For love and idleness

Doggie assistant

2011-11-04T09:29:00.001-06:00

dog assistant, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I wouldn't mind so much if she took notes and summaries for me.

When I became a man, I put away childish things

2011-11-04T09:28:00.000-06:00

A bit of a poignant milestone this weekend. We needed to make room in the basement for an electronic drum set, and this necessitates cleaning out the toy cupboards and saying farewell to some well-loved toys. Bionicles, in this case, but there are more. It's always hard to see these go.

Even the boy showed a moment of uncharacteristic sentiment.

But all to this end: This was driving us nuts, day after day. The boy is actually a great drummer, but the sheer volume and duration (drumming is actually an endurance event! ask Neal Peart) was making us crazy and he was restricted to practicing when the rest of us were either out of the house or closeted upstairs with the dooor closed.
So the idea of an electronic drum set, which can be played with headphones so only the drummer can hear it at volume, sounded better and better all the time. But we needed to make room for it.

He can actually pull it out and have a bit more elbow room, but so far we all think it is pretty sweet. He can wake up at 3:45 in the morning and play it and the rest of us will be none the wiser. Happiness is restored.

2011-10-14T20:16:00.001-06:00

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A break in the weather

2011-10-10T21:58:00.001-06:00

thanksgiving-7, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

It's not always calm enough to see reflections in the river, but today was one of those days.

Thanksgiving weekend

2011-10-10T16:39:00.001-06:00

Thanksgiving harvest. Tim and the kids brought in our small but satisfying garden produce. Not overwhelming, so at least we won't have the guilt of veggies decomposing in the cold room.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Test take 2

2011-10-10T15:17:00.001-06:00

New post

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Test

2011-10-10T15:15:00.001-06:00

Test post

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Doing what I don't usually do, and kind of liking it

2011-08-31T08:43:00.000-06:00

Even though I don't really do art journals, I have greatly enjoyed Tammy's recent posts at Daisy yellow, particularly her video Pastel Chaos in the Exacompta in which we see her create a double page spread and give her thoughts on the process. I love her emphasis on freeing oneself from artificially imposed rules, and focusing instead on an intuitive, playful approach to paints, ink and the blank page. Right away, you can see she's not scared of a blank page - making you realize that you don't need to be, either.

Another recent post, Art Journaling 101 for kids, teens and beginners is a terrific introduction to useful materials and techniques without bogging the reader down with too much information or the need to go crazy shopping for every art material under the sun. If the bright images don't inspire you to start splashing paint around, then her contagious enthusiasm and encouragement will (and vice versa). All through her posts, you get the feeling that she just wants you to really be immersed in the process of creating something meaningful to you, something you can see and touch and feel on a physical page; something you made with your own hands. And that's important, in a world where an increasing proportion of images and text are ephemeral and electronic and created by someone else.

Art journaling may not be everyone's process but it's worth trying at least once, or twice, or any time the feeling hits. Most of us have the basics lying around the house anyway (particularly if, like me, you have accumulated an entire cupboard of art and craft materials). It's worth taking them out and taking the time to play.

And, see? even if I don't usually do the art journal thing, she made me want to try it again. So, I did.

Bright and bulletproof: blues and browns

2011-08-28T13:43:00.000-06:00

The Lamy Safari (and its clear demonstrator version, the Vista) is just about my favorite pen for everyday use. It's neither sleek, nor stylish, but it's cheerfully hardy, and I never freak out if it should fall on the floor (I once sent one skittering down a considerable length of linoleum in a school hallway) or worry if it might be getting scratched by my keys in the bag. So I am pretty much have one in use at all times.
Lamy often comes out with Limited Edition colours and this years LE was Aquamarine. Since everyone in my house uses a fountain pen, I thought it just made sense to make sure we had enough around the house - you know, near the phone, in the kitchen for grocery lists, and wouldn't this one make a nice addition? That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It turns out that the pen colour is really hard to get right in camera, or at least, get right while also trying to get the ink colour right. This is Noodler's Bulletproof #41 Brown - possibly the best behaved bulletproof Noodlers ink I've tried, excepting the original Bulletproof Black. My only quibble is the tendency for ink to creep onto the nib. Otherwise, it's chocolatey good in this pen, and glides wonderfully out of the fine nib onto the paper. The first picture shows the pen a little too dark, but the ink colour is about right - a rich neutral brown. The second picture shows the ink more red than in real life, but the colour is much more true for the pen - bright, happy, almost turquoise. This is my current everyday carry to take to school/work. It cheers me up just to look at it. And with the lazy days of summer coming quickly to an end, we'll take as much school and work cheer as we can get!

Blueberry swirl

2011-08-26T19:45:00.001-06:00

At last, helped along by several episodes of the British comedy Vicar of Dibley, I have finished and cast off this two-tone Shetland triangle wrap.
It still has to be blocked, but I always like the rippled look it has fresh off the needles.

This has been hanging out in my knitting bag for several months now, so I promised myself I'd finish it before starting a new project with the beautiful Madeline Tosh DK I got from my SIL Julie at Valley Yarn. Still looking for the right pattern, but I'm looking forward to a new project with new yarn.

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wind in the whiskers

2011-07-11T10:38:00.001-06:00

wind in the whiskers, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I was really, really wrong when I thought that once I was done my MSc, finished all the administrivia and revisions that followed, that I would again have time to relax and create. As it turns out, hard work is rewarded by more hard work, and I was fortunate to get a teaching job for the summer session. However, as anyone who's taken a summer course knows, they're extremely condensed, and when I wasn't prepping, teaching, or grading, I slept. Thus, spring almost passed me by, and even while walking was often so preoccupied in my thoughts I didn't always notice the flowers quietly emerging from the green grass of the coulees.

Finally, I was able to take a breather, and start taking the time to notice again: here's old man's whiskers, in the coulees along the Old Man river, shaken by the wind.

what jellyfish?

2011-05-06T08:58:00.001-06:00

what jellyfish?, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

My family and I took a much needed break during Easter break in Waikiki, Honolulu. Given that it snows on and off here all the way through April (and sometimes May), the sun and warmth was splendid for us all. We tried to get to the beach every day, except for days like this one, when the jellyfish were out.

Even so, I could gaze at this colour of blue all day long.

Blue is my world: Daisy Yellow's prompt #15: Blues

2011-03-07T09:55:00.003-07:00

blue is my world, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

In response to Tammy's no-frill's Friday prompt #15, Blues.

Yes, the cold and snow is getting me a little down. It isn't actually colder than it was in December or January, but somehow with the longer daylength, and knowing that it's March, it feels colder, and I resent it more. I'm tired of shoveling snow, and tired of my face hurting with cold every time I go out with the dogs. I could go on and on, but I think the image says it all.

This was originally meant to be a photo transfer page like the one I did a year or so ago, but for some reason (maybe different photo paper?) the images refused to adhere to the journal page. So I settled for gluing the photos on face up, and adding background colour with watercolour. Because the decoupage glue had already dried on the page, it made the background shiny and I couldn't write on it with my white gel pen, so I used scraps of watercoloured paper for the words.

I'd forgotten how much fun this was - glad to be getting some colour onto the page again.

Daisy Yellow No-Frill's Prompt #14: Symmetry - Room to read

2011-02-27T10:10:00.002-07:00

reading room, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

In response to Tammy's Friday No Frills prompt #14, Symmetry, this is our freshly repainted living room. We've had the entire week off for the kid's Reading Week, and used it for various home improvement tasks such as cleaning out the basement storage room and reconfiguring our living room, including new bookshelves.

I'm sure few rooms in anybody's home allow for a symmetrical configuration of any piece of furniture, really, it's just coincidence that these two particular bookshelves will end up standing like soldiers flanking the sofa that will fit between them. Symmetrical or not, though, this gives us a comfy place to sit and read and enjoy the sun, while the winter wind continues to blow the snow in drifts outside.

Daisy Yellow Friday no-frills prompt #12: Measure

2011-02-14T14:33:00.052-07:00

I get to cover two topics at once with this post: it's an interpretation of Tammy's No-frills prompt #12 at Daisy Yellow, Measure, and also partial explanation of why I've done minimal knitting and creative output. I wrote earlier this year in my Honest Scrap that I was in the midst of a MSc in exercise science, yet experiencing the bitter irony of gaining weight and losing fitness as a result of a graduate student lifestyle, particularly one juggled with family life and exacerbated by a chronic knee injury that forced me to cut back on activity.

By the time I handed in my thesis last November, I was heavier than I'd been in my adult life without actually being pregnant or having just had a baby. However, I was fairly philosophic about it - I figured that writing a thesis was not unlike gestation and delivery, really. But one still has to do something about that ~~post-partum~~ graduate degree weight - and that does take some time, effort, and energy.

Daisy Yellow Friday no-frills prompt: Measure, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

Part of the key to tackling this, like it or not, is measurement, in some way or another. I really dislike being overly attached to either scale weight or absolute body size, though both the scale and measuring tape can be useful tools for evaluating progress - I just think it's important to make sure that they are servants rather than masters. I much prefer a process oriented approach - time spent in activity, intensity of effort, weight lifted - things that can support the development of long term, sustainable habits that become part of a healthy lifestyle.

I also don't love having to measure food, but at least in the early stages, it can be a good reality check that leads to more mindful eating habits. The mosaic above is a composite of the different measuring tools I used - my son was a good sport and was my model, to spare you all a picture of my own belly - and in fact I never used a measuring tape at all - if I have to pay attention to that particular parameter, I'd rather just use my clothes. Picture is clickable to Flickr pics with more explanation, if needed.

Two faced Janus: indecisions

2011-01-30T21:59:00.001-07:00

This January has felt, more the usual, ruled by its namesake, the Roman god of beginnings and endings. After successfully defending my master's thesis in December, just before Christmas, this month has felt like a kind of limbo, finishing my thesis revisions and tying up loose ends in the lab before leaving academia and getting ready to ponder some life directions.

This overall feeling of indecision seems to have bled into all aspects of my life, even that which I consider my most soothing of diversions, knitting. I pondered resuming the Baltic Sea stole I abandoned a few years ago, tried the same yarn for a Gilmore girl vest, and still not happy with the beginnings of either, have now stuffed them back in the closet.

similarly, my attempt to start a short sleeved top down cardigan in some stashed Noro Kureyon met with the same fate. I'd thought the bright colours would cheer me in the cold winter, and certainly they still could, but not in the form of this sweater. Only a pre-teen could wear this and look cute instead of ridiculous. So again, this has been set aside.

however, I loved the pattern - perfect for knitting while chatting with friends, watching Mystery! on PBS, and almost all stockinette with a few simple increases. I liked it enough that I was willing to actually BUY MORE YARN at my local yarn store, because I was in need of immediate gratification. I still wanted Noro, and found this new-to-me blend of wool, silk, and mohair, Noro Yuzen - still striped, but with just a bit of a tweedy look.

and after a few evenings, and one long weekend bus trip to Regina and back, I have this:

which, while barely adequate for the -30 C temperatures we're experiencing again, gives me something to look forward to wearing when it's time for spring breezes instead of winter blizzards. It's the closest thing to instant gratification one can get in a wearable, sweater like garment, and just the thing to break me out of my slump of indecision.

more details, if needed, on Ravelry.

early morning in Regina

2011-01-29T14:21:00.002-07:00

regina-2, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

just trying to get warmed up and back into blogging after a long, very welcome and much needed brain break. Drafted and in the queue: new knitting, books to read in 2011, more thoughts on the kindle, and some Daisy Yellow prompt responses. Meantime, just a snapshot outside the venue for the Saskatchewan Open judo tournament, in the Queen of Saskatchewan cities, Regina.

