Well, maybe not a mountain...not like a real mountain...but still

Ok, this might be the last leaf post...although I can't promise to stop drawing them...but I feel that I must point out my incredible wonder woman-ness.Yes, this was my front garden, after a leaf raking session last week.At this point I'm looking up at the ancient cherry and saying, "are you done yet?"Obviously, one cannot rake when one's neighbour comes along for a chat. Manners!But eventually, one has to get to work.Whew. Who needs the gym?Now to bag up this lot and let it decompose into garden soil. :D

Too many beautiful leaves too little time!

The other day I was walking in a rain-soaked park. I took a video and when I played it back, the rain sounded so loud and drumming and crackling on my umbrella. It felt so incredibly calming.I picked up a vine maple leaf and took it home.And I took an hour to paint it in my nature journal.The sun came out for two seconds together and I went out into the garden.And picked up some of the bronze beech leaves. They're next.What is everybody doing with all these glorious leaves? Pressing them, drawing them? making leaf garlands and wreaths? Tell me, show me. :D

Art Challenge: Return to Standard Time

I'm ever so grateful to our dear rosy girl Ariane for posting a new art challenge: return to standard time.I actually hate daylight savings time and think it's an out of date ritual whose time is definitely up.Spring forward, fall back. A sort of ridiculous, comical act of the world tripping over itself at various dates twice per year.And so appropriate for me right now, because you see, the UK has fallen back while Canada is still in daylight savings and so sprung forward!!! That's the bi-yearly story of my life! And messes something rotten with my daily 9am phone call to Robbie, which is now pushed to 10am. And while Kerstie and Jon are in BC, there's Chloe in Japan! We all end up negotiating times, missing dates, forgetting deadlines, counting backwards, and generally struggling by for a good week or two. It reminds me of a Dickensian novel.So to try to illustrate this I wanted to try to gather all our time zones into one piece.I decided to do a Dickensian collage of sorts, and so chose some vintage book pages.The floor ended up looking like this:(Oh well, gotta break some eggs to make an omelette, right?)And so here is what I'm offering today.A black and white collage of 37 pieces. There is a Japanese castle rising over an English village, next to a West Coast forest. There I am, in strong tiger form, holding everything central, together, holding my family together. There are children, there is whimsy, there is light, and there are butterflies everywhere, representing my butterfly brain...which tries to negotiate all these time zones.Oh, and there's a rhinoceros, because, if we're getting this silly already, there's got to be a rhinoceros.Art: The Rhinoceros, at Home and Abroad: collage of vintage book images, all pre 1906, loads of mat medium + imagination.Come pop over to Ariane's and all our friends to see how they deal with the return to standard time. (I'll tell you something though, I do appreciate the extra hour of sleep.) :DI love our little group of artists and really value our friendship. We may be, we all may be, all over the place and stuck in our time zones, but we've come to love and understand and appreciate each other and support each other in our art. And that's how it should always be. Come join us if you like. Any artistic expressions is so very welcome. :D

A sanity break at Lighthouse Park

There is a lovely park near me at Point Atkinson in West Vancouver. Lighthouse Park.There's a storybook lighthouse......and a little home for the lighthouse keeper......and a little, well tended veggie garden. It's such a lovely, bucolic spot to visit and take photos.But the real magic of this park is the surrounding 75 hectares of old growth rainforest.That's pretty rare to find in a city, and so necessary for recharging.And at this time of year, after days and days of rain, walking thru the forest is so magical. Everything is wet and green and dripping and alive.You can stay in the forest here, or walk down to the ocean and the rocks and beaches and lovely little private coves.And a new vista to the lighthouse and Vancouver just across Burrard Inlet.The best thing to do is find a comfortable space and just stay a while.And then walk back out thru the beautiful forest and get on with your day. :D

Leaves, owls and hummingbirds

So this happened!I dutifully removed the hummingbird feeders from the garden in order to give the Rufous hummingbirds a signal to migrate, but, like last year, an Anna's has decided to overwinter in my hood. So I made up some fresh nectar and put it out for him.The mountain of leaves is almost done. The ancient apple and cherry are bare, but there's more to come on the maple, Japanese maple, ornamental plum and giant bronze beech.That's a lot of leaves. Look at the beautiful tapestry in the shade garden.There are leaves everywhere and I know I have to get out there and rake/gather them and put them in the compost bins, but they're so beautiful right now.Morgan doesn't think so.In other news, I've submitted three owls to the anonymous art show. It's a major fundraiser for my local arts council.It's a brilliant show with hundreds of paintings all costing $100 each, and a great chance for people to expand their art collection.Hmm, I guess it's not that anonymous any more if I'm showing you guys my work...lol. But then, the kinds of paintings I do are pretty recognizable. I bet when I get there I'll be able to spot the work of my friends and fellow artists who I admire. :D These owls are painted on a 1908 advertisement page from an art's magazine, which has been carefully decoupaged onto the wooden support the arts council provides for the show, and then shellacked.Well, there's day three of Nanopoblano daily blog post writing. Hey, who said it wouldn't last...lol. ;)

A day with the Ziglet

You know how people say one child is one, two are 20?Well, our two year old Zoe is 20!Kerstie came to visit for the weekend and only brought the Ziglet with her, but she was as good as gold as long as she was entertained and well fed.We had a pub lunch with my mother, (Zoe's great-grandmother), and set of for Ikea. Kers wanted to buy a couple clip lamps for Ever and Isla's beds, and then to the giant Value Village for a mooch.Then home and our friends Warren and Taven came for supper.A little ipad action and a painting to send off to Chloe in Japan......and a bedtime story from Warren, and we had the rest of the evening to ourselves.

Autumnal table for a supper with friends.

