Winter Camping in Tucson

One of the most common questions I have been asked about going to Tucson was "how was the weather?" My sister had been there only a week before and every day was in the 80's while she was there. Of course, it's the desert so it cooled down at night but she told me it was still warm enough that she just needed to wear long sleeves or a light jacket at night.

Sadly, this was not my experience of the weather in Tucson. Don't get me wrong, it was still quite pleasant and definitely warmer than Ontario in November but I ended up wearing the same long-sleeved shirt and pair of jeans almost every day since the majority of the warm weather clothing I had brought with me wasn't appropriate for the suddenly cooler temperatures that prevailed while I was there. I also wore my fleece jacket most of the time when we were outdoors and definitely needed it at night.

It was 80 degrees on the day I arrived which turned into a lovely, warm evening. My sleeping quarters were in what Kate calls the "Barbie camper", a fabulous trailer she has installed at the back of her property. The photo on the right is Kate and Stefanie, just after we finished making up the beds in the camper. That first night was so warm, I slept under just a sheet until about 3 a.m. when I woke up cold and pulled the oh-so-cozy down duvet over top of me.

The next day, the temperature dropped about ten degrees and that night, it was a little chillier in the camper and I definitely needed the duvet from the beginning. It got progressively colder in the evenings, as the days were cloudy and cool and there was no residual heat to warm up the camper and by the third night, I was sleeping with my fleece jacket over my pyjamas. On the fourth night, Kate gave me a second duvet. Suddenly, sleeping in a camper in Tucson was starting to feel all too familiar - just like October nights at the cottage. We made jokes about winter camping and how we were now ready to stay at an ice hotel. In reality, I was warm as toast sleeping under these conditions, as long as a hand or elbow did not peek out from under the bedclothes, as the cold air would quickly wake me up with the realization it was time to pull that chilled body part under cover again!

Of course, it wasn't until the day after our coldest night that Kate remembered she had a couple of space heaters in the house that she could have brought out for us to use in the camper. Oh how we laughed! By then, we didn't need them - we moved into the house that night, as some of the other guests had left by then, freeing up a couple of the beds.

Still, it was so much fun to sleep in the Barbie camper. It was like camping out in a tree fort or pitching a tent in the backyard when we were kids, remember that feeling? When you feel totally safe knowing the house is just a few feet away and the door is unlocked, in case you need to go to the bathroom or a crazed ax murderer shows up, but also just a little adventurous because you're not sleeping in your regular bed, technically you are outdoors and potentially anything could happen.

The first night, I even stayed out there alone! Boy, did I feel brave, staying in a new place in a new city all alone outside in the yard! Surely Nancy Drew and/or Amelia Earheart would have been proud of me!

Tucson - Day 1

Before I flew out of Toronto at 6:30 a.m. last Thursday to head to Tucson, Arizona, the plane had to be de-iced. Can you believe it? Apparently, even a little skiff of frost on the wings and top of the plane can add a lot of weight and create a potentially dangerous situation. Hey, I'm all about the safety. Besides, it was fun to watch the guy in the big yellow cherry picker spray the wings with water.

As I mentioned before, you can't actually fly directly from Toronto to Tucson, so I had a stopover in Chicago on the way there. The flight to Chicago is a short one, we got there in about a hour and a half, and it was quite a trip to be flying so low so early in the morning, as the sun was rising behind us. I got some great cloud photos and the views of the three Great Lakes that we flew over (Erie, Huron and Michigan) were pretty amazing. Hard to imagine they are so BIG but seeing them from the air really drives the message home.

I was able to take this totally cool photo of a cloud over downtown Chicago as we were coming in to land at O'Hare Airport. Doesn't it look like there is a flying saucer hovering over the city???

I had close to 3 hours to hang about the airport in Chicago while I waited for the flight to Tucson, so I checked out the shops and ate some breakfast at The Great American Bagel, which is known as The Great Canadian Bagel where I come from!

