Children's Book Illustrations

The Story Illuminated:
Children's Book Illustrations

I had an wonderful time last week when I visited an exhibition of children's book illustrations at the Buhler Gallery here in Winnipeg. There are five Canadian artists included in this show: Marie-Louise Gay, Barbara Reid, Sheila McGraw, Bette Woodland and Jennifer LaBella. The last two artists are from Winnipeg.

Mediums used for the art works include, oil on paper, watercolour, coloured pencil, pencil, and plasticine. That's right, plasticine! I had never seen anything like this so it was especially rewarding  to see Barbara Reid's incredible work. The most compelling pieces in the show, for me at least, were Bette Woodland's oil on paper paintings. And the watercolour illustrations of Mary-Louise Gay were the most enchanting.

All in all I found this exhibition to be well worth visiting. If you live in Winnipeg, or are visiting the city, consider taking in this show. It is on until January 26, 2014. The Buhler Gallery is located on the main floor of the St Boniface Hospital, 409 Tache Blvd, in Winnipeg. Get to the gallery by entering the main doors of the hospital. For your comfort, there is a cafeteria, and a Tim Horton's coffee shop located in the lobby of the hospital as well. The Gallery is open 10 am - 8 pm on weekdays. Saturday & Sunday - 12 pm – 4:00 pm. Closed on statutory holidays. Admission is free.

Happy Halloween!

Just finished carving my pumpkin for this year. Looks like someone threw mud at my ghost LOL! Happy Halloween to all who celebrate it.

Sasquatch Bush Crawl 2013

This past Saturday I joined my daughter's team for the Sasquatch Bush Crawl,
which was held at the Mt. Evergreen ski hill in Kenora, Ontario

Although it was cold and raining, the forest was beautiful!

There's me wearing a garbage bag. I was way overdressed, and 

soon had to shed the bag plus another couple of layers.

 Remember when we were kids and enjoyed puddle jumping? 

Well, there were some really deep–waist deep in one place–and muddy puddles here
for us to play in. I believe the puddles were larger than expected 

because of the heavy rain earlier in the day.

Sometimes we got to walk over the puddles.

 And we did find a sasquatch or two! 

Despite the constant rain and the chilly weather, we had a fun 

time participating in the Sasquatch Bush Crawl. Thanks Kenora!

kenoradailyminerandnews.com/2013/09/29/hundreds-of-colourful-runners-take-over-mt-evergreen-for-second-annual-race

Colour me!

Two weekends ago my daughter and I, along with a friend and hundreds of other people, participated in the "Color Me Rad" run in Winnipeg. Because we were to be bombarded with both wet and dry paint along the race route, white shirts were the dress code of the day. It was great fun being turned into living canvases!

This is my beautifully decorated t-shirt. Color Me Rad is a non-competitive fun run for young, old, big and small. I can't wait to do it again next year. I hope you will join me!

You never know what you will find.......

I found this wonderful tin box at an antique show in Portage La Prairie today. I will store my watercolour crayons in it.

Garden 2013

It is finally warm enough in Manitoba to begin planting some pots of flowers and veggies. I always plant with the thought that I will be able to use my flowers as inspiration for drawing and painting. This evening I put together my first pot.

In there I have white and purple petunias, a pink trailing verbena, a new variety (Lemon Slice) of super bells, purple and green potato vine plants, one of those spiky things, and one mimulus (monkey flower). It doesn't look like much yet but give it a couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted because I have been known to start a pot all over again the day after I think it is finished.

June 13th. The plants are filling in the spaces quite nicely. We were very lucky to have missed a hail storm earlier this week that ruined many gardens on the eastern side of the city.

July 17th. Summer has been good to the flowers in this pot. Along with my other plants, this one keeps me busy watering and deadheading to keep it fresh.

This is another pot of flowers that sits in our back garden. This one contains double petunias, hot lips salvia, creeping Jenny, and on the other side where you can't see it, there are violet million bells. I haven't attempted to paint these yet.

Are these not gorgeous? They make a perfect challenge for the watercolour painter.

Or what about these, they might be an even better challenge!

Getting organized

Last week I acquired some cast-off shelves that fit perfectly at the back of my work tables. I had fun getting my frequently used materials out of drawers, and organizing them on these shelves. This side of the studio is my jounaling, ATC, and mixed media corner.

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Thanks to a friend, I found washi tape storage boxes which fit between two of the shelves.

I call this my 'washi tape tower.' Needles to say, I love washi tape!

 Part of my acrylic stash.

 And this is my watercolour corner.

Soul Soup

It's snowing and blowing today so I figured it to be a perfect day for making 'soul' soup. To me, soul soup is that which is made with mindfulness and love. I approach cooking the same way I do my art. It might start off with a plan, but it usually ends up being something else.

Today's creation consists of dry, mixed, organic beans from a local  farm, frozen tomatoes from last year's garden, tiny pieces of organic beef, also from a local farm, organic quinoa, and frozen mixed vegetables. That along with some water, herbs, garlic and onion should make a tasty meal.

This soup could also be called, 'slow' soup because making food from scratch can be a slow process. But the reward in the end, is knowing what is in our food, unlike the food we get from fast food outlets, and store shelves. For the fun of it, I sketched the soup before it was consumed for supper.

Signs of Spring

 Lucky me! I finally found rubber shoes that fit! I couldn't resist their happy colours! So I brought them home, put them on, and took a picture with my iPhone. Then I drew them in my sketchbook with a Copic Multiliner pen. My Moleskine sketchbook has thin, paper pages which are a challenge to paint on. But it is good enough to record this happy event!