Queen Street, Toronto

2010-11-26T12:32:00.003-07:00

Queen Street, Toronto, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I'd forgotten I had this picture on my cameraphone till a few days ago. I love this shot, mostly because it's so different from where I live. The old style poles with all the wires for transit, the tall buildings with narrow frontage, the commuters on bicycles. I live in a part of the world very much entrenched in car culture, with poor public transit and hardly any bike lanes to speak of, at least for commuters. I don't know how many times I've been on my bike and thought "well, great. Now where am I going to park and lock this?" or "how am I going to get from x to y without getting smucked" as the path abruptly ends at an intersection with no pedestrian or cycle access, forcing you to take illogical detours.

In another part of Toronto, I especially liked this - an older gentleman doing his shopping on his bike, with high-rise handlebars, no less! Perfect.

Cooking: 14 questions

2010-11-22T09:22:00.008-07:00

Tammy asked her sream-of-consciousness questions about cooking at Daisy Yellow. These are always fun, so here's my responses. Thanks Tammy!

a. Does what you cook say something about you?

It says that I'm erratic and influenced either by time, scheduling, and whatever was on sale at the supermarket. Also, that I try to reproduce really good stuff I ate at some restaurant in a distant city.

b. How do you keep track of your recipes, your notes on how to make them?

Really badly - I have a binder of pages torn out of magazines, and stuffed into that binder are loose sheets printed off the computer. Many are sticky and crumpled. I really need to fix this. Next year.

c. What recipes do you measure precisely, and which do you guesstimate?

With the exception of finicky baked goods, I guesstimate everything. Even when trying a new recipe, like the baklava above, I treat the amounts as guidelines, and often think "oh, they can't possibly mean that".

d. Are there dishes you make quite well, but never eat?

scalloped potatoes, due to my cheese intolerance.

e. What portion of your recipes [that you make at least annually] were passed down from a previous generation?

My mother mostly cooked Filipino food, which I hardly ever cook or eat with the exception of one dish. However, there are a lot of dishes that my sisters and I cooked together growing up, and that might constitute a quarter, say, of our regular repertoire.

f. What dry spice do you find yourself replenishing most often?

cinnamon, chili powder

g. What is the messiest dish you make (biggest clean-up)?

My late MIL's perogies with potato-onion-bacon filling. Completely worth it.
Also, latkes.
oh! and the Pioneer Woman's Onion Strings.

h. What is the largest, most varied [number of dishes] meal you make each year?

Probably my book club Christmas party. Which probably shouldn't count, as it consists largely of frozen appetizers from Costco slid onto a baking tray. Okay, Christmas dinner then. Or New Years. No, wait! Any meal held at my mom's house in the summer when the families are gathering.

i. What's the wierdest thing that will be served at your Thanksgiving [holiday] table?

not on purpose, but this year my daughter drew a happy face on the mashed potatoes:

j. Have you taught your kids to cook?

sort of - we tend to have a cook-along approach, which is how I grew up - we cook together.

k. What do you always seem to burn?

chicken stew, or any other stew using flour as a thickener.

l. What dishes do you typically bring to a party or pot luck dinner?

usually my husband is in charge of pot luck stuff, thus, tabbouleh or black bean salad. And my daughter has taken over baking duties, so lemon squares.

m. Which of your creations do your friends/family RAVE ABOUT?

my husband's turkey stuffing. Nobody in my family raves about my cooking, as I rank a distant third, if that, to two of my sisters. However my friends like it when I bring home-made salsa to events.

n. Do you prefer chocolate or vanilla cake?

Chocolate. Always.

No Frills prompt: spheres

2010-11-21T09:25:00.002-07:00

spheres, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I hardly ever go to movies at the theatre, never mind on opening weekend, with the exception of Harry Potter. While waiting for the movie to start, I worked on Tammy's No-Frills prompt, Sphere. Inktense pencils, dry, in a moleskine cahier, because that was the flattest thing to throw in my bag.

Again, possibly my subconscious is on the holidays, because now they look a little like tree ornaments to me, though that wasn't my intention.

Why I bailed on AEDM, and why that's OK

2010-11-14T09:55:00.005-07:00

I'm in the final stages of writing, editing, and assembling my thesis for my MSc program. Those of you who have done this do not need to be reminded how obsessive and all-consuming this process is, and even if you haven't, you can pretty much relate it to any other life project that occupies every waking thought, and even many of your sleeping ones (when you can sleep).

I did think that AEDM - art every day month, hosted by the lovely Leah Piken Kolidas - would fit in just fine, given that even in this nervy, obsessive state, I still need to scribble. But although this technically fits into the theme, I don't think it really fits into the spirit of the thing. I'm doing maintenance, sanity saving scribbles - but I'm not really evolving a process, or growing skills. With regards to art, that is. And I am OK with that, because although what I am doing doesn't fit into AEDM, NaNoWriMo (national non-stop writing month), NaNoJouMo (national non-stop art journal month), or NaKniSweMo (national knit a sweater in November month), I'm driving towards the end of Write a Thesis in Three Months Based on Research over the Last Two Years, and I'm pretty happy with that.

Nevertheless: when my retinas are burned out from staring at the computer screen and I'm taking a break from giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome, this is what I do:

(while watching Reality TV in an Toronto hotel room - good Lord! I never knew half these programs existed! I did get a kick out of Mantracker, though.)

drawn leaning against a pillar while visiting the Terracotta warrior exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. I was really captivated by this terracotta archer, kneeling in wait for his turn to shoot his wooden crossbow that seems not to have survived the millenia. Whoever carved his face must have modeled him after someone in real life; somehow he seemed more vivid, more real than the other figures.

drawn from the website, while on break at work

and finally, a bit of a test - I got some Platinum Black Carbon Ink from Jetpens - one of my Flickr contacts recommended it as a fountain pen ink that could hold up to a watercolor wash, much better than the otherwise excellent Noodler's Bulletproof black, which lifts and muddies when washed. It's as good as she said it was - I'm happy with how clear the colours stayed when washed over here. I can see myself using this ink a lot for drawing in the future.

tronnah-22: Friday prompt: grid

2010-11-07T09:25:00.001-07:00

tronnah-22, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

Am still on the road - I'll probably work these up into a mosaic when I get home.

Friday: green

2010-10-31T19:54:00.001-06:00

green, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

My response for Daisy Yellow's Friday prompt, Green.

I have wicked deadlines right now, snapping at my heels like wolves, so this was very much a quickie. I started by wetting a sketchbook page with water, then dropped some Herbin Vert Olive ink onto the wet paper directly from my pen. After it dried, I sketched the house with white gel pen, filled in a bit with the fountain pen itself and and sketching crayons.

I'm surprised at how insubstantial it looks, as though it might fade away completely, or come and go like a phantom house.

Repeat Friday

2010-10-26T17:08:00.001-06:00

I'm a bit late on Tammy's Friday no-frills prompt, repeat - I left my camera at my workplace and didn't get a chance to pick it up till today. But to be honest, I could really have taken these pictures of repeating patterns any other day in the last few weeks, or the next few weeks, for that matter, because my life is in what seems to be a continuously repeating loop.

Mostly revolving around writing a series of papers, carefully filed and brought to and from school in this folder, a constant companion:

and sorting through filing cabinets full of scientific papers and collected data:

and it all comes down to this, for the next few weeks. Despite the rather bleak and institutional look of the pictures, they're truthful,and the process, while stressful, is also strangely satisfying, and more importantly, finite.

roseleaf holga

2010-10-25T09:05:00.001-06:00

roseleaf holga, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

Coffeeshop Lomo + Teeny tiny world again.

What I really wanted was a sharp, clear picture of the rose leaves with creamy dried grass in the background. What I got was a mostly out of focus, overexposed picture due to my dogs running back and forth behind me on the path and distracting me. So I chucked it into a few Coffeshop actions for the save.

Faux Holga

2010-10-21T08:37:00.001-06:00

holga3, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

This was just a little experiment because someone on the Coffeshop Actions group asked how to get a fake holga effect, and I thought that this would make a start. This was just square crop, run Coffeshop Lomo, run Coffeshop Tiny World. I'm sure more could be done, like a heavier vignette and film strip layer, but I didn't want to work that hard at it.

I wish I had a teeny tiny Red Riding Hood to put in the picture :)

Fence Friday

2010-10-16T09:43:00.001-06:00

for Tammy's No Frills prompt: perspective.

Five fews of my back yard fence from morning light, through drizzle, to evening.

thankful for: a salad bowlful

2010-10-13T11:02:00.002-06:00

thankful for: a salad bowlful, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

even with the thread - and reality - of frost, there was just enough shelter and protection in the garden that tomatoes continued to ripen slowly, and though they are nowhere as prolific as they were last year, it is still a great pleasure to be able to have vine-ripened tomatoes in October.

it's true that the leaves were ragged, spotty, and frost damaged, but they held up just long enough to give us these, and for the pleasure of a home-grown tomato, we are grateful.

hookey

2010-10-08T20:49:00.001-06:00

hookey, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I had such an unproductive day yesterday - writing, deleting, cutting and pasting the same passages over and over again - that this morning I decided to take a mental break to read, draw, and ride my bike.

I've hardly ridden my bike this year - partly crappy weather, partly dog priorities. It was wonderful to get out on this fall day, take a break at Aperture Park by the university, look at the trees, rocks, and leaves, and do a little drawing.

September falls to October: Daisy Yellow's Creative experiments

2010-10-05T21:17:00.001-06:00

September's Creative Experiments from Tammy at the ever-inventive Daisy Yellow were extra fun for me this month, partly because they were relatively easy for me to fit into my extremely busy back-to-school month, partly because there were prompts with emphasis on hearing and sound.

I have to admit that the first prompt, carry a notebook with you for a month, felt almost like cheating because I've carried a notebook around with me forever, it seems, as a catch-all for any list, plan, sketch, appointment that might pop up. My current notebook is the ubiquitous moleskine, but previous to that I've carried all manner of cheap, glued or spiral bound books. I actually regret that slightly - I have notebooks that are now falling apart, such as my travel log from my backpacking trip to Australia and New Zealand, and I wish they had been more durable and better preserved. So I now feel somewhat justified in my current preference - and pickiness - about my notebooks. There are other books I like better than the moleskine - most notably, the small pocket sized Habana - but just try and find one around here. I will rejoice the day they are as easy to pick up as its competitor.

