I met with the talented Kate Strickland who runs creativity workshops at Art Vein Studio in Hudson, Quebec. She shared one of her wonderful techniques for the fall issue of ATC Quarterly. You'll have to wait till September, when issue #12 is printed, to see exactly what she's created!
My friend Peter has a fantastic sense of humour and does some crazy stuff with Photoshop. Here's a sample of his brain at work.
Another one of my colour pencil drawings...This is pretty much what most driveways look like around here. Tall trees running alongside long lanes which lead way up to a homestead, many times only visible in winter when the trees have lost their leaves.
Uncle Reuben and I share a birthday. I made him this card for him from a series of old photos I found in my parents' album. I scanned the pictures, cut them out with wiggly scissors (to look like old photographs) and attached them to black cardstock with photo corners. He loved it!
I seem to be surrounded by lupins. Pink ones in front and yellow ones at my back door. 
Purple and blue ones are mid-field and another patch take up almost an entire garden. How could I not be inspired to paint them on a couple of 8" serving bowls?
They also seemed perfect to put on this tall water jug. A great way to have little bit of spring year round, I think.
I found two of these Romanian-made pottery vases and wasn't sure what I'd paint on them. Flowers from the garden seemed a natural...
...but then again so did a series of mischievous cats, like my own, who try to knock down a vase full of flowers.
Now that my garden is flourishing, each week brings a new inspiration. Two sides of a vase were inspired by my small yellow and purple flags blooming in the garden; the other two sides from the magnificent bearded irises pictured in a brochure I received the day I was painting. Nutmeg's presence is always an inspiration...
I bought these poppies from a discard table at the end-of-season a few years back and wasn't sure what colour they were or how they'd grow.
The salmon-coloured blooms at my front door look like crepe paper flowers. They are huge (about the size of my hand) and look great with a backdrop of pink lupins growing from seeds my dad brought me from Nova Scotia many moons ago.
Don't you just love this set of chicken soup bowls? Totally silly.
And wouldn't these be fun with a matzo ball floating above them?
My friend Lis baked me a fabulous chocolate cake for my birthday. The neatest thing was that she spelled Happy Birthday Ronna out of toasted slivered almonds. The other great thing? It was absolutely delicious!
I've always loved June 10th! I've had some fun e-mails, great birthday cards, and singing phone calls. Tonight Richard and I are heading into Ottawa for a bite to eat and to see Sex and the City, a flick I really want to see.
On Saturday, Richard and I went to the fantastic town-wide yard sale down the road from us in Vankleek Hill called Trash and Treasure. There certainly were tons of both. In all our meandering, I found these two oyster plates. The coloured one has an old marking on the back (not sure what it is). The white one has no marks. (And no, I'm NOT going to paint the white one--yet). I did some poking around on the internet and there is actually an Oyster Plate Collectors Society out there. Who'd have thunk it?
I bought the seeds for these enourmous lupins on my first trip to Oregon about 6 years ago. They plants are just magnificent. I have another large patch in the middle of my field and several other plants scattered around the garden. They remind me of my connection to Oregon and my good friends who live out there and the great times we've shared.
My friend John in Oregon suggested I paint some fish. I found this lovely shaped platter and thought it was perfect for a rainbow trout. What do you think, John?
