« July 2009 | Main | September 2009 »
Wow, does it ever make our day when we hear from customers who were pleased with their Botanical PaperWorks experience. Here's an email that we received from Carey Dobson.
Thank you Carey for taking the time to let us know about your experience. Here are links to the products that Carey ordered: Life plantable wedding invitation and Share & Blossom plantable wedding favor.
Tomorrow, I'll post my September checklist, so see you tomorrow!
The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes fortitude as "Strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage".
This flower, growing against all odds in our rain gutter, embodies fortitude for me. And with some of my favorite people, I see examples of fortitude on a regular basis:
- the friend that undergoes chemo treatments that ravage her body on the way to healing
- the neighbour who spends time in her beloved garden even though it causes her significant physical pain
- the entrepreneur who cut his salary to nothing in order to save his company and pay his employees and suppliers first.
I'm thinking that we all could use a little fortitude right now. I greatly appreciate the writings of David Emerald about The Empowerment Triangle/Drama Triangle which have helped me (especially during tough times) make a conscious decision to move from Victim to Creator. You can read more by following the above link or in this book.
On this Friday, I wish you boat-loads of fortitude with whatever you're facing today. Just like the flower, you can thrive and survive too.
Thank you Joelle for sharing this picture of her 2008 Plantable Eco Calendar growing in her backyard. What a profusion of color and texture!
The 2010 Plantable Eco Calendar is now available and each page grows wildflowers just like Joelle's. This year's design is fresh and fun and comes in three formats:
Today was a whirlwind day back at work, but I didn't want the day to close without posting my images from Friday and the weekend.
Friday marked the close of my week of art classes at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. We spent the morning in the cold drizzle by the Legislative Building. I loved the subject that I chose - a curving staircase going from the river up to the Leg. Here's me hard at work:
In the afternoon, we toured the Joe Fafard exhibit. I especially loved his horse bronze work and horse sketches. Why am I kissing it? I don't know. Call it the euphoria of the week.
On the weekend, we drove out to the cottage and I just HAD to share this image of the road out to Lake Winnipeg. The road, the trees, the sky - it was gorgeous.
We closed out the weekend by attending a concert at the Lyric Theatre at Assiniboine Park. The reason we went? My brother Nathan playing with band Moses Mayes. That's Nathan at the keyboards.
Anhd now it's time for me to close this post and head home. Have a great evening!
Thursday's art class was a day of challenge. It felt like I had forgotten everything that I had learned that week, plus everything that I knew before coming. So, no pictures to show you as I spent the day wrestling with my drawings, trying to wring out some semblance of order and flow.
At first, I blamed it on the media. "Oil pastels are so unforgiving, and I only have 12 colors to work with; the range is too limiting."
Then, I blamed it on last night's movie. "That stupid movie [He's Just Not That Into You] has ruined my creative flow, with its shallow plot and plodding pace."
Finally, I just had to say "It's me, I'm struggling, just give in and see what happens." So that's what I did. And the day was good and I'm looking forward to a new drawing challenge today. It's the last day, and weather permitting we're drawing the Legislative Building in the AM and touring the Joe Fafard exhibit at the gallery in the PM. We'll top it off with a little party to celebrate us, the students, and Millie, our instructor. And then that will be that. I'll be back to my normal life with the hope that I can infuse each week with a little more art-making than I did before.
We were outside for the morning today, drawing landscapes from the protection of the Duck Pond shelter at Assiniboine Park. In the afternoon, we went inside to the Conservatory to draw plants close-up. It was another amazing day of immersing myself in seeing and appreciating the details of nature.
For the afternoon project, I wandered around the Conservatory until I selected this foliage with a gorgeous contrast of pink and green:
I knew that I wanted to work with color pencil, since our instructor Millie had suggested it would be the perfect medium for this level of detail. So I chose some colors that would make up my palette:
Next, I used a light gray chalk pastel to sketch my outline. I love how the chalk pastel just rubs off if I make a stray mark:
Finally, I started added layers of color. Here's the image part-way done:
Tomorrow it's forecasting rain, so we're back at the Winnipeg Art Gallery studios for still-life. Wednesday hump day is over and we have only two days to go. Wow, time is going quickly!