Anyway, I thought I'd challenge myself by posting some of the scribbles I'd normally never scan, much less post, because of their state of messy incompleteness. Also, the responses to the next two prompts, write a thoughtful description of five sounds you encounter and create an iTunes playlist of 15 songs that make you feel just right. I jotted them down as they came to me in clumps over the month, so there is really no theme that I can discern. But they all feel, if not exactly good, then just that right balance of sweetness and melancholy.

scribbly line practice drawn in the food court on lunch break, a welcome change from staring at a computer screen:

and something just a bit tidier, drawn over a number of sessions while waiting to pick the kids up at judo practice. I wish I could blame the wonky perspective on the fact that I parked in a slightly different slot each time, but I really doubt that's my primary issue. I plan on coloring it eventually, hoping to distract from the drunken tilt of the roof, etc:

The prompt sketch the perfect backpack or purse had me stymied at first. I have backpacks for school, for dog walks, for hiking, for travel, and they're each perfect in their own way. And I really don't get into purses the way a lot of women do - mine tend to be made of cordura. But then I started thinking about the Bag of Holding, some version of which can be found in nearly every adventure or RPG, and which even showed up in the form of Hermione's beaded bag in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Carrying a nearly infinite volume of items necessary to a quest, including but not limited to bags of gold, weasels, shovels, bombs, and manhole covers, the Bag of Holding has been an unending source of hilarity to me and my children. So as I complete my current quest, that is to say, writing my master's thesis, what would I really like to haul along with me? Modeled somewhat on my current Timbuk2 mini metro, the following:

And I admit that the last prompt, read four books this month, also felt a little like cheating, because I tend to, anyway. Prompted by REALLY GOOD TV on the local PBS station, namely Lark Rise to Candleford and Inspector Lewis, I plowed through:

Lark Rise, Flora Thompson
Candleford Green, Flora Thompson
The Jewel that was Ours, Colin Dexter

and also, doing "research" for our upcoming book club season,
People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
The Innocence of Father Brown, GK Chesterton

now, onto the October Experiments, and I'm thrilled to say Tammy included one of my suggestions on the list - thanks Tammy! To play along, and add suggestions of your own, head on over to Daisy Yellow!

letting go

2010-09-30T11:43:00.002-06:00

letting go, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

sometimes it's just time, right?

I have complained vociferously all year about unseasonable frost, snowfall, and hail, cold rainy summers, mosquitoes and all manner of nature being contrary, but we are now being rewarded by one of the most beautiful autumns I can recall, full of warmth and light. I'll take it, gladly, along with the nights with just enough chill to keep us alert, to what changes the following months may bring.

(taken with my phone - I vow never to leave my camera at home again: mist rising from the Oldman river and lying low in the valley):

things in my life that are broken

2010-09-24T11:02:00.003-06:00

Really, it was bad enough have a frosty, snowy start to the growing season, accompanied by more rain than we've ever seen in the summer (on the plus side, very green coulees). But the cold, rainy days and threat of frost continue to batter the best efforts of the tomatoes to ripen. My husband and I have been trying to cover them up in the evenings, but the night of autumnal equinox, we somehow forgot, and the first morning of fall indeed arrive with frost on the garden shed and the car windows.
Still, gardeners in southern Alberta are nothing if not optimistic, and we're all going "woohoo! 22 degrees on the weekend! NOW we're going to get ripe tomatoes!" Foolish optimism is what makes gardening worth it.

and then, to come home after a day of work and flop on the bed to do some reading. To my horror, this is what my Kindle looked like.

I have faithfully (and somewhat hysterically) followed all the steps on the support pages, blogs and forums. No dice. This thing is bricked. Amazon is sending me a replacement, and the customer service rep remarked, as I paused for breath amidst my bleating, "It sounds like you really enjoy your Kindle". I bet he says that to all the folks.

On the plus side, I was thus forced to raid my daughter's bookshelf and read a paper book, an old, old favorite of mine from when I was a young girl: The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. Not only is it one of my favorite retellings of the old Tam Lin ballad (and suitable for younger readers), it is illustrated by Richard Cuffari, whose black and white ink and wash drawings have fascinated me since I was a child. As an adult, I find myself re-examining them with fresh eyes, trying to figure out what makes them so dramatic and appealing. This blog post at Daughter Number Three shows some great examples of his illustrations - some of them have a distinctly 70's feel to my eye, yet still seem fresh and very much in tune with the story. It was almost worth having a broken Kindle to open up the chance to revisit this book, for both story and pictures.

view from north lot, first day of fall

2010-09-23T11:00:00.001-06:00

view from north lot, first day of fall, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

Sunshine at last the morning after autumnal equinox, and the coulees begin to show their colour.

I'm still trying to figure out how to use this 24mm lens. It's obviously wider angle than a "normal" view, even on a cropped sensor camera like mine, but still I am not sure how to use it to best effect. Most of all, how to resist the cliche of "wow look at all the stuff I can cram into the view here". Must practice some more.

Holy flaming merino tencel, batman!

2010-09-22T15:07:00.001-06:00

next up, more fibre from a few years ago that I haven't touched yet. I do not even know why I picked out this color. I think it was the only color they had in this fibre blend, which is superwash merino tencel.

I had to look up Tencel on Wikipedia - apparently it is a subcategory of rayon, in that it is cellulose fibre from wood pulp. That always sounds kind of gross to me till I remind myself that wool is stuff shaved off a sheep. In any case, it gives the fibre itself an amazing sheen, which I suppose is part of what made it so hard to photograph, and I have heard that it also gives the resulting yarn strength, which would make is suitable for sock yarn. So far it has been a bit tricky to spin - it's much slipperier than the merino I had spun for the indigo socks, and with a shorter staple than the green Finn I'm spinning now for some undetermined purpose.

Indigo love

2010-09-20T14:57:00.004-06:00

I have knit a lot of socks, but for some reason this is the most gratifying pair I have knit in a long time, because it's my first pair of handspun socks, and I'd been spinning for them for quite some time. Even if the yarn is not cushy soft like Malabrigo, etc, it still forms a beautifully strong, smooth feeling fabric. I love them. Love love love!

lying flat, their quirks are apparent, for instance the change in gauge caused the section above the ankle to be a bit narrower. But the 2 by 2 rib is quite forgiving, and certainly none of the quirks are visible or can be felt when worn.

Also fortunately, the thick yarn happened when I got to the heel for both socks.

fibre: 100% superwash merino, dyed by Lynn from Knitopia
needles: 2.5 mm Hiya Hiya dpn, from Julie

I suppose I should have some info about wpi or something like that but I have no idea. The thickness of yarn varied from heavy lace to sportweight. That's about all I can say about gauge. I love this pair and can hardly wait to spin more yarn for more socks.

new lens

2010-09-18T14:55:00.002-06:00

new lens, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

new to me, anyway. It's a used 24mm prime that will have to be manually metered and focused on my camera. I am strangely enamored of the colorful coating on the lens. I don't have any other lenses that look like this at all, or else they're more recessed so I don't notice.

I haven't really tried it much yet, though. It's a wide-angle 24mm prime that I thought I'd use for landscapes and such, and the weather is currently so wretched I am not sure when I'll get it out next. If only September actually felt like September instead of November.

If I can blame Julie for yarn...

2010-09-12T11:45:00.004-06:00

I can blame Kateryn for this.

Really, I need another pen like I need more yarn. Or yoga books (including the newly acquired Yoga for Osteoporosis - I'll be reviewing this one at yogalila). But....

I really like the Lamy Safari fountain pens. They're relatively inexpensive, hardy, tough to break - I once accidentally flung one, uncapped, down the length of a school hallway, and once I recovered, it wrote just as reliably and smoothly as it did before its long skittering slide along the linoleum. I have two perfectly good Safaris, and don't really need another. Even if I knew one of the limited editions came in purple, I reminded myself sternly that I didn't need one.

Till I sat next to Kateryn at a judo tournament and she pulled out her purple Al-star. And showed me that it had an italic nib. And let me try it. It was all I could do not to shout "look over there! a monkey!" and make off with it at once. I did continue to covet it, but being a limited edition, it seemed no longer available. Until it mysteriously showed up again at JetPens.

The great thing about the Lamy Safari is its versatility - though you can use proprietary cartridges, you can also use a piston converter to allow for a wider variety of ink. And the relatively cheap nibs can be easily switched out, which is exactly what I did here, exchanging the nib for a 1.1mm italic. The colour is really quite hard to capture on camera - it's a bit bluer than what shows up here. But it's still awfully nice.

now, I know it is not suitable for true calligraphy - it's not really wide nor crisp enough for a lot of line variation, but that's exactly why I like it - it can be used for everyday writing if you so choose. It's smooth, easy to use, and gives your handwriting character, whether in italics or not.

However, the main drawback for me is the triangular grip shown here. This forces your grip into a particular position relative to the nib, which is not problematic at all for a round nib. But I do find that it creates a constraint for me with an italic nib. I tend to angle the edge of an italic nib at 45 degrees, but with this grip, it makes better contact with the paper at 35. This doesn't seem like a lot, but it does affect the type of line variation you get, and the type of hand best suited to that angle. With any other italic nib I have, this isn't an issue since I can rotate the pen in my hand to get what I want. But the triangular Safari grip doesn't allow for those small, almost subconcious rotations.

But I still like it. For everyday writing, it's perfectly fine. However, I doubt I will get the wider nibs (they're available in 1.5 and 1.9 mm) that would otherwise be more suitable for calligraphy, as I think at that point, the inability to rotate the pen would start making me nuts. I don't think this would be an issue for everyone, and is likely particular to my own grip. And it's not really a problem at this particular width, and I look forward to getting plenty of use out of it.

(and anyway, it looks so very very cute next to the lime Safari):

Easy there

2010-09-09T13:05:00.001-06:00

Easy there, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I just want to say how very much I miss these, moved out of the lab because we finished the experiments (during which subjects had to rest) and because the floor space needed to be reclaimed.

But I really, really, really miss them.

Winner of the Rhodia giveaway!

2010-09-06T21:55:00.001-06:00

Thank you so much to everyone that entered and left a comment! The winner was drawn using the random number generator at random.org, allowing the selection of a number between 1 and 27, ignoring my own comments. (can you tell I'm writing the methods section of a paper these days...)

The winner of the Webbie is commenter #22, stacy m. Congratulations, Stacy! please send me a note at limesally [at] gmail [dot] com with your mailing address within a week (ie, by next Sunday, Sept 12) to claim your Webbie. I hope you enjoy it!

Again, many thanks to everyone that came by. Keep an eye out for other giveaways, I know there are still some out there!

stacy m said...

I would love a new webbie! I am just about finished filling up my current notebook and really really need a new one. Thanks for the chance!

indigo handspun socks

2010-09-06T11:50:00.003-06:00

indigo handspun socks, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

as anticipated, these are coming out a bit quirky. I figured the thick-and-thinness of my handspun would even itself out at some point, but a sudden change in gauge resulted in a narrowing just above the ankle. Then suddenly I had all thick yarn for the heel, so I have a monstrously thick (albeit very cushy) heel.

I was completely wrong about having enough yarn for these already - my highly scientific method of estimation failed - so I've been spinning and plying more to make sure I can actually have toes for these socks. We've already had a light frost here in southern Alberta, so alas - closed toe shoes and socks are in the offing.

achillea

2010-09-05T10:17:00.001-06:00

achillea, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I don't know why I love this picture - there's sun flare and nothing is in focus, but I love the morning look of this unintentional field of yarrow that my husband leaves unmowed, despite its incursion into our lawn.

end of the summer blues

2010-08-31T19:30:00.004-06:00

end of the summer blues, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

finally! I got around to winding up the yarn I plied way back in January, and started a sock. It's lumpy, and gets thick and thin in spots, but really no worse than Noro. It's certainly not as soft as Malabrigo, but hey, what is.

It feels like I've been working on this for a very long time, and in fact I started spinning it way back the summer before last. I have two reasonably sized hanks of 2 ply, which I have very scientifically estimated to be close to sufficient because when I squish them in my hand they feel about the same size as a sock.

I'm still spinning this stuff, but not because I think I'll actually need it - it's just very portable and easy to pick up and spin a bit at a time, and I love watching the colours change as I spin - almost hypnotic.

August Creative experiments from Daisy Yellow

2010-08-31T19:15:00.003-06:00

After getting completely derailed by holidays, end of the school year and more holidays, I'm trying to get back on track with Tammy's August creative experiments, which she posts monthly at Daisy Yellow. It's not that I've been doing absolutely nothing creative in the interim, but what I love about her prompts is that they encourage me to move out of my comfort zone and try things it would never occur to me to do otherwise. For the summer, she's pared the list down from 12 to 6 items.

