Saturday Morning

Good morning! It is 5:30 and I am getting ready to head off to the Halifax Seaport Farmer's Market. I wanted to THANK all of you who purchased prints in my wee sale. It turned a lackluster March into a bright shiny one! So grateful.They were all shipped off yesterday.
I'm bursting with ideas for new paintings and am bringing my sketchbook with me today. Ready to trap any new ideas. My sketchboook is like a catcher's mitt!

March sale

 Hiya! I'm having a March Madness sale and giveaway to end the month with a bang! All prints are 50% off (now $10 each) and when you buy,  you will be entered into a draw to win three more prints and some extra goodies! To find the coupon code for 50% off, pop over to my facebook page :) This sale will end on March 29th midnight.

Tag you're it!

 

Hiya! Remember the photoshoot I did? Here is the photo that was taken of me holding Geordan's photo.....as promised:) I tagged the photographer Paul Balite, and this is his self portrait holding me with his partner Emma in the background. I think this is a clever portrait and fun selfie with the other portraits in this long string of  connections. I wonder who he will tag? I love this project!!

Spring has sprung

Happy Spring!

Wow we are having a doozy of a couple of days. Today the temps are supposed to reach summer levels! 25C/78F I will enjoy it but it does kind of freak me out. Temps back to near freezing on the weekend. The orchard growers are nervous because the trees might start blooming with all this mild and whacky weather and then the frost will come and kill the tender buds. This picture was taken in May.  Forsythia in full bloom, it is the earliest flowering shrub around here and we still have a month and a half to go before it should be flowering.

I am almost finished with another cold. Sniffles drive me crazy. Drippy noses are not condusive to getting much done. I've managed to dispatch this one quickly!

In other news....I've signed on with a cross-stitch company in the UK and soon my paintings will be availabe as kits and patterns. Cross-stitch is something I have never been able to do, you need lots of patience I think, but the results are lovely! Will let you know when they are "live"

This was in our local paper this morning.... Halifax ranks as one of the top 4 places to live in Canada according to MoneySense magazine. I've always known that. You can read the article here.

Friday bits

Such bold and beautiful skies. This is Cogswell Street looking west. 
Just got back from the gym. Did a Zumba class, wow, those are fun but tiring. Gotta keep these bones moving. Exercising to music really does make the time fly and workouts seem easier. Ever put on some tunes and just boogie in the living room? I do that too. Ha, ha nice mental picture, right? Whatever works.

I'm busy planning what to do with my business year. How do I want it to look, what do I want to do, what do my customers want, where shall I sell, what shall I sell and how. Lots of ideas. I will be putting together a survey soon and would love it if you could answer some questions for me. It will be confidential of course, none will know who you are including me:)

Tomorrrow is another market day, really early morning for me. It is supposed to be warm and sunny. Hooray. We had one of those surprise March snowstorms the other day and I am anxious to see all the snow melted. I need some spring flowers:) That's the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia below.

mmmm

I did a photo shoot on the weekend for a friend who is starting up a wonderful venture called Local Tasting Tours. It is a walking~tasting tour in downtown Halifax! I can hardly wait to take one of her tasty tours. Will let you know when it is live.This is my friend Jenna and one of her yummy cupcakes.

Artistic Ventures

 Last Friday week I was in the market to have my picture taken (will tell you that story next) and while I was waiting, I popped up to the mezzanine to have a quick bite of lunch. There was a painter sitting alone by the window doing some watercolour sketches of Georges Island. HE said hello and we had a lovely chat, and I discovered that he was  Tom Forrestall, (an exceptionally gifted and well known artist.) You can click on the link to the Nova Scotia Gallery of Art and see some of his work in their permanent collection. I love this piece called a Murder of Crows, you can click to see the back of it too.
It was a grey day and he wanted to capture the whiteness of the snow and lightouse against the dark.I loved watching him work. Very inspiring. We talked about painting on site which is something I want to try this summer. Lucky me, he gave me a few tips:)

So yes, on to my picture... I was approached by Paul Balite who had been referred to me by Geordan Moore, a really talented artist/illustrator who owns the company Quarrelsome Yeti.

It's basically an art project that  mimics the social networks (facebook, twitter, google+, etc) that are so prevalent in today's world. Paul takes a portrait of a person while making the person hold a photo of the person who referred him/her. This is a blurry Paul getting ready to take my pic and I am holding the picture of Geordan in front of his silkscreened t-shirts and in this picture you can see Jono who referred him.

 The background should say something about who we are or what we like to do. Jono referred Geordan to Paul. So he took a photo of Geordan while he was holding Jono's photo. Now, since Geordan referred me to him, he took a picture of me holding Geordan's photo. It will go on like this until it naturally stops. They plan to exhibit the pictures once the project is over. I chose to be phographed in the market with one of my paintings. I will show you Paul's picture of me when I get it. His girfriend Emily took this one of the setup. I'm looking a bit pensive I think.  Fun project huh? Who did I tag? The photographer!! I am really looking forward to his self portrait.

Morning light and the Titanic

This was how the sky looked outside my window this morning! We had a soft snow fall last night and all is white again. So pretty but it won't last long. Spring is almost here.

I finished a painting of the Titanic yesterday. Such a handsome ship. There are many events and exhibits being held in Halifax this year.  I thought I would paint my own little commemorative picture in memory of the people who sadly perished that cold April night in 1912.  Halifax has very close ties with the Titanic.  It feels as though it is part of my history too, I've grown up with the tales and the places. Within walking distance of my house is a graveyard where many of the victims are buried. It is a poignant place to visit.

This is available as a print in my etsy shop

Procrastination

Hooray it is March! There's the bold Monty surveying his domain. I am procrastinating. I have  much work to do and am dilly dallying here. Did you know that there are a ZILLION beautiful and interesting blogs out there??? So much to see, so little time. Really, I almost get overwhelmed with all there is to see and learn on the internet. Some people have such lovely blogs and there are more and more of them daily! Whats a gal to do? Signing off now or I will never get anything done. Have a great day!