An Art Project

As mentioned, I've been taking a course that I've quite enjoyed.

The course was supposedly Colour Theory, but since it was taught by the Head of Painting at ACAD, there was a little bit of painting theory, art commentary, and art history thrown it for good measure. 

Our final assignment was a fun and unusual self-portrait, which was really more about painting theory than colour theory, although paint mixing (colour duplication) was the crux of the assignment:

The painting was done by trying to duplicate colours from a gridded self-portrait onto a gridded canvas.  To keep the project simple (so it didn't take weeks), we were meant to do it in a quick impressionistic style, mixing "approximate" colours.  

Each triangle on the painting could only have ONE colour, which had to be either the "sum" (blend) of the other colours in the corresponding triangle on the photo, or simply the main colour from that triangle:

Of course, it's way harder and slower than it sounds.  But it's amazing how many colours one can mix from a small palette of paints!

  

It also amazed me that when you look very close, skin tones vary enormously.  In the photo, the light was falling on the left side so the skin tones are yellowish, while in the middle they are pinker and on the right side of the photo grayer with the shade. 

It was quite a fun challenge.

I am pretty good at mixing colours now.  And I also learned the number one lesson of painting - it's just a bunch of shapes of different colours.  I guess that should make it easier to paint my masterpiece now...

Happy Weekend!

Lilacs, Etc.

Our lilacs are in full bloom!

I'm sure the civilized world's lilacs have already come and gone, but ours (Zone 3) have finally arrived in all their mauve glory.

I don't know the variety in our garden, but they have a gorgeous double flower that I've rarely seen: 

While walking last evening, I saw dozens of lilacs in bloom and stole a few from our back alley.  Most are the more common variety with single flowers:

Here are the last of our white apple blossoms.  They remind me of home since my parents' property is full of apple trees:

We have every imaginable colour of apple blossoms in the neighborhood.  These pretty pink ones are from the back alley too:

David and I have been hard at work on our perennial beds, reorganizing, dividing old perennials and adding some new ones.  We had almost no snow this winter and low temperatures (no insulation), so there was a lot of winter kill in our garden. Many perennials have died off.

(I will share photos once they are more than 12" tall)

In the meantime, our furnace stopped working today.  It is cold and rainy, so we are waiting for the repairman with cold noses and cold hands.  I have to work on my project for my final colour theory class, which will involve about 3h of painting.  I hope the repair guy gets here soon or I may need mittens.

Have a happy week and hope it is warm where you are!

My First Seascape

As I mentioned, I've been painting lately!

This is my first seascape...

I'm under no illusion that this is a Great Work of Art, but I don't think it's horrible.  

Considering that I've never painted clouds before (nor water nor land), I think I did okay.

I always drew fairly well as a child and loved art.  So I took a full year art course in first year university (I clearly remember lugging my big black artist's portfolio to my 3pm chemistry class after two hours in the studio).  P.S. I placed first in my class in freshman chemistry that year and also got an A+ in art (yes, if you are wondering, THAT was my peak).  :D

In the class, we learned many mediums, from pencil to pastel and chalk, conté and coloured pencils to pen and ink (I always loved pen and ink).  We learned watercolour, but didn't try oils or acrylics.  We sketched nude models and drew our feet and our faces in the mirror (not easy).  We learned all sorts of techniques, like gestural drawing and talked a lot about line weight and how to capture a shape with a single perfect line.

 I learned a TON and produced a LOT of art.  But after a year, I was desperately sick of drawing (and too impatient) and joined the camera club!  Since then, photography has been my beloved medium.

Now, over 20 years later, I'm having such fun with the new paints I bought for my  Colour Theory class.  Shockingly, I'm much more patient and serene in my old age.  And I acknowledge I'm a complete hack and have a lot to learn.

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In other news, I visited an amazing salvage shop today.  Here's a sneak peek at an antique English bird bath I am seriously coveting:

*sigh*

More to come on both fronts!

Happy Sunday!

Miscellany

We are having a lazy weekend.

It's Victoria Day on Monday so everyone has a holiday!

Work has been demanding and tiring lately and headaches have been bad, so this weekend I don't feel like doing absolutely anything.  

I did re-arrange the sideboard with a pretty bough from our apple tree:

I bought the little mirror in St. Petersburg, Florida in February.  The candlesticks are crystal, from a set of five I received as a gift.  The vase was my Grandmother's.

I spent the entire evening yesterday looking at decorating magazines and listening to classical music, so I feel vaguely rejuvenated.

I have some upholstery projects I need to do, and found this gorgeous blue and white fabric in Elle Decor (April 2010).  Isn't it lovely?:

I have no idea who makes it, so if you have any suggestions for something similar, do let me know.  I have an antique chair that would look smashing in a similar fabric.

Happy Sunday!

Terri

A Party & A Painting

Today we prepared most of the day to host a Mother's Day get-together tomorrow!

We're having an afternoon tea!

Today we made ingredients for various dainty tea sandwiches and I made chocolate cupcakes and a lemon cake will follow tomorrow.  We'll also have salads, tea and coffee.