I'm sure nobody want so read my 8 minutes of stream-of-consciousness, nor my made-up story about the groceries of the person in front of me, but I can show these:

the month in 9 photographs:

somewhat annoyingly, this is in reverse chronological order and I couldn't persuade Flickrtoys to rearrange them, but otherwise, it's about the rainiest, coolest August I can remember here in southern Alberta, leading to green coulees all the way in August, prolific berries in the garden, and flowers that should have bloomed and withered a month ago. Ironically, to the west of us, BC is having hot, dry, forest fire weather, and blowing smoke 1000 kilometres east. I'm enjoying the quiet of the university campus before the students arrive in the fall, and a visit to a campus the next province over, with its residence towers shaped like grain elevators. But perhaps most importantly, we adopted a second dog, finding that two dogs isn't twice as much fun, it's more like fun squared, possibly even fun cubed.

I like working on lettering, but I often forget about doing it. I especially love Edward Gorey's macabre, scratchy hand. But on this day I wanted to work on classic Roman capitals, which are deceptively simple, and harder than it looks to get pleasing proportions. Unlike italic, the thick and thin parts of the line happen in unexpected places. I suppose if you were working with a hammer and chisel you'd have plenty of leeway in how you placed your thick-and-thins. Though I did this lettering back in August, I didn't take this picture of update this post till September - thus this isn't the actual pen I used; I actually used a Pelikan 400 fitted with a 0.7mm italic nib. But that's been emptied and put away since. Standing in is the Lamy italic, not exactly a body double, but there for scale.

We hardly ever have a full deck of cards around the house, but last week we happened to have one, just by virtue of this free deck we got from having volunteered at the casino a few weekends ago (the province deems that a portion of gambling profits goes to non-profits, charities, and clubs - so each club takes a turn doing volunteer work - bizarre I know). We played hearts - I'm always struck at how elegant and medieval the face cards look, in contrast to the sheer cheeziness of the artwork in the back.

Tammy also asked us to think about this quote by Robert Bresson, "Make visible what, without you, might never have been seen." could apply this to our lives? I did think about it - but I'm not sure I have an answer yet :) I did some original research, and am going to make a poster to present some of the results at a conference. I don't think that's really what she means, though.

Blogger - now eating gadgets

2010-08-31T08:10:00.000-06:00

Is this happening to anyone else? All my gadgets (profile, archive, links etc) have disappeared from my sidebar, with just one (Coffeeshop) remaining. I tried replacing them yesterday, and they're gone again today.

Anyone know why? I don't see anyone else having this problem at the help forum!

Flamin' angel socks

2010-08-28T13:43:00.000-06:00

I'm sure I've mentioned before that buying yarn doesn't count if you're on holiday, and it's even more justified if you buy local, support small businesses, and that businesswoman is your sister in law. And anyway who can really resist the lure of Malabrigo? Franklin Habit has amply demonstrated that it can't be done.

As if Malabrigo didn't already have enough stunning and seductive colours, even more have come out this fall. Of the two I got, Persia and Archangel, the Archangel is especially striking. It really seems glow. Ravelry lists this colorway as being in the purple family, and I guess it is, but I chose a skein with a greater proportion of orange, which shows up here.

Although Malabrigo sock is soft enough to use for scarves and shawls, I use socks more than either. I'm not really in the mood for a deeply thinky, chart-following sort of pattern, so I returned to the tried-and-true Waving Lace from Interweave's Favorite Socks book. I love knitting lace without having to read the chart, so this is perfect.

Malabrigo Sock is very soft and springy and to be perfectly honest, I am not sure how well it would hold up thrust ruthlessly into boots and walked on throughout the winter. I admit I still have not worn the Embossed leaves socks I knit last summer for this very reason. But winters are cold in Alberta, and I think I will maybe use these as bed socks - some warmth, plus a little ventilation for my menopausal feet :)

Tech specs:
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in Archangel
Pattern: Waving Lace from Favorite Socks by Interweave Knits
Needle: 2.25mm Clover bamboo dpn

Rhodia Webnotebook version 3: even better than before + Giveaway!

2010-08-26T19:01:00.010-06:00

(please note: the giveaway was drawn Sept 5 and the Webbie has been sent on to the winner)

I've already shown pictures of how beautifully this third version of the Rhodia webnotebook lies flat, and the gloriously clean and fresh look of the blank pages, devoid either of lines or logos. I've now had the chance to test different pens, inks, and other pigmented items, and conclude that this newest version of the Webbie is equal to or better than its immediate predecessor, unless you really want or need lines.

Because this was a blank version, I wanted to test it for potential as an illustrated journal, and see what kind of media would work well in it. Given what we've seen from previous reviews, it works beautifully with fountain pen ink, providing crisp lines with no hint of feathering or bleedthrough. I couldn't resist adding my own logo to the bottom corner with a pigment marker, though.

verse from a translation by Diana Gilliland Wright, who blogs at the fascinating Surprised by Time - I am not sufficiently erudite to have known this verse on my own!

I'm less enamored of its use with colored pencil, however. I really like using watersoluble pencil, usually Derwent Inktense or some such, and the smooth crisp quality of the Webbie paper that makes it so wonderful for pen and ink makes it difficult to lay down layers of pencil.

More fountain pen ink, this time Iroshizuku Kon-Peki. Even tracing lines over a few times resulted in no bleeding. Sakura gelly rolls for color went on smoothly and beautifully.

Pencil for line drawing goes much better than colored pencil, and actually works very well. As long as you don't have to do a lot of shading or any other technique where you want a toothy paper to hold the graphite, all is well. The only problem I had is that it was somewhat difficult to erase unwanted lines.

Pigment pen ink (Sakura micron in this case) dries very quickly and you can put a watercolor wash on it fairly soon after the drawing.

Here are my two dogs - I do plan to enter text in here, thus all the white space. If I hadn't placed a sheet of paper under the right page, the faux manga drawings on the next page would have shown through. Despite being 90 g paper, there is still the possibility of some showthrough - the paper has a certain translucency to it. This is by no means an issue, just something I was a little surprised to see given the paper weight.

Pentel pocket brush pen, with Faber Castell brush pens for color. Again, everything goes down smoothly and easily. This paper is absolutely made for almost any kind of pen and ink.

Mandala in Sakura micron pigment pen - I haven't decided whether to colour this or not - I kind of like the starkness against the creamy ivory paper.

Neocolor ll crayons. I love these for their bright colors, which don't really resemble anything in nature but are a whole lot of fun, and easier to use on this particular paper than colored pencil.

I gave pencils another try. I did not really enjoy this. It seemed to be a lot of trouble getting layers of colour on, and I felt I had to press really hard, which embossed the page - and the next - more than I really liked.

But all in all - unless you really, really want to use colored pencil - this would be a great notebook to use as an illustrated journal, or any kind of journal or project book. The pocket in the back is perfect for collecting ephemera or reference pictures or anything you might want to paste into the pages (fortunes from cookies? ticket stubs?) and the paper works beautifully with all sorts of pen, ink, and light watercolor washes - you wouldn't expect to do true watercolor techniques on this type of paper, but you can certainly add a splash of colour.

And now - if you've made it this far, thank you! as previously mentioned, I have a shrinkwrapped, brand new version 3 webbie to give away. Just leave a comment telling me why you would like one, and a random winner will be drawn an announced on Labour Day, Sept 6. I'll give you a week to get back to me with your snail address, and if I don't hear from you, I'll assume you've changed your mind and I'll draw another winner. Good luck!

also, if you've reviewed this v3 Webbie too, please let me know so I can add a link to your post. So far, the only one I know about for sure are Julie and Heather's - but I know there are more!

Other reviews:
Whatever - Julie/Okami
A Penchant for Paper - Heather

teaser

2010-08-22T18:49:00.005-06:00

webbie v3, corner, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

behold! the noticeably blank corner3 of the Rhodia Webnotebook, courtesy of Stephanie(Biffybeans) of Rhodia Drive and Karen Doherty of Exaclair.
I'm in the process of trying it out and reviewing it now, but here it is not only in an unlined version (yay!!) but with the corner logo gone. That never bothered me, but apparently it made other people nuts.

And it lies flat - much flatter than version 2:

A couple of reviews are out already, and as expected the paper continues to be excellent for fountain pen ink, just like the version 2 reviewed earlier. However, because this is a blank version, I want to experiment a bit with pencils and color, to see how it might work as an illustrated journal. I should be done in a week or two, and I'll also have a second, spanking new, shrink-wrapped Webbie to give away. More soon!

Light on the prairie

2010-08-22T15:31:00.001-06:00

Just playing with Shakeit again, and wondering if there's any truth to the native saying that two or more seed heads on a stalk of blue grama mean a hard winter ahead.

this is what poor air quality looks like

2010-08-20T10:42:00.005-06:00

this is what poor air quality looks like, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

the smoke from the BC wildfires are hanging over Lethbridge today, with an air quality of 122, or very poor. Admittedly, it looks just like fog or mist. But it smells like the remains of last night's campfire.

I hate thinking of what's happening in some of the most beautiful parts of my home province. When we drove across BC to Alberta last month, haze covered the skies throughout the entire interior, and you couldn't help noticing how brown the hills around Kamloops were, and how the formerly green stands of trees were red-brown from pine beetle - or else, just dead. Hoping for safety for the residents, and recovery from one of the most devastating fire seasons the province has yet seen.

How beautiful are these areas being devastated? Here's an old picture, for instance, of Chilko Lake. It's unlikely that it still looks like this right now.

today's domestic lesson

2010-08-11T23:12:00.003-06:00

today's domestic lesson, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

If you find an old package of biscuit mix in the cupboard, do not say "yay!"
Say "I don't remember when we bought this stuff" and do not proceed to ruin perfectly good saskatoons by making stale-tasting biscuits with them. I'm sorry, saskatoons.

saskatoons and raspberries

2010-08-09T08:48:00.005-06:00

saskatoons and raspberries, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I was complaining to Liz, a fellow Flickr-er who lives in my area, that we almost never get any saskatoons and what little the bushes produce, the birds eat. This is the first year I have ever seen them in any abundance - I think partly due to the rain, partly due to a large hawk that has taken up residence in our green strip. I haven't seen the usual numbers of small birds that are resident here, normally clustering around our feeder, then moving on to the bushes.

Saskatoons are quite small at the best of times, but they're larger than usual this year, and actually look kind of juicy.

Because we're not used to looking for berries on this bush, there are quite a few that have started to dry out before we even noticed they were there. This is the beauty of these berries, for wildlife anyway - they dry out right on the bush, and stay there - they don't fall off and rot. So they're available for birds through the winter (assuming they haven't been consumed yet) and I imagine this must also have been useful for the First Nations people in this area as well.

They're small and a bit fussy to pick, and I'm not really planning on doing a lot with them - some people make jam, syrup or wine - but they're nice to snack on. Maybe they need to sit on a dollop of whipped cream, though.

shadow

2010-07-31T08:24:00.001-06:00

shadow, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

as I leave my hometown again for another year, something always remains, as an imprint or shadow.

a new start, with new marks. Sort of.

2010-07-25T14:20:00.004-06:00

new marks, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

In the last while I've been feeling paralyzed when confronted with a blank page, not least because I've been feeling really dissatisfied with my attempts to draw people, either faces or figures.