The flight to Tucson was just over 3.5 hours long and unbelievably, there were no TVs or audio, so no in-flight movies or radio programs to pass the time. Thank goodness I had a good book and an iPod to entertain myself. Then again, I'd been awake since 3 a.m. so napping was also on my agenda.

My friend Stefanie met me at the luggage carousel in Tucson, where she had arrived from St. Louis about half an hour before me. While we were waiting for Heather to arrive, we got a phone call from her to let us know her original flight from D.C. to Denver had been cancelled and she was currently en route via San Francisco instead and would be arriving a couple of hours later than planned.

So Stef and I headed off in her rental car and made our way to Kate's groovy house. The three of us went out for lunch and groceries, then went back to the house to greet the next arrival, Debi, the owner of Beads of Colour in Dundas, Ontario (see my blog posting of August 19th http://cynfulcreationscanada.blogspot.com/2009/08/beads-of-colour.html) and then Stefanie and I headed back to the airport to pick up Heather. Check out the lovely photo I took of the sunset while we were driving to the airport - I love it!

Once everyone was settled back at Kate's house, we went out to an Italian restaurant for dinner and were joined by some of the other workshop students who were staying at the studio house. Soon it was time for me to head to bed in the Barbie Camper...I'll tell you all about that experience tomorrow!

Guest Blogger

My camera battery is totally drained and needs to be re-charged, so I can't unload any pictures from Tucson at the moment. Instead, I thought I'd allow my fellow classmate Annette to guest author this blog posting, as she was kind enough to take photos for me last week during the Creative Art Journals class that I missed while I was away in Tucson and she also wrote a description of the techniques for me. I thought I'd share this with you almost verbatim, with just a few gentle edits by yours truly, so most of the words are Annette's accompanied by photos she took of the pictures created by our teacher, Toni.

"The class was an introduction to different techniques using watercolour paints.

Watercolour is a beautiful art medium; however, just as it can bring you great joy, it is also the least forgiving...but don't let that scare you off. With the different techniques outlined here, you can create many different pieces of artwork.

Your tools are key to helping you create beautiful pieces. When choosing your paper, paints and watercolor brushes, try to purchase the best quality in your price range.

The techniques learned involved the use of: plastic wrap, wax candle/crayon, watercolor pencils, masking/painters tape, toothbrush, a straw and rock salt.

The first picture is one that Toni created with plastic wrap. She painted her paper with a wet technique (the paper was wet) and then she applied her colours working quickly in order for the colour to be wet when she put on the plastic wrap. She took a nice sized piece of plastic wrap and then delicately scrunched it in a size that would fit the paper and then gently pressed the plastic wrap on top of the painting and set aside to dry. The second picture is the final version.

The next technique was candle/crayon. Toni took the base of a candle and then just marked up her page with a pattern, then painted over it with the blue paint. Where the candle had been marked on, the paper stayed white and created an interesting picture.

The third technique involved using painters tape to create a pattern on the page and then painting over top and around it. When the paint dries, you remove the tape and you are left with the white image within the paint. I found this technique creates a beautiful picture but I was discouraged when trying to remove the tape. It is a tricky business, because the process also removed some of my picture.

The fourth technique was done using rock salt. This can give an amazing effect. You paint your paper and while it is still wet, you sprinkle course salt on the paper and then the salt seems to melt and make little explosions on the paper - you can get firework type effects.

The last technique was a combination of toothbrush and straw. The toothbrush creates a splattering effect. You dip your brush in the wet paint color and then splatter the paint onto the page. With the straw you blow onto wet paint and blow the paint into directions to create running lines.

The thing with watercolor is being willing to experiment and take a chance that what you are doing will create something wonderful."

Thanks very much for sharing, Annette!

Home from Tucson

I am home today from my week in Tucson. Had a great time taking a 3 day precious metal clay workshop taught by Kate McKinnon, making some new friends and spending time with some old friends. A few of us stayed on a couple of extra days, so we had a chance to see a bit more of the city and the local flora and fauna and it was all wonderful.

