here you go and here you go

yes! it's done! Happy with it. The snail has this simple meaningful, non intellectual feel that the turtle, a few posts back, achieved. That's exactly what I want. I hope there's more like that under the thick layer of bone my head seem to have under the leather. And God knows what else lurks there!

new little Mandalas

These are still in progress! I am enjoying making them!

At the foreground are thumbnail sketches on an envelope: I was brainstorming on what my new brown doll will look like. Note sure yet ...specially since it all went a bit off: I had planed for the fabric to stretch sideways but instead, the fabric decided to stretch lengthwise! The result is she is much more elongated than I had planed, so my aforementioned little plans must be adjusted. I love this sort of accidents though, forces you to think outside of the box!

Thrift finds

Went on a treasure hunting expedition: I was very happy of this find at mrs Huizenga: a lovely blue towel with folky motif on it of flowers and fowl. Charming! also a modern-style spoon and a kitsch horn-imitation fork. I collect all sort of different utensils and when guests comes, I create a different setting for each person: it's fun! I try to use a lot of bright colours.

Also found an old potato smasher. I had seen a whole bunch at mrs Huizenga's but didn't want to spend a lot of money on them, so I was very pleased to find an exact same one just below at Goodwill! You don't always get lucky there, their selection is generally pretty lame, but there's always exceptions! When I do find something, it's really pretty great... and cheap!

And last but not least found an old VHS of "message in a bottle" movie. I thought it would be just ok, I'm not a huge fan of Kevin Cosner, but actually it was great, the actress, Robin Wright Penn did a fantastic job, such a great character! It made me feel all romantic and in love with love again!

Ha!

multicolour clouds

I was at work today, with a beautiful view of the afternoon sky. The sky was a fair blue over the city with only above to the left a quarter of it hidden by a blanket of thin puffy clouds. The sun was in the middle of the fluffy blanket and I could see it, a white disk, through a thinner portion. I then noticed a strange phenomenon that I have never seen before:

the blanket of clouds made a large circle in the sky and all of the outer edge I was exposed to was for the entire circumference the colour of a rainbow! I mean the cloud's edge itself was going from yellow to orange to pink to blue towards the outer edge. Have you in all your years ever seen such thing?

I am so amazed to see something, at my ripe old age of 45, that I have never seen before and never heard of!!! Life is full of wonders, I always say it... let it be evidence that, no matter how much we think we know, there is always something out there waiting to amaze us!

No! I did not have a camera sadly, this above is a picture taken at the Kortright centre, north of Toronto where I went with my good friend Anita a few weeks past. it was a wonderful day filled with discoveries, among which I discovered a berry with the most amazing dieing potential . I am trying to grow it at home to see if i can make a production of it. You might hear more of it in a couple years or so...

in progress

There: I am posting this 1st image of a new serie of small paintings I am doing now, inspired by nature, of course, but also by Mandalas. I have been wanting to explore the Mandala idea for a long time. This is a way to approach it from the back door, in a small playful format. The panels are very icon-like, with strong symbolism.

This one has a snapping turtle at it's centre:
A strange creature that lurks in green lakes, in bogs or under floating logs. They snap, they bite! they are not friendly! That's because their shell is not a very good hiding place so nature gave them a long neck instead, long sharp claws and a bad temper!

I really enjoyed making them. They are done on small die-cut boards from 7 Gypsies. I have a whole bunch of these boards, so will paint many more. I have varnished them with high gloss varnish. But i might do the next one with matte varnish to see if it would work even better.

They shine!

provencal traditions

another great link to a blog about textile traditions and more from Provence:

http://willows95988.typepad.com/tongue_cheek/french_traditions/