My Favourite Artists

I was back at Bizzy B last night, this time for our monthly Journal Junkies gathering.  This month's theme was "favourite artist". I had a little trouble narrowing down my list - it was hard to pick just one and there were so many genres to chose from (music, art, fashion, architecture, to name just a few!).  In the end, I decided to make a journal page featuring several of my favourite art journalers, using photos from their blogs or Facebook pages:

Top row, left to right:
Tracy Moore
Lisa Cheney
Judy Wise and Judy Wilkenfeld
Stephanie Lee

Bottom row, left to right:
Mary Ann Moss
Jane Davenport
Teesha Moore
Nathalie Kalbach

This grouping includes some of my very favourite people, who are also artists!  I have met most of them in person and had a chance to take classes with them as well as spend personal time getting to know the person behind the artist.  I love them all dearly and am proud to call them friends.  There are only two I haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting:  Mary Ann Moss and Judy Wilkenfeld - hopefully some day that will happen!

My page was inspired by one of the rooms I visited recently at the Art Gallery of Ontario.  While I was there, I used my phone to sneak a picture of the wall that inspired me:

I didn't have any raspberry/rose pink paint for the background so I used one called paprika instead. I really loved how it turned out.  I printed the frames on cardstock and cut each one out painstakingly by hand.  Did you notice my lettering on the top left hand side is a little wonky?  I was stamping the letters from right to left, so they would be balanced out from the middle - clearly I need a little more practice working backwards like that!

Sadly, my pages were not big enough to include photos all of my favourites, so don't feel bad if you don't see yourself on these pages.  ;)

50 Years Ago Tonight

Hard to believe it has been fifty years since the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show on February 9, 1964.

Photo from www.ottawacitizen.com

I didn't see it, as I was a mere two years old at the time.  I'm not even sure my parents had a TV back then. I do remember them speaking of their earliest memories of the Beatles. Apparently the lads from Liverpool with their "long" hair was quite the topic of conversation back then.  I find that hard to believe as well, especially knowing what was to come in the late 60's and early 70's for men's hairstyles!

I may have missed those first early performances but certainly their music played an important part in my upbringing.  My parents came to own several of their albums.  Abbey Road was a special favourite of mine, I can remember listening to it over and over again.  Of course, back then, you could set your record player repeat and the arm would swing from the middle of the record back to the outside rim as often as you wanted!

I don't expect I'll ever get tired of listening to their music.  Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Kalbach is Back!

Natalie Kalbach is back in Toronto this weekend (her last visit was in November 2012), teaching classes at Bizzy B.  Taking classes with her Friday night, all day Saturday and all day Sunday means I'm a little too busy making art and having fun to blog, but I'll be sure to post more photos and tell you all about it next week - stay tuned!

Nathalie, me, Marg and Kelly

Haiku My Heart: The XXII Olympiad

The Olympic Games:
Years of training and hard work,
Medals born from dreams.


Four years ago, the Olympic Games were held in Vancouver, Canada.  It was such an exciting and proud time for Canadians, not just because we had the honour and responsibility for hosting athletes from all over the world but because it was our best performance ever - 26 medals in total.  14 of those medals were gold, the highest number of gold medals won by a country in a single Winter Olympics to date.

As this year's Games begin in Sochi, Russia, amidst so much controversy about overspending, alleged corruption and unfinished construction, recently imposed controversial legislation denying basic rights for homosexuals and increased fears over security threats, we can only hope that the main purpose of the Games: "to help to build a better world through sport practised in a spirit of peace, excellence, friendship and respect" (source: olympic.org) will prevail.  Maybe the Games are a colossal waste of time, effort and money but now that they are here, I can't help but feel the excitement.

Whether they win medals or not, I am incredibly proud of all the athletes who are gathering in Sochi. The skills and accomplishments that have brought them this far are worthy of our respect.  Just being there is an honour and for the next two weeks, those of us sitting at home on the couch watching the Games on TV will be cheering on our fellow countrymen and women as they compete to stand on the podium.

Go Canada!


Haiku My Heart is hosted by recuerda_mi_corazon.  Please click on the link to read more.

No Overnight Parking

Officially, they don't allow overnight parking where I work. Unofficially, people do it from time to time.  Of course, it's probably easier to blend in during the summer.  In winter, it's pretty noticeable if you haven't moved your car from one day to the next!

Not sure how soon these people are planning on coming back for their cars but if we get any more snow  over the next few days, they might have trouble finding their vehicles and digging them out!

It Snowed Today

Why yes, as a matter of fact, we did get some more snow today.  The morning commute was a little sloppy for me and something a lot of people chose to avoid today, with good reason.  It snowed for several hours which, combined with a strong wind, made for some interesting snow drifts.  Like this one which is visible out my office window:

The picture below was taken a mere 45 minutes later. Already you can see how much it has been further sculpted by the winds swirling around.

Here's how my car looked at the end of the day.  Luckily, it was very light snow, easily removed. Considering that I haven't had to use my snow brush more than 3 times all of this winter so far, I didn't mind.

How about those snowbanks in front of my car?!  They're getting awfully high!!

Snow Removal

If you read yesterday's post about the pile of snow blocking one of the driveways in the parking lot where I work, you'll be glad to know the problem was fixed overnight.  Here's how things looked this morning:

I'm told they actually had to remove snow and take it away in order to clear the area that they did. Which is good news because, oh joy, there's more snow in the forecast for tonight!