Part of this is lack of practice, but part is also that I've gotten into a rut. I believe that we make characteristic markings when drawing, in exactly the same way that we have a characteristic way of making letterforms when handwriting. The muscles of the hand move along familiar paths that are as habitual to us as gait, and so naturally these familiar movements cause us to draw in the same way. This seems to be how it works for me, anyway.

So, in an attempt to shake myself up, I thought I'd at the very least change my tools. I normally draw in a small notebook with a pen or mechanical pencil, because that's what I normally have with me when I'm waiting, and I normally draw while waiting. But since it's summer, I pulled out a larger pad of paper, and a pencil I found in my old room at my parents house, and took an entirely different grip, the kind where the shaft of the pencil lies on the inside of your hand. And while my son slept, I quickly got this.

I'm not displeased with it or anything, but even with the change of tools and grip, I still got something that looks an awful lot like this earlier version. Perhaps, because the features of his face are still so familiar to my eye, I can't help coming up with something very similar.

summer colour

2010-07-24T15:18:00.005-06:00

summer colour, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

in answer to Stephanie's question about what drawing stuff one takes on holiday:

aquabee co-mo sketch pad
moleskine cahier (not that I think the paper is great, but the book is just the right size)
no. 12 rhodia gridded pad - I like the fact you can tear sheets out, and it's small enough to fit in a pocket
pigma micron pen
waterbrush
watercolor kit, filled with tube paint, mostly
neocolor II crayons
inktense pencils
a pencil that you can wash, (or whatever they're actually called - you can brush the lines with water)
pentel brush pen

Since I don't really do any heavy-duty finished art, on vacation or indeed at any other time, this is pretty much all I need and certainly versatile enough for me. I pretty much just draw what's around me and colour it in, but I do like having a couple of different types of coloring materials to play with.

Conspicuously absent is the Exacompta basics sketchbook that I am normally so fond of, but at this time it's half full, and a bit bulky for travel. Also, I wanted to practice using paper I haven't used much lately, in this case the Aquabee Co-Mo sketch pad, which, like the Exacompta, is slightly textured and heavy enough for light washes. That's what everything is lying on in this picture, and if it weren't in a slightly annoying softcover, spiral bound format, I would probably use it a lot more often. I've sometimes thought of tearing the pages out and binding it myself, but that's a whole other project for another time.

Bluegrass at sunset

2010-07-21T20:54:00.002-06:00

Bluegrass at sunset, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I was lucky to have again been able to take in a day of the Vancouver Folk Festival, which is just as magical as it was when I first started going in 1981. The old hippies are getting older and greyer, but no less colorful, and there's a certain timelessness to the magic of sunset on Jericho Beach park, illuminating the main stage shell.

I don't actually *love* bluegrass, but it had been a long day, with lots of sun and wandering from stage to stage, along with a visit to the beach and a swim in the (very, very cold) waters of English Bay, so neither I nor my children had any inclination to move to the twilight stage when Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder took to the main stage.

The surreal moment of the evening was when the MC introduced the guy who was going to introduce Ricky Skaggs - "you may know him as a movie actor, but he is also a patron of the arts....etc". Who could it be? We all know that movies get made in Vancouver, but which actor could possibly be here, with sufficient pull - and motivation - to get himself on stage to make an introduction of a bluegrass icon? "Please welcome" the MC went on, "Mr. Stephen Seagal!"

Stephen Seagal? Seriously? at a folk festival? Canadians are polite, Vancouverites hospitable, and Festival goers accepting and inclusive. There was enthusiastic, if somewhat puzzled, applause, from those who were old enough to remember his almost ubiquitous presence in the action movies of the '80s.
Still, why not. If Seagall is a Buddhist, why not a bluegrass fan, a lover of music, and certainly, why not a patron of the arts. It's just more proof that anything can happen at sunset on the third weekend of July on a beautiful beachside in Vancouver.

Holiday yarn

2010-07-16T14:15:00.006-06:00

Holiday yarn, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

Yarn doesn't count when you buy it on holiday, and besides just this month I cleaned out my stash and got rid of the horrible novelty yarns (eyelash yarn, boucle, etc) that were taking up valuable room that could be taken up by this instead.

My heart always beats a little faster when my SIL Julie of Valley Yarn asks "do you want to see what I have in right now?". Even if she hadn't given me a beer first I would have still said yes :)

This is all sock yarn - Madeline Tosh in jade, Handmaiden Casbah in Masala (we think) and Fleece Artist Trail Sock in Hemlock. I was going to start winding them, but for now I think I will just keep them in a heap and pat them fondly as I walk by. Meantime, I'm still thinking about some other skeins of softness I had the chance to pat, and it is unlikely I will make it home without this pile getting a little bit bigger.

Also, this:

I started working on this during the World Cup, because you really only want to be knitting stockinette and not taking your eyes off the screen. Finally it is starting to resemble an actual garment, and possibly the softer, squishiest garment I've made yet.

It's Hannah Fettig's Whisper Cardigan, in the Malabrigo Baby Merino I got two summers ago from Julie, and sat in my stash for a while till I found the right project for it. Even after World Cup, it is the ideal project to take on holiday, as it is easy to knit while talking to family, and dead easy stockinette that you can't make a mistake on, not even if your sister has brought out this. Oh, how I love the lower mainland.

paper/less

2010-06-24T16:40:00.001-06:00

Every room in the house has bookshelves, and nearly every bookshelf looks like this:

Yes, I know - we need to use the library more often, do a better job of donating or otherwise getting rid of books. But we tend to hang onto a lot of non-fiction and reference, and we are all re-readers. In fact, I'm often guilty of returning a book to the library or a friend, only to run out and buy my own copy. As for taking books to the used bookstore, I inevitably exchange them for credit, and come home with more books anyway.

Will these be our saviours?

I got the Kindle as soon as it became available in Canada. I was quite skeptical about how useful or readable an electronic screen would be till one of my research participants came into the lab with her Sony eReader, which she took travelling while on an archeological dig. Not only did the idea of carrying a whole pile of books along in one small package intrigue me, a good look at the Sony screen convinced me that it would be no harder on the eyes than printed paper.

At the start of the year, only the Kindle and the Sony were available in Canada, now joined by the Kobo. This is what my husband chose, after experiencing considerable eReader envy on our recent holiday. Compared to the Kindle, it has quite a few advantages - as a no-frills reader, it is much much cheaper, even after Amazon's recent price drop in order to compete with the B&N nook. It doesn't have connectivity - content has to be transferred via USB or bluetooth from your computer, but that isn't a dealbreaker for my husband nor many others, I suspect. I love the smaller, lighter size with the same size (maybe even slightly larger) viewing screen and I like the page navigation from the blue button on the right hand size - it bugs me a bit that the "previous" page button is lefthanded on the Kindle.

But the biggest advantage it has over my Kindle is that it is compatible with the eBooks available through the public library. I think that is fantastic, not least because it will expire at the end of the lending period - no overdue fines!

Both the Kindle and the Kobo have access to free public domain classics, and the Kobo comes preloaded with 100 books. Both allow a certain amount of sharing among multiple devices and family members (or trusted friends) linked to the same account. Both have apps that allow the books to be read by an iPhone, iTouch, or other such device. Choosing one over the other probably comes down to whether one really wants connectivity, and some social sharing - Kindle just introduced the ability to share book passages through Twitter or Facebook. I don't see myself ever using this, but some people might like it. The only distinct disadvantage I can think of for the Kobo is slow loading for a book when you first open it up (you can probably go get a cup of tea in the meantime) but after that, the screen refresh rate is fine. Tim hasn't had his long enough to really know how good the battery life is, but I can't honestly see how it would be a problem. And of course there is also the Sony - I don't have personal experience with it, but family and friends who have it are also very happy with theirs.

The REAL question, however: will it actually reduce the pile of books by the side of my bed?

Sadly, it appears not.

215800 - what ARE those mysterious numbers?

2010-06-24T11:24:00.010-06:00

A few weeks ago, I blithely put up a shiny purple badge on my sidebar then promptly fell silent without an explanatory word. This is because it only took me a few days to realize that this wonderful project, which I think everyone ought to take the opportunity to consider, is in some ways unsuited for me right now, which is not to say it won't be suitable for other people right now, or for myself, a few weeks down the road.

It came to my attention via my friend, original yogalilan, and life coach Lianne Raymond, who has been sharing her practices on the community blog, yogalila . It's been great to drop in on the writing and shared practices on the twitter feed, and the daily musings of originator Bindu Wiles. Most of all, in provided me with the inspiration and momentum to get out of my yoga slump - I seem to have one every late spring, to the unhappiness of my lower back, especially. So, just by virtue of putting a badge on my sidebar and reading what others are doing, I'm slowly coming back to a habit of consistent practice.

I tend to use my own sequences, tried and true poses that my body needs for regular maintenance, so I infrequently use media. But when I do, right now Jill Miller does what my body needs; I love the approach she takes in YogaTuneup, either with rolling on balls in the form of self-massage or movements that break me out of my habitual patterns - because even in my yoga practice, I tend to have habitual patterns.

My newest interest is a blogger I ran across through Jill's links: Katy Says. Her approaches often defy conventional wisdom, but she makes persuasive arguments; I love her article You Don't Know Squat, with a terrific biomechanical breakdown of an exercise that hardly any one thinks about, but I'm convinced is essential to our health - even independence - as we age.

However....while the yoga part of 215800 is going great, the 800 part - writing 800 words a day, just doesn't fit with what I need to do in my life right now. This part of the challenge was designed for writers, though with considerable flexibility - Bindu points out that it can be anything that involves words. Participants have shared wonderful blogs posts, memoirs, prose and poetry. And, I do write, all the time - in the form of my personal journal entries, and academic writing. Up until the time 215800 began, ironically, I was also doing morning pages a la The Artist's Way. But right now, due to abstract deadlines, funding submissions, and other academic responsibilities, all my writing is technical; what often seems like the same 800 words in variants and revisions, distilled into the required formats. I write and draw mind maps, outlines, schematics. I write notes to myself to be used in my thesis. I actually like this kind of writing, and enjoy it. Bindu suggests:

THE WRITING: The writing can be ANYTHING. Memoir, blogs, business plans, essays, fiction, free-writing, letters,……..ANYTHING. The point is to get writing again daily and to have the boundaries and challenge of a daily word count to reach.

Boundaries and word counts I certainly do have - but determined largely by academic constraints.

I notice that Bindu is extending 215800 by 10 days - fantastic! I plan to keep up my practice regardless - it's for life, after all. But perhaps after getting a few more academic chores behind me, I can spend some time writing a little more freely, and personally, and come more into the spirit of the original intention of the project.

Meantime, a little video love for Jill here - her shoulder routines have done wonders for a chronic injury in this area, and are now part of my regular maintenance.

in bloom (and stupid lens tricks)

2010-06-23T10:24:00.002-06:00

At last, we're getting some semblance of spring and summer, and the few flowers we have that bravely survived the snow, rain, and hail are showing their faces.

Yay columbines - I'm always kind of surprised when they emerge, because the foliage is usually buried under a pile of faster-growing, more aggressive plants.

some sort of daisy - I don't know the name, but I sure wish we had more. They're so showy and neon like, they almost seem fake. And of course, the bleeding hearts are blooming prolifically. I look forward to these every year.

the back spurs of a columbine, in macro:

I have been playing stupid camera tricks again, as in this earlier post about free-lensing. The above macro is the result of holding the 50mm prime backwards against the camera body, without a mount or protection for the rear element. Suggesting this has elicited cries of horror on other boards, and despite the fact that I recently had to clean dust off my sensor (not as a result of free lens or reverse macro - more from changing lenses on a dusty bus in Turkey), I can't resist doing it again anyway. I actually do have a very nice macro lens - a non-metering 55mm/3.5 Nikkor, but the ability to just whip your lens off and turn it around - well, I just think that's cool.