(My favorite part of parties is the decorating, if you didn't notice). 

I'm sending this arrangement home with my mother-in-law.  The darling vase is actually a small hurricane (candle holder) I picked up today at Crate & Barrel:

I bought very posh paper for her gift.  Mothers deserve to be spoiled. 

I have a few favorite vases, including this large urn and the small crystal vase (that I bought at Rob Kurkut's gorgeous shop) which is brilliant for left over short stems:

I think pink is very festive for parties.

In other news, I have taken up painting:

A small abstract painting I made today

I took a full year of art in university but have not put medium to paper in 20 years.  It felt really good sitting down at a blank canvas again - I loved it.  I will share more paintings soon and tell you more about my previous art studies.

You can also see another of my paintings in the first photograph at the top of this post (hanging to the left of the mirror).

And most of all...

Happy Mother's Day

(especially to my beloved and most cherished Mom!)

xo Terri

Framed

I finally got around to framing that pretty little painting we bought in Paris last Fall.

Jarvis Hall, a master framer in Calgary, helped me select a beautiful and appropriate French moulding to construct a frame for my small painting.   We decided against using a mat, as it seemed to look too important and overwhelmed the painting's charming simplicity.

I really wanted the new frame to be somewhat consistent with the frame on my other little (favorite) French painting:

Jarvis originally suggested an antique French frame for the new piece (which he can acquire), but we quickly decided that the new moulding was perfect with all the verticals in the painting:

What do you think?

Have a lovely weekend and thank you all for your kind and supportive comments on my last post.  It means the world to me to have such kind people caring for me out in the universe.

xo Terri

Loss

We had to put down our beloved Biscuit last Saturday.

He became rapidly unwell on Thursday night and by Saturday we really didn't have much choice.

It's been so lonely and sad here this week.  He was a constant companion and his presence in the house is sorely missed.

Biscuit lost over 4 lbs in a few short weeks after he was diagnosed with an intestinal problem (likely lymphoma).

When looking back at photos, I was surprised to see how burly he looked at 12 lbs - what a handsome boy.  He loved sitting on the computer desk and walking on the keyboard as I typed, so as I write this post I am missing him even more:

Biscuit loved having naps, so anywhere I was situated reading decorating magazines, he could reliably be found a foot away, having a nap:

He was my favorite photography model.  I have more photos of him than any person I know (who lets you take 100 pictures of them in a row?):

Thanks to his penchant for naps on all the furniture, I kept lint rollers in every room of the house.  It was kinda sad this week not having to lint roller my yoga pants every 20 minutes.  I would love to be covered in fur right now if it meant having him back:

I will miss my darling soft boy who most loved being up high on furniture: 


He was the loveliest cat and so smart and interactive. 

I miss him following me around the house and talking to me, drinking from the sink, walking on my magazines, and sitting in the front window for hours on end, watching the birds.  I will miss him chasing paper balls and wanting my breakfast cereal and eating the chicken right off our plate (once...) and having epic naps someplace I'd like to sit/sleep: 

 I will miss his being perfect and gentle and kind and lovely every single day. 

I wish I could change things, but I can't.

Colour Theory & A Biscuit Update

I mentioned a while ago that I started a Colour Theory course.  

Last night was the 3rd session and I'm enjoying it (apart from the idle, vague chit chat about colour for the first hour).  My favorite part of the class is when we discuss and learn colour terms and then view a slide show to illustrate the application of the terms in famous old paintings and also contemporary works of art.

We also have homework each week!  The first week we had to do a colour wheel with all the colours having the same VALUE.

"Value" is the lightness or darkness of a colour:

We had to follow the triangle format, by taping lines on the canvas and then painting the 6 colours of equal value - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet.  Mine was pretty accurate except my yellow was too light.

We used acrylic paints in the primary colours - Red, Blue, and Yellow - and mixed them to produce the secondary colours.  Then you use white or black paint to lighten or darken the colours.

Biscuit helped with my project by sitting on the chair next to me and meowing when he liked the colours:

The left side of his neck was shaved at the vet (for blood work) so he looks a little scruffy.

Unfortunately Biscuit is not feeling well at all.

His ultrasound showed that the lymph nodes in his abdomen are moderately swollen.  

The ultrasound vet and our vet think he either has inflammatory bowel disease (IBD -which can cause the lymph system to react) or intestinal lymphoma (cancer).  It is impossible to know which it is without exploratory surgery (via biopsy).  An endoscope could be used for biopsy but it might be inconclusive too.

So we decided to put him on steroids, in addition to the thyroid drug he's been on.

The steroid, prednisolone, is supposed to suppress the immune system and improve the IBD, if that's what he has.  He's been on the steroid 6 days and still no change in the diarrhea.  He hasn't had nausea, but today for the first time he has vomited about 20 times.  

Luckily I am home today, so I am on standby with paper towels and carpet cleaner and have called the vet and await a reply.  He threw up all over the seat of our new linen sofa (which I am regretting I didn't Scotch Guard).  Poor little guy.

