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/

The Reviews are in...Frida Kahlo is a hit!

The reviews are in! The spring 2007 issue of ATC Quarterly went out last week. Canadian subscribers got their issue on Friday and Americans got theirs on Monday. From the response received so far, it seems to be a hit!

The challenge for spring (to be printed in the centre spread) was "Homage to Frida Kahlo." We got so many ATCs honouring Frida that we couldn't print them all in the zine. We posted many more on our website page: http://www.atcquarterly.com/inside_pages.html

Thanks so much to Karen Leigh for painting the gorgeous ATC portrait of Frida that graces our cover.

ATC Trade Coming Up

Here it is, the first entry in my blog. Well here goes...
My artist trading card (ATC) trade is this Saturday in Dunvegan. This month I'm trading a series I did called "Diner Food." Someone once suggested that my ATCs revolve around 2 things: cats and food. Well, that may be so...but maybe ATCs are just like writing. You concentrate on what you know!
In this case, I found a neat little note pad at a scrapbooking store in Cornwall (Ontario). It had a logo for a ficticious diner in the upper left hand corner and some other diner-type images at the bottom right. I had a feeling that I could chop off the bottom stuff and be left with just the logo and also have enough room to draw in some typical diner food images. Presto! It worked. Then all I had to do was get out the pencils and start drawing.
Cuppa Joe anyone?