Using the free lens the right way around - the rear element held towards the camera body, but not mounted, allows a bit of light leak. I'm trying to get a lensbaby-ish effect, but didn't quite succeed this time. Still, I like doing it, and I like the unpredictability of it, and indeed, lack of control.

I can totally understand why people find the idea of a loose, unprotected lens reckless. But I like experimenting, and really, I am not careless with my things; most of my possessions last decades, and I take good care of them. But I like to use them, even if it means using them in ways the manual might warn you against, and sometimes, just because I can.

inside, looking out

2010-06-18T09:31:00.002-06:00

inside, looking out, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I haven't touched my camera in nearly a week. Could be because of the incredibly depressing weather? Why yes, yes it could.

The early winter with its blizzards, followed by late spring with blizzards, has now turned to constant rain. We're used to rain in June, but not quite this much, and not quite with this depressing temperatures.

Till I can get out into the coulees, it's a good time to look at some interior landscapes - these are from inside the student union building at university.

webbie in the bag

2010-06-03T13:45:00.004-06:00

webbie in the bag, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

answering Stephanie's question on Rhodia Drive.

I don't normally carry this notebook with me, actually. It's just that after coming back from my holiday, it seems to be helpful to start the morning letting my brain unload, and the act of writing seems to set the stage so I can get actual work done, rather than just daydreaming and staring off into space (not that there's anything wrong with that). So my journal has turned into a morning pages kind of thing, which for the time being, helps clear the mental space in preparation for the tasks ahead.

My bag is also not normally this empty. I had to take out several things for the photo - a small handful of pens, a small Habana, and a tin of Neocolor 2 crayons.

Wider view

2010-05-23T07:50:00.004-06:00

a young student taking a break along the clifftop promenade in Antalya.

young student, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

Since I live in a mostly homogeneously WASP town, I really liked seeing the diversity of people while we were in Turkey.

this one is a bit artificial, I suppose, being at a pilgrimage/tourist site, but I did like the juxtaposition between the security guard and the friar.

written in stone

2010-05-21T23:20:00.001-06:00

turkey-33, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I really love these old letter forms - I hesitate to call them a "font", and they're certainly not a "hand", since they were carved with a chisel. But running your fingers over them, you can't help but marvel at the skill of the long-gone artisan that carved them.

April experiments from Daisy Yellow

2010-05-02T10:06:00.025-06:00

Time to check in with how things went with the April Creative Experiments suggested by Tammy of Daisy Yellow!

April is usually a pretty crazy month at the best of times, and this year in particular I knew my schedule was going to be really tight. So I kept my goals from the list trimmed down to the ones I really wanted to try, and keep them achievable. Here's what I managed to do out of the ones I chose:

~~Document one day of your life in 5 photographs~~
~~Write the blurb for the back of a book about your last vacation~~
~~Follow an art lesson or tutorial from a blog, video or book~~
~~Sketch something from a photograph~~
~~Adjust the artistic process.~~ If you doodle with a pencil, try markers or calligraphy pen. If you shoot digital, transform to BW using editing software.
Practice drawing using product packaging as inspiration (ex: Line Practice: More Ideas)
Create art focused on a book, inspired by the story, characters or location or just climb into the book
~~Write morning pages (ala Julia Cameron); 3 stream-of-concious pages first thing in the morning on 3 days this month.~~

Looks like it was a good thing I kept the list short! However, I really enjoyed what I did do, and made good use of my camera. I documented the day of Snowmaggedon for my five pictures, experimented with free lensing, photographed some of the buildings on campus for drawing practice.

The prompt I think I enjoyed most was starting the morning pages. I had started reading the Artist's Way about a month ago, and though not all of it seemed a good fit for me, the morning pages alone seemed as though they'd do me some good. And then, coincidentally, one of the women in my project mentioned having worked through the book and having written her pages that morning. That was just enough of a gentle push to get started. Even if I never do anything else from Cameron's book, this practice - and it is a practice - seems to be worth continuing.

Tammy has posted her list of the May Creative Experiments and as always, they look really great - check them out! However, I'm going to take a break from them this month just due to my schedule - except perhaps for the Create-your-own-Experiment joker card, as she calls it. I'm musing on how I can perhaps merge that with Leah's Creative Every Day theme for May: Intuition. I'm sure there's something that can come out of that.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

2010-05-01T10:30:00.001-06:00

I wandered lonely as a cloud, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

Before the storm

2010-05-01T09:47:00.001-06:00

big nest, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I thought I had posted this earlier, but I guess not. This is how the nest looked before the storm. I am not sure how much was built this year, and how much is leftover from the previous year.

I'm really amazed anything is left at all. They must have been sitting right on it and clinging for dear life. The wind was dreadful and there's very little shelter here.

Actually, now that I look at it again, maybe that stuff to the right isn't really the functioning nest at all any more. Maybe it's like renovation debris - if you view it large, you can see that there's all kinds of feathers and pellets and crap embedded in the twigs.

hold fast

2010-05-01T01:06:00.001-06:00

hold fast, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I really wanted to see how the owls were doing after the snow/rain/windstorm of the last few days. They're there, and the little guy looks strong and hefty, but wow, there isn't much left of their nest. I hope he'll be able to fly soon, because there sure isn't much space to sit.

undisciplined

2010-04-21T07:15:00.001-06:00

undisciplined, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I was too restless to sleep, so I cracked out the pen and paper and wrote down a line from a song I was listening to, and thought I'd draw something related to it. But I didn't.
Instead I started a mandala, but soon lost any semblance of order as the lines started to escape the original pattern. Following life, I now realize.

Now that I look at it again, though, maybe it's not so much lack of discipline, but an irresistible force - after all, it's spring.

back on campus

2010-04-19T19:51:00.000-06:00

great horned, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

on my "must get out of the lab or lose my mind" walk today, I found that the great horned owls had returned to their nests on campus. The light was really harsh this evening - I'll probably try to get better pictures later this week.

Here's how they looked last year - pretty much the same.

Light in the West

2010-04-16T21:43:00.006-06:00

west window, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I had an "eep"! moment when I saw that the Quo Vadis blog sent out a tweet (tweeted? twitted?) mentioning a couple of folks, including myself, who have contributed to the Exaclair and Art Flickr page. I immediately felt the kick in the butt I needed to scan in some older sketches.

I've mentioned elsewhere that I draw in church (and have also lost many drawing pens there - I've looked under the pews, no luck) but hesitate a bit to post those sketches, lest they be perceived to have gratuitous Catholic content. But it's part of my day, and this one isn't too much in your face.

Anyway, here's something more secular: a rough map of my work environs and the fastest route to relevant locations such as my supervisor's office and coffee.

Drawn at the end of last month, as one of Daisy Yellow's March Creative Experiments.

Pioneer Woman picks a horse

2010-04-15T08:55:00.005-06:00

pysanky horse, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I was quite excited this morning to find that my Pysanky picture was picked by Ree (Pioneer Woman) for group 4 of the current photo assignment, Macro photography. Given the incredible number of entries and talented photographers that contribute to her PW photography assignment pool, I am quite stunned.

I don't take pictures, post or submit them, for the purpose of getting attention, but for this group in particular, I like to participate in the spirit of sharing images that catch our eye, and have personal meaning for us. I love looking at the pool and seeing what other people see. It's fascinating and inspiring.

Getting picked is just gravy - good, drippy, beefy gravy, to be sure (probably on top of home-cut fries) - but the process of seeing, creating and contributing is really the main purpose: the joy of sharing our individual and collective visions of the world around us.

(Although, I admit I keep going back and looking at the group page to make sure I didn't just dream it)

Snowmaggedon

2010-04-14T20:41:00.003-06:00

A late spring storm that started as wind and rain turned to snow, and overnight, a blizzard which effectively shut down most of the city. Even before I knew that, though, I looked out my window and watched my neighbours struggling to get out of their driveways, eventually abandoning cars and minivans and catching rides with truck-driving neighbours. So I'd already called snow day for the kids before we turned on the radio and realized that they had closed schools and were sending kids home, and that much of the other side of town had lost power.

Thus the kids and I spent the day at home. I had every intention of making them do useful chores, and to get some work done at home myself. We were off to a good start, before finding out that we had been asked to minimize water use and power consumption - thus, no laundry, washing dishes, or vacuuming. But come on. We figured we should at least cook, and I reasoned that turning on the oven would also help warm up the house (I use this rationale a lot in the winter).

So I finally had the chance to test drive the new Kitchen-Aid and make french bread, while the girl made tiny cupcakes with ganache frosting.

I tidied up and decluttered the reading space in my bedroom so I could do some actual school work. But really I was too curious and interested in what was going on outside the house, and spent an inordinate amount of time checking the twitter feeds for Lethbridge to see how things were progressing and whether it would be safe to take a bath without feeling guilty. My powers of concentration were not at their peak.

Everything began to melt with gratifying speed by late afternoon, and the neighborhood kids were out in force doing snow removal, but more importantly making sure there was a clear channel through the slush to the grate in front of our house, since it drains the entire street. There was great glee in this task.

We realize that we were incredibly lucky not to have lost power, as did the other side of town, and I don't think it's been fully restored yet. I could probably write something deeply philosophical about how dependent we are on electricity, clean water, and communication. But I'll refrain from pontificating, and just close out the day grateful for the safety of my family, for warmth, and shelter.

(This is my day in five pictures, by the way - one of Tammy's creative experiments for April)

Honest Scrap: ten things

2010-04-06T21:23:00.007-06:00

I fully admit that I am a sucker for memes and will fill out questionnaires at a drop of the hat, even satisfaction surveys from my internet provider. So how can I resist, when Tammy of Daisy Yellow tagged me with this Honest Scrap? These are so fun, and I love reading the things other people come up with!

Except that now I have to quickly think of ten arbitrarily interesting things about myself, and even more quickly, seven interesting bloggers to tag. The latter can be challenging - there's always an element of "quick, tag her before someone else does".

Anyway.

1. My current ambition is to be a homeschooling expatriate. I'm not sure how to actually accomplish this.

2. I'm an immigrant - sort of. I came to Canada when I was two, and so grew up fully assimilated, but with the indelible marks (read: quirks) of my parent's culture.

3. I've gained about 5 kilos since beginning graduate work in exercise science, and am probably at the poorest fitness level I've been in about five years. I find that deeply and painfully ironic.

4. I've practiced yoga for almost 15 years and taught for 8. I sincerely believe that everyone can find some form of healing through yoga.

5. I grew up in the '70s with a feminist sensibility and thought I'd never, ever marry. But my husband is the funniest and smartest man I've ever known, so I couldn't help marrying him.

6. I love to run, and I love being outside. I become really hard to live with when I've gone too long without one or the other.

7. I'm the oldest of five siblings. My closest male friends have (almost) always been the youngest of three or more children. Weird birth order stuff, eh?

8. Everyone in my family of origin is obsessed with cameras, flashlights, luggage, and saucepans. It sounds like I'm joking. I'm not.

9. Now that my son has a drum kit and my daughter's playing the piano, I think I'll dust off my gee-tar and see if we can't become the next Partridge Family.