I don't really know where to begin to tell you of our adventures. I think that is more a function of the fact that I've been travelling all day and my brain is a little weary by now, it certainly isn't due to a lack of subject matter. But it has been a bit of a long day. You can't fly to Tucson directly from Toronto, you have to take at least two planes (and if you're really unlucky, three!) and fly through either Chicago, Phoenix, Denver or Dallas - unless your flight is cancelled like my friend Heather's was on the way down and then you can go through somewhere even more obscure, like San Francisco! When I flew down, I went by way of Chicago and coming home today, I went through Dallas.

Now that I am home, I have 363 photos to sort through and a bunch of laundry to do but other than that, no major deadlines looming and that feels pretty good. You know how it is when you are going away, there is always so much to be done to get ready and make sure everything is taken care of while you're gone. Strangely enough, now that I am back, my calendar is clear for a couple of days and there isn't really anything on my "to do" list, and that's a good thing. I can ease gently back into my regular day-to-day life.

I am very much a fan of travelling, seeing new places, meeting new people, catching up with old friends but it's true what they say, it's always nice to come home. I was realizing today that a very big part of home for me is having my cat Max with me. Boy, did I miss him this past week! He seems to have missed me too. He hasn't left my side since I got home tonight and I'm glad to have him there, purring away. As long as he doesn't find out that I slept with another cat while I was away, all will be okay.

Stay tuned for photos and stories from my adventures but in the meantime, here are a few photos from my travels today. I took these shots from the plane on the flight from Dallas to Toronto. The shot above is clouds over ... Oklahoma, I think, or possibly Indiana. But before we left Texas, we were clearly nowhere near the Bermuda Triangle but we did fly over this configuration and lived to tell the tale:


This last shot is as we were coming down into Toronto. I like the blurry effect and the way you can make a clear distinction between northbound and southbound traffic by the colour of the lights. Who knew traffic congestion could be so pretty?!

Still In Tucson

Okay, it's Nov 17th and I'm still in Tucson. If I was in Toronto, at some point in the past week, I would have told you a tale of an Indian, some beads, a strawberry and a hummingbird, that also involves Niagara Falls, pyramids and Stonehenge. Sounds interesting, doesn't it? And I promise to tell you all about it very soon but in the meantime, I will share this photo of beadwork made by the hero of the story, a man named Samuel Thomas, isn't it beautiful?

Found Cupboard

I picked up a new piece of furniture last week. I mean, literally, picked it up with a dolly and trundled it on home. I was walking home from the grocery store and came in by the back door of my building, which is where the recycle bins are located. We used to have a dumpster there and even though it is now gone, people still pile all sorts of garbage there, mostly old furniture. I noticed this cupboard and went over to check it out. It needs to be cleaned and re-painted but once that's done, I think it will be great! As you can see, it's quite tall with lots of shelves. I'm sure I can store all sorts of bead and/or art supplies in there! I'm excited about the fact that it is plain white in colour and nothing special on the outside, which means I can colour and decorate it any way I want. At the moment, it's sitting in my kitchen, which may or may not be its final destination. Honestly, people throw away the most amazing treasures!

No Snow in Tucson

At least, there better not be while I'm there taking this 3 day weekend workshop with Kate McKinnon. I don't know if I'll have a chance to blog while I'm here, so I have written several blog postings in advance and scheduled them to post themselves while I'm away. It's a very handy system but I do want to be frank about it and not try to fool you and pretend that I'm writing this from Arizona. If I had a laptop and took it with me, I could but I don't, so I can't.

So for today, while I am enjoying what I hope will be very warm and sunny desert temperatures, I thought I'd share a picture of this snowy, evening painting that I saw last week at Sherway Gardens shopping centre. Unfortunately, I don't know the artist's name but I was absolutely blown away by the look of this painting, the way the light is shining out behind the trees. It's not the best picture, as I took it through the window of the store at the mall and it was dark out, so there is some reflected light on the glass (although I did wait until the headlights of the car driving past had gone!).

I hope you can see it, because it really is a beautiful painting. Up close, it doesn't look like much, because you have to be standing far enough back to get the proper perspective but imagine how clever the artist must be to have captured that?!