He seemed quite okay this week and seemed to be coming back to himself, including some lovely naps during the day (previously he was restless and meowing non-stop):

I guess we will know in the next couple of weeks what's happening.

My heart goes out to our friend Renae who had to put down her 17 year old cat, Schmoo, today.

I hope we will have Biscuit for a long, long time (he is only 11) but I am not hopeful after today.  And it is very hard to get him to take his pills.  I hope the vet calls back soon. 

In the meantime, I am glued to CNN watching the events in Boston.  It must be surreal and a bit scary to be living there right now.    

Beauty & Sadness

My dear friend M. sent me this photo from near her home in Victoria today.

She is an excellent photographer (especially portraiture) and lives in a beautiful city, which adds to the perfection of her photos:

I think the colours are so lovely.  What a perfect photograph!

I feel very sad for the people in Boston who lost their loved ones today, and for those who are injured.  What a rotten thing.  I can only begin to imagine their loss and worry.

The world is a funny place - full of so much beauty and misery that I feel sometimes like my heart will break.  The older I get the more depth of emotion I feel on both fronts - so delighted with life and sometimes so utterly worn out by it.

As my meditation teacher says, I must greet each with equanimity.  Some days, this is very hard to do.

The first thing I thought about when hearing about Boston was our dear blogger friend Steve.  Isn't it amazing that the blog world brings strangers so close to our hearts?

I hope you and yours are well tonight.

The Family Tree

Over the past 30 years, I've done an extensive genealogical search and have completed my family tree as far back as I can.  I was inspired in this effort by my grandmother Dora, who died last year. She had an impeccable memory and loved to talk about family connections in the rural area where she spent her entire life. 

It was her conversations with my mother (who is also a wealth of local family knowledge!) that got me started, in my childhood, documenting their memories and then wondering about the people who came before.

The oldest branch I've tracked on my family tree goes to 1590 in England (an 11th great grandfather), while others extend back to Wales (1749), Scotland (1755) and Ireland (1700).  

Source NA

Much of my family tree has been relatively easy to track since almost all the various branches of my ancestors eventually settled in the same (nearby) small towns in eastern Canada in the 1700's and 1800's.  Thus several generations were raised in that same area and many recorded sometimes detailed family histories.  So the area where I grew up was home to my ancestors for 100 to 200 (or more) years.

It was interesting to learn that the earliest contingent of my ancestors came from Britain in the 1600's and settled in Massachusetts (mainly Topsfield, Ipswich and Lynn).  I have not researched their arrival (by boat from England), but they lived in this area for a few generations before coming to Canada in the mid 1700's.  A few others arrived in Connecticut and came to Canada via New York and New Jersey.

Some notes from my myriad files

Several of my ancestors who arrived in the US fought in the American Revolution (on the American side).  They later came to Canada, still part of the British Empire, as "Loyalists" (loyal to the British crown).

Notes from a local genealogist "back home" (Olive Long) who died last year. I got a ton of great information from her.

All my remaining ancestors arrived directly in eastern Canada in the mid 1700's and 1800's from the British isles - England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.  There is a fascinating variety of stories and places of origin amongst these early settlers.

My grandmother Dora (left) with her mother Minnie Murphy and sister Georgia (who died as a child).  My grandmother inspired my interest in my family tree.  Minnie's ancestry was Irish - she died when my grandmother was only 18.  My grandmother's father was Welsh - he died when my grandmother was almost 3.  I think my beloved grandmother clung to family so much because her own parents died when she was so very young.

Naturally, like any good family historian, I've looked for juicy gossip in the family tree.

Sadly, I didn't really find much family dirt, but I did come across a few interesting tidbits:

• There's only one non-British person in my as-documented family tree.  This is a fourth great-grandmother, from the Netherlands! 
• My fifth-great grandfather was Inuit (of Dorset descent).  The Inuit are a distinct group of aboriginal Canadians.  His wife settled briefly in Newfoundland after her arrival (with her parents) from England and they married.  I thought it was very cool to learn I am 1/128th Inuit (yes, we have 128 great-great-great-great-great grandparents, which puts things into perspective).
• I discovered that 4 of my 8 great grandparents are related to each other, each descended from a common ancestor (Richard Price, 1734 Wales).  My mother was mortified when she learned that she and my father are distantly related (which  David says means I am a hillbilly - haha!).  But of course this happened frequently in areas with old settlements where the nearest wife material was "the girl next door".  P.S. Luckily none of my great grandparents are closer than 4th cousins and probably didn't know they were related!
• I have only one branch of the tree I cannot get beyond my great-great grandparents (all others I can get further back).  I think it is quite funny as they were rumored to be "city people" (from a nearby city) who came to the rural area to live in recent memory (say 1900) and thus were not captured in records by the local genealogists.

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The most important advice I have in compiling a family tree is to talk to your parents (!) and then talk to old people who knew your family growing up!!!  I have talked to many fascinating old folks in the last few years and and drank many cups of tea in the process of compiling my family tree!  

Online resources like www.ancestry.ca (Canada) and www.ancestry.com (US and International) are also invaluable.  Both allow free 14-day trials...!