I'm sharing a few of my favorite tools and techniques at a little watercolour workshop at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium today.  My tools are usually quite basic, like paper (or in this case a moleskine watercolour pocket sketchbook), a brush, watercolour palette (I've fallen in love with the vibrant colours of the brights...I got mine at Michaels), water, salt, plastic wrap and facial tissue.  I tend to prefer using a palette of dried pans rather than tubes (easier to travel with) and I find that using different types of tissue, napkins and paper towels create beautiful patterns.  Like everything I tend to be drawn to in visual arts, I tend to keep my brush strokes quite loose, and also love layering vibrant colours both wet on wet and wet on dry.  Splattering with a toothbrush is also fabulous.  I just like to get a little messy, I guess.  And I like to keep my tools simple so that I can travel with them or work basically anywhere...my kitchen table, on my lap, in a cafe, in a park.  This way I'm sure to paint as the less preparation required makes me very happy.

Several months ago I picked up these 36x12 inch canvases with the idea that I would use them to create totem paintings of a sort.  When I returned from Mexico I knew that I would use them for the animals I photographed while we were there and I'm so pleased with them as a set.  I've hung them in my dining room for the present as I would like to live with them for awhile as I may tweek them just a bit...although, looking at them closely there are little details that I don't know if I want to lose, such as the images of cave drawn turtles that I scraped into wet paint.  We witnessed turtle hatchlings on the beach one evening and the next we saw a mama laying eggs.  The iguana was huge, about 5 feet in length and we saw signs posted prior to seeing him that warned us not to step on iguanas, which my husband almost did after laughing about warnings for such a large creature.  And the parrot was a real flirt, he really liked the girls....it may have been the blonde hair.  Anyway, terrific memories and an extremely fun creative project.

Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has since become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit. In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, they and another family lived cloistered in the "Secret Annex" of an old office.

Well, I finally ordered a few items from RedBubble and I have to say I am impressed!  The items arrived quickly and are great quality.  The a-line dress is very flowy and swingy (if those are words) and feels very comfortable for warm summer days, a few which we have thankfully experienced recently.  The metal travel mug keeps my drinks hot and it's light, which I really like.  And the scarves are large enough to be used as wraps...I wish I would have ordered them prior to going to Mexico.  All the colours are vibrant and the materials feel great.  I'm very pleased.

I have lived in this community for almost 20 years and have known many amazing women but I recently had the privilege of spending a wonderful afternoon with these two at the Amazing Airdrie Women awards luncheon.  My friend Sherry has been the catalyst for the growth of arts and culture in our fair city and I am so glad she has included me in so many incredible initiatives from painting AIRdirondack chairs, murals and a utility box to beginning ARTember and the Airdrie Mayor's Night of the Arts.  She is the publisher of AirdrieLIFE magazine, a publication I am so proud to have in my community, and just an all around fabulous woman.  My friend Kathryn is a talented artist, sommelier and the owner of Vine Life Wine Club.  She's sweet, intelligent and creative...an inspiration.  And I'm so glad to call these women, among others in this great community, friends.

As an artist, I find that I go through cycles of favorite colours or colour combinations.  Maybe I've been influenced by our trip south but these days green gold has my attention and I especially love it mixed with unbleached titanium or titanium white and then paired with prussian blue.  Because it is a green, it looks stunning against reds...those traditional Christmas colours that are always so beautiful together.  Like everything, this too shall pass, but I'm hoping it will remain in my repertoire for awhile.

Among other projects, I am still plugging away at the three totem paintings (12x36 inches) inspired by the wildlife we encountered in Mexico.  Besides the turtle I began previously, I am also working on a parrot and iguana.  I'm so glad the photos I took with my phone while we were there turned out so well as it is nice to reference their colours again...not that I adhere to exact replicas, but I like to represent them in a way that still makes sense visually.   Now that the Funk girls have graduated and my plans are set for fall, I'm hoping more uninterrupted time can be spent painting in my studio (and on my deck...fingers crossed for a beautiful summer ahead).

This is the unofficial obituary of octogenarian Leo Gursky, a character whose mordant wit, gallows humor and searching heart create an unforgettable portrait. Born in Poland and a WWII refugee in New York, Leo has become invisible to the world. When he leaves his tiny apartment, he deliberately draws attention to himself to be sure he exists. What's really missing in his life is the woman he has always loved, the son who doesn't know that Leo is his father, and his lost novel, called The History of Love, which, unbeknownst to Leo, was published years ago in Chile under a different man's name. Another family in New York has also been truncated by loss. Teenager Alma Singer, who was named after the heroine of The History of Love, is trying to ease the loneliness of her widowed mother, Charlotte. When a stranger asks Charlotte to translate The History of Love from Spanish for an exorbitant sum, the mysteries deepen.