How was Tuesday? Pretty fantastic! That's me on the walkway at the Forks. We spent three hours in that spot, drawing the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. It was a gorgeous spot and a joy to spend that amount of time doing ONE THING! When do I EVER spend three hours doing one thing? Never, that's when!
Here are some more photos to share. The artwork is all mine (someone asked after yesterday's post) and thanks to Diana for taking the above picture of me.
This bee visited me several times. Maybe that was a good sign that my drawings of plants were realistic?
It's crazy how uncomfortable the creating process can be. When art class instructor Millie outlines the assignment, my first reaction is usually "I don't think I can do this". But I've learned to just get started with a rough outline, then fill in a bit of color, and amazingly and soon enough, I start to think "Maybe I CAN do this".
Millie talks to us about using color, and reminds us that we're not trying to create a photograph. Rather, we're interpreting the scene using our imagination. This frees me from having to draw like Robert Bateman and lets me draw like Heidi Reimer-Epp.
Here are a few more pictures:
Tomorrow, we're meeting at the Assiniboine Park Duck Pond to draw under the shelter. I'm looking forward to a new and challenging assignment.
Yesterday was:
- thrilling
- exciting
- terrifying
- exhilarating
- freeing
We played with color, my favorite being soft chalk pastels where if you don't like the stroke, you can rub it out with your hand. It's messy, though, and so the afternoon of experimenting with oil pastels and art sticks was also fun.
In the afternoon, instructor Millie Giesbrecht encouraged us to break out of our normal style and to be bold and free with our strokes. Inspiration taken from Van Gogh.
Today, come rain or shine, we're off to the Forks. I'd better go find some warm and rain-proof clothes to take me through the day. Should be fun!
This is a picture of my supplies for today. Add to that a pad of Canson drawing paper and a can of unscented aerosol hairspray (as a fixative) and I'm all set for a week-long, all-day art course on "Color" at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
I'm VERY excited. After committing in January to make time in my life for "Recreation and Creativity" (one of the dozen areas of focus for me), I signed up for this workshop back in the Spring. At the time, August felt like a very long time away, but here we are, and tomorrow I'll report to the WAG at 10 am and meet my fellow workshop participants along with instructor Milly Giesbrecht .
What am I in for? I have NO idea. But whatever happens, it's going to be GREAT! I'm excited about giving my right brain an entire week to have fun. And I'm excited to show my left brain how letting loose and living in shapes and color can be a great way to live. I hope to share some pictures this week, so please join me in this adventure!
Monday was a day where I "did my thing" in front of several cameras. In the morning, we met with Randall and Jimmy and from WorkerBee TV who came to tape a segment for EO TV. Once edited, the segment will be very short - one to two minutes, so I felt that it was important to make every sound bite count. Here we are setting up the shot in the Botanical PaperWorks studio store.
In the late afternoon, I ducked out to Old Navy to find a top in turquoise, since this color brings out the blue in my eyes and I wanted to look good for my headshot that evening. My Mom Mary and I met up with photographer Ruth Bonneville to do a shoot in the gardens at Corydon and Lindsey. There, we met gardener Albert Süs tending to his wildflowers, herbs and vegetables. He kindly let us pose in the flowers and when we left an hour and a half later, the sun was setting, the mosquitoes were biting and Albert was still gardening. It was an amazing evening.
Even my mom was put to work, holding (what I called) the "deflector shield" to direct the fading rays.
In the end, we got our shots and the bites on my ankles from the mosquitoes weren't that bad. Ruth put me at ease and made the shoot fun and my Mom was a good sport and awesome to have there for moral support.