10. If there was one food I could miraculously eat without it making me fat, it would be fried chicken. Sorry.

Passin' it on!
Though I don't know if they will actually have time to answer, I will nevertheless tag:

A Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens - she'll make you more thoughtful yet
Writing ....or Typing? of amusement and obsessions diverse
Lianne Raymond (of the near-legendary free eBook, What is Dying to be Born)
Daybooks, even if she is unlikely to answer - go look at her sketches anyway
Spiritual Evolution of the Bean - what this woman can do with ink and paper boggles my mind
A Penchant for Paper - her drawings have a freshness I really enjoy
Em2a Cartoon, because I just never know what she's going to say next.

Thanks for the tag, Tammy - this was fun!

garden shed

2010-04-06T20:54:00.001-06:00

garden shed, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

the only green thing in the garden right now. Except maybe the first blades of lilys (sp?) and chives.

Also, an experiment in free lensing, which doesn't even look like a real word, but which means holding the lens in front of your camera body without mounting it. Thus the strange blurry effect. But for the moment, I am filing this under "stupid camera tricks".

picture test

2010-04-05T18:58:00.004-06:00

I know it looks like it's a kitchen gadget, but it's really a test: is a picture marked as private on Flickr visible on Blogger? Yep, looks like it. But it should not be clickable to the Flickr photo page. Let me know if you discover otherwise.

The March Experiments at Daisy Yellow

2010-04-02T16:01:00.002-06:00

As I've done in the last few months, I've been using Tammy's fabulous prompts at Daisy Yellow. Some of this dovetailed a bit with Stories, the March theme for Leah's Creative Every Day Challenge.

Tammy's full list for March is here, and the ones I chose for myself are below:

♥ ~~Create art focused on a square (the concept of a square, something square, the shape)~~
♥ ~~Skim 2 non-fiction books and jot down ideas~~
♥ ~~Finish an unfinished art journal page~~
♥ ~~Write a page of thoughts on 2 days~~
♥ ~~Use colors you don't typically use in an art or craft~~
♥ ~~Explore a new-to-you aisle at an art supply store or a non-fiction aisle at a book store~~
♥ Listen to a creative podcast (I like The Creative Mom Podcast, CraftyPod, CraftSanity)
♥ Send a handwritten note to thank someone for doing something
♥ ~~Sketch, write, play a musical instrument in a public place~~
♥ ~~In line at the grocery store, take note of a person in line; write a character description for this person.~~
♥ ~~Draw a rough map of a place in your life - a favorite vacation spot, your house, school, the grocery store~~

Not too bad - though I squeaked in under the wire with the "square" and "map" prompts - both sketched within the last two days of March. I really need to do some scanning. In the meantime, here's some squares:

I've given myself quite a bit of liberty in defining "art journal page". Although I had some fun playing with acrylics and photo transfers earlier in the year, this is very much something I need quite a bit of time, and a clean countertop to work on. Those are few and far between in my life these days, which is probably the main reason that I keep coming back to quick sketches in my notebook, and photography. Both, for me, take up less room in the house, and less room on a physical desktop. I really enjoyed playing with those other mediums though, especially acrylic, and will probably do it again - not this month, though. So my definition of "finish an art journal page" is to complete or add color/commentary to a sketch I started on the spot - usually in church or while waiting for the kids.

Most items on the list came fairly naturally - for instance, I had long been planning to make some notes on Kelly McGonigal's excellent Yoga for Pain Relief while prepping to teach a stress management workshop, and as for a page of thoughts on two days I probably shouldn't really even have included this one as a challenge, since I do it regularly (perhaps even obsessively). I used the character sketch to frame a story - however, this is the sort of thing I find utterly unpost-able. Maybe another time.

And I also caught up with one of the January items: play a board game with your kids - sequence and Clue. My daughter kept reminding me till I did.

I have no reason for not writing a handwritten note! I am AGAIN carrying that one forward. And despite having many art-y podcasts saved on my iPod, I totally forgot about them, even while stuck on a 6 hour bus trip with my kids and their judo teammates. This month.

Thanks again Tammy! and now, onto the prompts for April - looking forward to them.

bitter green

2010-03-31T17:45:00.010-06:00

O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.
~Iago, Act III, scene 3

in happier times

on guard for thee

in need of story

2010-03-15T08:21:00.008-06:00

When I was in university, I had a best friend.

I think we noticed each other because no matter how busy school became, in between classes we would sit in the Aggie lounge and dig paperback novels out of the depths of our packs. Actually, we became friends before we knew this about one another, but once discovered, it was one more thing that bound us, this need for a story: someone else’s and eventually, our own. We had a sense of living within a story, and then, projecting where that story would go next. And by this, I don’t mean planning what we were going to do next summer or what courses we were taking next year: I mean, trying to see the trajectory our lives would take, once we’d finished school – the arc of the story.

We had separate stories - lives and plans that did not include each other. But for that period of time, we were alternately teller and listener, and at times, Muse for one another. Even now, more than twenty-five years later, I sometimes feel I am telling episodes of my life to him. Sometimes I even remember to send them, as we did abundantly and often after we graduated and parted ways.

That period of university, and immediately after, was most fertile for me in drawing and writing. In between lab reports and assignments, late at night, I wrote bad, but cathartic poetry. After leaving home, I wrote stories about my new province, the people I met driving the far reaches of this dry, barren loneliness of prairie. I imagined their pasts and their futures, as well as my own.

Lately, story has played less of a role in my life. Certainly, I have read, told, drawn, and invented plenty for my children. But that sort of febrile, uncensored flow of imagination – no. I have not, in the last several years, seemed to have need of it.

Through both work and school, I’ve learned to write lab reports, methods, literature reviews, critiques, abstracts. The focus has been on keeping a firm reign on the flow of ideas; disciplined, logical, concise. This type of distillation and synthesis does, indeed, have a satisfaction of its own. And in its own way, it is a kind of storytelling. In its own tight, technical form, scientific writing is itself a highly evolved art: the compilation of complex ideas, taut descriptions of lengthy processes, persuasive interpretation and conclusions. And right now, I am a mere apprentice to that art.

All the same, I am awakened to an old need – to write the way my friend and I once did: in letters, stories and poems, drenched in sun, memory, cloudbank and rainshadow. To write dreamfully and extravagantly, with a freedom of invention I have not felt in a very long time. To write, with or without purpose, simply to revel in what those words might eventually reveal. And to let those words lead onward, to whatever path lies waiting to be lived.

photo: 1983( or 4, or so) by David Nunuk

Bare pair

2010-03-13T19:32:00.002-07:00

Bare pair, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I am deeply envious of anyone that can take pictures of foliage at this time of year.

Though it's still a long way from spring, we are getting some breaks in the weather - enough to give a sense of premature spring fever before the next snowstorm slaps us back into reality.

Meantime: writing stories, as per Leah's Creative Every Day theme for March. I had forgotten that this was something that was important to me. More later.

February creative prompts from Daisy Yellow

2010-03-02T10:00:00.002-07:00

I really love Tammy's prompts to help stay fresh, and I actually kept a list of them on my iTouch and the notebook I carry with me to remember what to do. Like January, February was a little hit and miss. But I really liked having a list to help me re-focus when I needed a prompt for something to try next.

The real list is actually longer than this, but these are the ones I wanted to work on:

♣ ~~Practice drawing letters or numbers (ideas at~~ ~~Line Practice~~)
♣ ~~Watch an art tutorial on YouTube~~
♣ ~~Create an art journal page using a prompt at~~ ~~Kick-Start Your Art Journal #6~~
♣ Send a handwritten note to someone to thank them for doing something
♣ Create art or write about a circle, the concept of a circle, or something circular
♣ Go for a leisurely walk with your camera, photographing whatever interests you
♣ ~~Develop a creative/ingenious way to solve a problem~~ (maybe, see below)
♣ Do art|craft together with a child
♣ Experiment with a new material for your favorite art (i.e. if you knit - try a new type of yarn, if you draw - try square paper, if you paint - try transparent watercolors, if you draw - try charcoal or india ink)
♣ ~~Write a poem or haiku~~

Wow, not so good. Can I use the Winter Olympics and madly knitting on my Canadian Komi mittens as my defense?

A couple were harder than I expected, or at least I wasn't quite sure how to approach them. The problem solving one, for instance. I feel like I spend most of my work day problem solving and trouble shooting, along with my supervisor. It's an inherent part of the research process, and I've argued before that I believe that the process of science demands creativity and sideways thinking as much as it demands linearity and logic. So I'm not sure I can make a distinction between creative problem solving and....well, any other type.

As far as the leisurely walk with my camera - well, I did walk with my camera. But I didn't do the two walks I specifically planned on: I have two locations I really want to photograph and I never did make it to either of those places. And I still want to do it, so I'm going to carry this item over.

For a new material, I dug out a set of colored chalk pencils that I tried once and put away because I just couldn't get the hang of them. I still can't get the hang of them. They're Stabilo Carbothello pencils, and the they can be blended dry or painted wet. But they're just.....weird, and I have to admit I still don't get how to use them. Still, it was fun to pull them out and play with something different.

I also realized that the time for doing arts and crafts with my children is really over. Not because they don't do it anymore, rather, they are now entirely self-directed and have developed their very own clear preferences, and other than "can I borrow these paints, mom?" I can't honestly say I do art with them any longer. They have their own path now, and I'm fine with that.

Now, on to the March challenges! (although, if I keep carrying items forward, I can see this list getting longer and longer....)
And a big thank you as always to Tammy at Daisy Yellow for the ongoing inspiration!

Canadian Komi Mittens on closing day

2010-02-28T17:58:00.004-07:00

On the last day of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, I've finished the Komi mittens that were begun on the opening weekend. I bound off before the puck dropped on the gold medal match between Canada and US in men’s hockey. I knew there was no way I could focus on colorwork while the game was actually on.

The Ravelympics mittens cheer on Canada during the Gold Medal match. They were very nervous. Team USA is very strong and showed their ability to beat Team Canada just last Sunday.

The mittens are starting to wilt under pressure as the US narrows the lead.

THE MITTENS CELEBRATE!

the mittens nearly became unravelled at the stunning US goal in the last 25 seconds that forced the game into overtime. If the mittens could have hidden behind mittens, they would have, because TeamUSA had such great momentum it looked like it would sweep them to a win. Then Canada scored and the mittens are head over heels with joy and relief!
The mittens felt bad that there could be only one winner. It was an absolutely phenomenal game and could have gone either way.

The mittens relaxing happily:

So relaxed, they don't mind showing their backside:

If one looks more white or red than the other, that's because I experimented with which colour was held in front. For me, the colour carried in front is more prominent. There were a few modifications: I shortened both the hand and thumb by just a few rows, and used a half-wick decrease instead because I prefer the appearance. Otherwise, knit just as written.
I love these mittens and will be making more. For now, though, they're a memory of the best Winter Olympics I have ever seen, even more exciting since it took place in my hometown and home province.

Deets:
Knit for Ravelympics2010 between Feb 14-28 2010.
Pattern: #18 from Charlene Schurch's Mostly Mittens from the Komi tradition
Yarn: red and white Tove
needles: 2.25mm Clover Bamboo dpn's

Ravelry project page

warmer on the home front

2010-02-26T19:17:00.005-07:00

Really, if I had to wake up to one more cold, grey morning I was going to scream, and the magical wonder of ice fog and hoarfrost was getting really, really old. But as tired as I am of the winter monotony, I am even more tired of whining about it. So I took a little time downtown with my camera while the kids were at piano lessons.

Like most towns, Lethbridge has its share of abandoned buildings: this is the old Dominion Fruit warehouse which, in the 23 years I've lived here, hasn't shown a sign of life. Which makes me wonder: who keeps that mailbox so shiny and white? Is stuff actually being delivered to that mailbox? And since we know that nothing really comes to mailboxes anymore but bills, who's paying them? That is almost a short story waiting to be written.

