Happy St Paddy’s Day

It pelted down rain yesterday and then would stop for a bit then did that over and over again.  We lost a lot of snow which is good but that switches to not so great when considering the soggy ground.  Thank goodness for my new clodhoppers, they will come in handy now. 

You can barely see my 3 red-winged black birds in my photo here but you can almost see them if you really look.  They are a whole flock under the feeder right now.  They aren’t showing their red wings quite yet since it is still early in the season and chilly (-3C) but the temperatures are rising today. 

Happy St Patrick’s Day to all!  I’ll be having a wee beverage to celebrate later.  Memories of visiting Ireland with my parents as a kid.  My father was trying to find my great grandfathers grave while we were there. 

Walking on water

Some years ago I took a sketchbook class with Karen Stamper, a UK artist.  I made this spread in my Seawhite of Brighton accordion sketchbook.  It made me think of Lake Simcoe  in the winter (3 mins by car, 20 or more minutes if we walk through the bush).  The year I did this, it was too warm and the ice was unstable so we didn’t go out.  The next year, my knee was killing me so I didn’t go out again.  This year, this past Monday, it was a beautiful sunny day, so I went out.  I finally got to “walk on water”!!  Yay me! 

There is about 7 - 10 inches of ice covered by loads of snow.  That makes me happy because the last time I was out there was a lot of “black ice” on the lake.  It creeps me out to look into the abyss like that.  Yes, black ice is a scary thing especially when you’re driving too! Ugh! When you start sliding, there is nothing you can do but keep calm and hope you can slide through it without damaging your car. 

As you can see there are a lot of thin layers: line work, stamping, stencilling, paint, napkin, gluing and a silk tie for the landscape and clouds.  Yup, this isn’t something I normally do.  I had loads of fun making this and I have lots of pages to work on yet. It isn’t the type of project that is necessarily finished, I even tweaked this page.

My first robin for 2025

I was thrilled to see my first robin who is our harbinger of spring.  After this horrible winter, I am more than happy to know spring is around the corner.  The red wing black birds are back too (although it is too soon for them to show their colours).  I love hearing their twittering at the bird feeder.  This page is from a photo I took.

I’ve added a photo of the wild turkeys who continue to stop by for a snack. 

Stitching on paper

I’ve been creating outside of my sketchbook. 

This year I started watching Lisbeth Degn, a Danish artist, on U-tube.  I wanted to document this week’s project so I wouldn’t forget just how much I love stitching on paper. 

To make this, I just had to remind myself to go slowly and take even more thread than I thought necessary.  I didn’t quite make it  on my prototype (missed it by one).  I used Perle cotton size 12.  It’s a white on white pice so I found a dark paper to put behind it. 

My final project is below in the comments.  I used different sized holes and threads and I increased the aperture.  Personally I prefer the larger circle with a small aperture.  I backed it with a piece of brown paper that had some paint and marks on it. 

I made an error that couldn’t figure out where exactly I went wrong,  so I left it.  I’m living by the old maxim; “done is better than perfect”. 

New clodhoppers

My old “clodhoppers” bit the dust so I’ve been looking and looking for a replacement. Crappy Tire for the win! Oh yes, I say Crappy Tire fondly for Canadian Tire; I’ve always called it that!  Outbound is a CTC store brand that we have bought many times as the products have been great so far.  These are men’s and after I put the new insoles in, I was checking to see how they felt and thought I should document them. 

January Thaw in February

We had a day of sunshine (on Wednesday) that brought me hope!  However, it was short lived but I made this double paged spread because of it!  I found some previously painted flowers on a sheet of thin watercolour paper, added ink lines and cut them out.  Wasn’t “in love” with them so it took me a bit to think of how to use them.  Made a vase from the left over paper; covered the vase with fancy duct tape and stuck it all down on a page in my sketchbook!  Perfectly acceptable flowers in a vase. They are glued down in the vase but loose above so they are casting a shadow. 

With help from a friend

This 2 page spread is all about documenting the SNOW!  I started digging the path out for the oil delivery dude 4 days ago (it took me 2 days as I had other commitments).  Delivery was yesterday- finally!!! I didn’t want it to snow again and then I would have to do this work all over again. The snow fall this year has surpassed all expectations and the most seen for about a 100 years! We have never had to have the garage roof or kitchen cleared in all the years we have lived here! Anyway, here is a little map of our front yard.