Red All Stars

We are in the big city with the family this weekend.  We came down on Wednesday to take her to an orthodontist appointment to get her braces adjusted.  Our daughter and son-in-law couldn’t get time off work so Grammie and Grand-dad to the rescue. 

I didn’t bring my favourite graphite pencils (Blackwing or Staedtler) so I used what I had; a cheap BIC mechanical pencil.  These are my granddaughters old Converse All Stars (they are too small now).  I wanted to draw them cuz they are red!  I didn’t have a red pencil but I found one in her pencil case and a blue one. 

I got lost in those laces but I’m not going to make any further negative comments about this spread because I so enjoyed myself.  My daughter will be selling them soon so I’m glad I got to document them before they are gone. 

Municipal Election

Last night was municipal election results night here in Ontario. I don’t post on politics so I didn’t post this page when I made it the other day.  Besides unless you live in my area, you wouldn’t find this interesting.  I just had to post to say that my candidates in fact won! What a relief!  It was worth standing in the long queue to vote!  It has been a difficult time here locally due to some of policies of the old guard.  I mean really, no internet voting!  In this day and age?!?!!!!  In our county, our township was the last to post official results because of the mail-in ballots! Ridiculous!  

Voting gives power to the people! 

Burn and stitch

I took a free class called Wanderlust Live weekend.  I followed a session with Claudette Hasenjager from South Africa.  I’ve never thought of burning a hole (or rather holes) in my sketchbook pages before.  Exciting and scary.  I have used stitching before but applying a flame to the page made me nervous.   

I didn’t think about page layout before I started the burn; I do wish I would have spent a bit more time thinking beforehand.  Oh well, it was certainly fun to do!

Shibori dyed paper

No prompt- yesterday I got messy with Acrylic ink and rice paper.  The ink is Liquitex Pyrrole Red and Dr Ph Martin Spectralite Gold.  I also made a couple of papers using Prussian Blue with the gold.  Loads of fun folding and dipping the paper in the watered down ink. 

I wanted to document it in my sketchbook but my attempt was horrid so I laid the small sheet (this is a quarter sheet) of ink dyed paper on the next page. 

Hydro outage

Today’s spread.  I actually had to put my alarm on to get up early to fill the thermos with hot water.  The power went off at 07:05 and came back on ahead of schedule.  Yippee! My fingers were getting chilly so I was extremely happy.  My hubby decided to take a nap even though he had just had breakfast.  Since we were notified in advance, we were prepared for the outage: pails of water for the toilet, battery pack back-up just in case.  I took the food out of the fridge before hand that we would need for brunch. 

My this Thermos is the best!  

Well I hope that they can keep the hydro on all winter!  Life sure sucks without it. 

Painting with Textiles

My Mark Rothko-  I move at a snail’s pace when it comes to hand stitching but that is okay with me.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I didn’t measure anything, just eye-balled everything.  That creates a wonky piece.  

I used what I had and I had some cotton and organza.  The yellow ochre ”fabric” is a painted dryer sheet that I had waiting in the wings - time to use it! 

I’m not quite finished but on the home stretch.  Sadly my photo doesn’t show my stitches well in the red square but they are there nevertheless.  I really enjoyed the “sprinkle” stitching on the dryer sheet!  They were easy, quick and fun.