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/

from Waddington Auctions

I'm posting below this link from Waddington's auctions. This is a great set of Inuit drawings full of their icons, culture and wonderful sense of colours, story telling and filled also of one of the most charming sense of humour I know.

http://inuit.waddingtons.ca/9november2009/catalogue/0/0275

guardians...

Found this passage on wikipedia while I was researching Mandalas. It's about Guardians. I find it very inspiring.

" From The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen, Teachings of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, compiled and edited by John Shane:

Guardians of the teachings
There are eight principal classes of Guardians each with many subdivisions. Some are highly realized beings, others not realized at all. Every place - every continent, country, city, mountain, river, lake or forest - has its particular dominant energy, or Guardian, as have every year, hour and even minute: these are not highly evolved energies. The various teachings all have energies which have special relationships with them: these are more realized Guardians. These energies are iconographically portrayed as they were perceived when they manifested to masters who had contact with them, and their awesome power is represented by their terrifyingly ferocious forms, their many arms and heads, and their ornaments of the charnel ground. As with all the figures in tantric iconography, it is not correct to interpret the figures of the guardians as merely symbolic, as some Western writers have been tempted to do. Though the iconographic forms have been shaped by the perceptions and culture of those who saw the original manifestation and by the development of tradition, actual beings are represented."

It reminded me of the vision of Ezekiel in the old testament.

dolls

I wanted to save these 2 dolls for a show and so haven't posted them in their finished state until now but I am not currently looking for a gallery and so thought I might as well share them with you here. I truly hope you'll enjoy them.

"Burden" the doll carrying fire wood is just back from Mrs Huizenga store on Roncesvale where she spent the winter and summer.

The other one I am very partial to, I love the mix of sacred and playful. Very much like a Shaman... He is "spirit of the woods" which I did last year. But he's been hiding long enough. he is anthropomorphic, as always. My influences are obvious here are they not?

mo-dern-style!!!

As you know, I love finding treasures and I'm in a great neighbourhood for that! Found that fantastic chair on my way back home! Pure Moderstyle woohoo! Aw! I love the rocket ship form! It needs work though! but it's gona get a lot of TLC and we'll see what we'll see! very tempted to sand it clean, but then loose the great paint? arh! choices! hmmm?

Unfinished painting - Detail

I did this in France (almost finished) once I arrived at my mom's. The light was bright there of course and my mom set my quarters in her painting studio!!! Had to paint! It's a lovely little studio and I'm sorry i didn't take a picture of it. She has all her paintings on the wall, many great ones! She has a large table in the centre with everything an artist needs around it.

I didn't feel like painting Provence which might be shocking to some of you... but it has been painted already by so many on every angle and in every colour... I always feel I've come to this earth to sing the enchanting beauty of the Boreal Forest and so, that is what I did with this silly owl.

I wasn't able to finish it only because my lack of knowledge on birds feet ; owl's in particular. Couldn't figure how to handle the feet seen from bellow ; as she is flying away... I will figure something out eventually!