My lovely friend Rosemarie emailed me a week or so ago to see if Kerstie might be interested in some doilies she had from her mother.She emailed photos and Kers was so very happy to have them because Kerstie runs a small vintage wedding rental business and these doilies will be spectacular for her tables.So when Kerstie came for the weekend, I asked her how she will display the doilies.She said her favourite way is to use them as a table runner.As we had some friends coming for supper, we decided to have a little fun and set an autumnal table.Goodness, have you seen anything as lovely?It's wonderful and exciting for me that my daughter and I share this love of vintage things.Now we just have to open the wine and wait for our friends to join us.Thank you so much Rosemarie for thinking of Kerstin. :D

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone.As I'm writing this post, tons of children are coming to the door.I live two city blocks east of one elementary school and four city blocks west of another, so the neighbourhood's full of little princesses, ghouls and devils.I don't usually have time for carving pumpkins, but I do love to get the Halloween decorations out of storage for this night.Mostly homemade, mostly subtly creepy, I love the faces of the children who come up the stairs looking ahead at the silent companions and bump their head into the enormous (soft) spider hanging from the front porch light.These silent companions, a relic of the Victorian era when children used to have these in their nursery, seem to be a big hit with the children and with the parents. I overheard some of the children say that they remembered the companions from last Halloween, and about three parents commented and took photos.Everyone seems to like the dolls on the rocking chair too. My children think the dolls are creepy to begin with, so why not put them there for the night? I don;t think they frighten the children......on the other hand, more than one little princess and ninja looked inside the windows and into the reassuring glow of the living room. :DHope you've all had a lovely and frightful Halloween.I'm about to undertake the post a day NaNoPoblano (whatever) challenge for November, so see you all tomorrow. :D

Wellness, the good and bad of smoothies

Hi everyone, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about getting enough fruit in our diet and the crazy popularity explosion of the smoothie.Everyone knows the benefits of fruit and everyone knows we should probably be adding way more fruit into our diet than we are eating, and there is an easy way to do this: smoothies.However, not all smoothies are good for you. There is such a thing as very bad for you smoothies. According to my nutritionist at the wellness centre, there are smoothies loaded with sugar, either with the addition of sugar, sweetened frozen fruit, sweetened juices or yogourt, or those commercial smoothies you buy which come in a huge cup and cost a fortune, (probably just to justify the huge cup).The trick with healthy smoothies is to blend them yourself, keep the sugar out, and only make it out of as much fruit as you would normally eat in one sitting.Think for a minute. Would you really eat two bananas, a whole apple, an orange, three handfuls of berries and a cup of protein powder in one go? Well, maybe if you're training for a marathon...but if not, keep it to a reasonable serving.I usually buy or grow organic fruit in season, and freeze it for future use, like these cranberries I got at the cranberry festival in Fort Langley a couple weekends ago.I also got myself a small blender. This one is called the Magic Bullet and was on sale at the local Canadian Tire, (really, three commercial smoothies and you will have paid for this!), but there are plenty of other small budget blender options out there. The reason I got it is because it's easier than a regular blender, which is a pain to dismantle, wash and put away, but primarily because a small blender like this will help to keep your portion of fruit to a reasonable amount.Now go grab some favourites. I try to imagine the fruit on a plate. I think I would happily eat a banana, a slice or two of apple, three strawberries, 10 to 20 blueberries, and maybe 5 or 6 cranberries in one go.And then have a little think. What can you sneak into that smoothie which is healthy for you and you won't even notice? Is it a kale leaf (anti cancer phytochemicals and vit C) from the garden? Is it small scoop of flax seeds (Omega 3, antioxidant lignans)? Sneak it in. I also love a leaf or two of peppermint. Maybe you can sneak in something you hate the taste of. For example, I hate the taste of ginger, but ginger is a powerful anti-inflammatory agent and I can't really taste that strong, gingery taste in the smoothie. Be present in your own body and decide what you need.Stick your selection into your blender. Now add a little water...maybe 1/4 cup. You don't need sugary yogourt, you don't need fancy vitamin infused, ion generated, reverse polar, stream gathered at first moonlight water! Just clean water.And blend it up.I really love to pour the smoothie into my favourite Sbux to-go mug.Then I take it with me sipping it for a nice, long while, savouring the fruity goodness.Try it guys. Do you have a favourite smoothie recipe? Share with me or in the FB wellness group. :D

Hello from Sunday night

Hello from Sunday night everybody.And a wet and stormy West Coast, as three powerful storms passed over us in the last three days.The indomitable spirit of Vancouverites though, the Sunday farmer's market was on and many growers and makers came out despite the rainI popped in to the market to buy a few veggies......but primarily to catch up with this gorgeous girl, my friend Deborah.We chatted for a little and promised to get together soon. Meanwhile the rain set in again.Back home everyone is a little lazy and not really very excited about going out in this weather,But can you really blame us when there's hot tea, lovely books and comfy sofas right here?I took a few photos, including this one, of a brief clearing in the angry sky between storms #2 and #3 from my studio window,and I painted that sky in acrylics, in one of the pages in my handmade journal.I glued a long piece of rough, handmade, green construction paper into the book and then folded it over. Unfolded, it made a lovely, long canvas for the sky.I had trouble with this painting for several reasons, One is that the paper was super absorbent and just sucked all the moisture out of the paint and I couldn't blend easily, even with medium. Another reason was that I have a very limited amount of colours and couldn't blend the peach tones no matter how I tried. I'm just not that good with acrylics. But I thought it was a worthwhile practice and overall I'm pretty happy with it.One last little thing. I've started a Facebook Wellness group here: WellnessI'm not sure how it will progress, but it's my hope that we might share health and wellness tips.