The incredibly decrepit old loading docks of the same warehouse. (hmm, I didn't realize till now that I composed the last two pictures in almost the exact same way. I will try for more originality next time).

Some blocks down, the weather-beaten sign of one of the downtown restaurants, one of the first that my new friends took me to when I first moved here, and for a long time the place we went after softball and soccer games. Despite many more restaurants opening in town since, it still seems to be holding its own.

and just around the corner, the abandoned Paramount theatre. Pretty much, there are no freestanding theatres here anymore and I suspect that's the same in any town. It's Cineplex or die. I think the last movie we saw here was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and I remember the children being very impressed by the red velvet seats and curtains. I have no idea what's in store for it now.

and something to smile about at the end of the day's errands. I am full of envy. Who doesn't want a dog that can pull a cart? Who doesn't want dogs that will ride in that cart?

Lost and found

2010-02-19T10:49:00.001-07:00

a while back, I tweeted that I had misplaced the little notebook I carry with me, and was a little discomfited to realize I had left it in church. It's not that it's full of anything incriminating, aside from evidence that I draw in church. The most sensitive financial information it contains is how much allowance I owe my children, and the only really personal information therein are phone numbers of my book club and family. It was nice to get it back, though it made me realize that

1) wow, I am boring. My most personal notebook, and I have NO SECRETS. That's kind of sad, in a way. I should have at least felt a thrill of apprehension. The most embarrassing thing a stranger could discover is that I draw crooked.

2) I'm quite attached to my notebooks. I wasn't that upset about this particular volume, because it's fairly new and I haven't done much in it yet. But, as it starts to accumulate more content and reflect what I've been doing, it becomes very much a record of my daily life, boring or not. Probably, I'd be more upset if I lost it today, because I did get a few more things in it yesterday when we headed up to Calgary to apply for passports:

This particular volume is a pocket sized Quo Vadis Habana. This small version has cream colored 64 gm paper, which is beautifully smooth for pen - any kind of pen, from markers to gel pens to fountain pens. However it is very thin, and you can easily see writing not just on the other side of the sheet, but all the way through a sheet; in the passport office sketch you can see both the church drawing and the passport application drawing. That doesn't bother me all the time, but it's certainly a consideration when I'm trying to decide how I want to use a page. I am looking forward to continuing to keep it close and not abandon it again.

On the fast track

2010-02-15T20:37:00.002-07:00

The family has been sick this rather grey frosty long weekend, but that meant lots of time to work on these mittens. These are the successors to the now-frogged blue and yellow mitt from the previous post, but from the same book. With the same yarn, on larger needles and a lower stitch count, these are a much better size for me. Of course, now I feel slightly guilty and I will probably start another pair in a flamboyant yellow and royal blue - Ukrainian colours - for one of my children.

I love knitting colorwork. And I love this type of pattern, the kind that comes out looking quite complex but really is not that difficult - there's only two colours, and the pattern is based on stitch counts of 1, 3, and 5 in quite orderly seqeunces. I've finished the thumb gore, so now it's a straight track for a while till I get to the fingertip decreases.

Pattern detail:

I'm glad I got this much done this weekend. Things will slow right down now, as I'm heading back to work and will be having busy evenings as well as days. But I'm glad to have settled into a comfortable pattern that I can easily pick up and work on even just a few rows at a time.

Pattern: Komi mittens #18, from Charlene Schurch's Mostly Mittens
yarn: Sandgarn Tove
needles: size 1 clover bamboo
more deets at Ravelry

False start

2010-02-14T10:01:00.003-07:00

False start, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I'm knitting a colorwork mitten for Ravelympics2010. This is mitten #8 from my newly arrived "Mostly Mittens" by Charlene Schurch, containing mittens from the Komi tradition. These are "entered" under the Nordic Colorwork Combined and Mitten Moguls events.

However, even on size 0 needles this is going to be too big. I thought I could get away with sport weight yarn - it's not that far off the fingering weight that the pattern calls for, but I really can't. I love this yarn - Sandgarn Tove. I've used it for my all-time favorite mittens, Maimu's mitts, and it just has the right "stick" to hold together and felt slightly during wear.

I could modify the stitch numbers but as it turns out I hate this colour combination anyway. So I'm ripping it out and starting again with new colours and a different mitten with a lower stitch count.

Guilt-free book list

2010-02-08T19:40:00.009-07:00

In a recent discussion with my fellow yogalilans, a few remarked sadly that they were immersed deep in academia and didn't have time to read fiction. For a little while, I felt a bit guilty because I wasn't saying the same thing - but, I can't help but read fiction, no matter how busy I am. I need it because there's a point where my academic brain just puts down its toys and refuses to play anymore. Or, because its tying itself up in knots and going nowhere fast - I almost need to read fiction, or draw, or knit, or paint, just to break it out of its unproductive pattern.

I love talking about books, and am fortunate to be part of a wonderful reading group. We've been together for nine years - long enough to actually see babies grow to be readers themselves. But I love talking about reading, so if anyone else throws out a few questions, like Tammy recently did at Daisy Yellow - well, I'm all over that!

Questions...

What is on your reading list for 2010?
Do you keep track of the books you read?
How many books (fiction + non-fiction) do you read each year?
Has the number of books per year increased or decreased over the last 5 years?
Do you read more than one book at once?
Do you read more fiction or non-fiction?

I'm slowly working on the books above, except for Quo Vadis. I had already read an old library copy over the Christmas holidays, but bought a new copy and modern translation for my husband.

Fiction, hard copy:

The Blythes are Quoted, Lucy Maud Montgomery
Whiteoaks of Jalna, Mazo de la Roche
Finch's Fortune, Mazo de la Roche
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
The Outlander, Gillian Anderson

Fiction, on the Kindle:
note - I'm one of those excited Canadians who jumped on this almost as soon as it became available up here. We really only have two choices, this one and Sony. Would I have still bought it after the Amazon/Macmillan debacle? It's likely, given the current lack of players in the Canadian market.

The Help, Kathryn Stockett
Espresso Tales, Alexander McCall Smith
The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin
Anne of the Island, Lucy Maud Montgomery

Non-fiction:
What it is, Lynda Barry
Yoga for Pain Relief, Kelly McGonigal
Landscape and Memory, Simon Schama

That's a very modest list. But enough for me, and it could well take me into summer.

To answer the rest of Tammy's questions:

2. I sporadically keep a reading journal. I should keep it up. I was trying to explain to someone a while back why I couldn't finish Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl, and had a hard time remembering why. Then I found my journal, in which I wrote. "...and the idea of the obese, gout-ridden Henry VIII as the love interest was just not doing it for me". Oh yeah, that's why.

3. I have no idea. I don't always finish what I've started. And as for non-fiction, I almost never read those all the way through - I often use them as references, in which case I read some parts over and over again, and the rest, never. Also I don't think it counts that I sometimes pick up a well-loved book (eg. Pride and Prejudice) and read bits of it again.

4. Definitely decreased since I went back to university.

5. I'm incapable of reading one book at a time.

6. See #3 :)

Looking back: January Experiments

2010-02-05T21:31:00.007-07:00

Looking for inspiration for the Creative Every Day challenge, I turned to some of the experiments suggested by Tammy at Daisy Yellow. As suggested, I noted down the ones I wanted to work on, and kept a list for myself to check off in one of my sketchbooks. From the main list, I chose:

~~Develop a mind map on any topic~~
Play a card or board game with other real people (on-line doesn't count)
~~Read 1 book just for you, not for school/work~~
Alter a recipe you frequently make
~~Attend a brainstorming group or book club meeting~~
~~Do something creative at a library, book store, cafe or restaurant (i.e. knit, draw, write)~~
~~Write/Update/Make Progress on a 101 Things in 1001 Days List~~
Create one art journal page, ~~from background~~ to journaling

It actually looks like I did okay managing to cross off a number of items, but in reality, half of them are already regular habits that were fairly easy to continue - reading, going to book club, writing/knitting/drawing while waiting at the library or restaurant. I only had partial success at the ones that were really quite new to me.

It should have been easy to play a real card/board game with my kids, as they often ask to do so, but somehow this one slipped by undone. I also didn't get around to purposely altering a recipe, though I did inadvertently and absentmindedly dump some ketchup instead of chili sauce into the chili. I don't really think that counts and besides it tasted funny. And although I did the background of an art journal page, it pretty much just stayed a background. On the other hand, there's nothing to stop me from continuing to work on it through February (or March, or....). Also, I enjoyed working on the mind map. I do these once in a while anyway, often when problem solving or preparing to write a paper, and in fact this time around I used it to help start compiling my list of 101 things.

I also found I learned something from the ones I set out to avoid, just by fact of avoiding them:

Write down a quote and share it with a friend
Make or update an inspiration board for your home/ studio
make and send handmade card
Gesso a piece of art and start over again

The first three made me realize how reticent I am about sharing anything I do in terms of art and creativity. For instance, I kept trying to visualize myself sharing something inspirational with someone around me - my husband, my lab mate, even one of my girlfriends. Even in my imagination, it still felt like...oversharing. I'm not really sure what that means, but it's something I'll continue to think about for the next while.

As for the gesso, I still don't really know what that stuff is! I suppose that leads nicely into one of the February experiments, though: watch an art tutorial on YouTube. That should help.

emerge

2010-02-04T17:40:00.008-07:00

emerge, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

This is what home looks like today. I see this train trestle bridge, the longest and highest of its kind in ~~North America~~ the world nearly every day, but it's hardly ever wrapped in ice fog like this. It's been a strange winter. We're officially semi-desert, but this year the air has been full of ice and hoarfrost.

This is was minimally processed in Lightroom to correct exposure (camera meters seem to HATE fog) and increase contrast - but the colors are pretty true. We are living in a near-monochromatic world these days.

Askew: a little perspective

2010-02-01T22:53:00.005-07:00

Askew, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I have had an urge to practice drawing perspective, something which is always a bit of a struggle for me. I know that "real" art books have you pulling out straight edges and t- squares and identifying the vanishing point and I am sure that it does indeed serve a useful purpose.

But most of my drawing is done in a little notebook balanced on my knee or the car door. I often draw the street and surrounding buildings while waiting for my children to get out of school. But I am not confident enough yet to post any of those awkward, askew, distorted perspective drawings. Granted, these are not super-favorable conditions for drawing - my hand can't really rest on anything, and I often find the line going this way when I'm trying to make it go that way. But that's where and how I like do draw, on the spot, and having fun with the spontaneous process.

So that's my goal, if I can be said to have one - practice drawing something in perspective each day in February. Hopefully I'll have something postable by March.

two ladies and a wash

2010-01-26T08:32:00.006-07:00

I had the urge to practice drawing things in front of me (I don't want to say "real" - things in our imagination are real too, right?) and I've long wanted to draw the pendant on one of my favorite necklaces. I had originally planned to try a pen drawing on top of the acrylic painted background shown earlier, but this time I felt like playing with my watersoluble pencils.

I ended up with two versions, both drawn in the same colours graphitint pencil -chestnut and indigo, with one washed with a bit of plain water, the other left dry. The dry one is more subdued in colour.

It's amazing how much colour shows up when you add water - colour that isn't really even perceptible in they dry version. So much tint came off in my waterbrush that I used it to paint in a bit of shadow, which wasn't actually in the drawn version at all.

I'm not sure which effect I like best, but this encourages me to do more experimentation with these. They're just Derwent Graphitint pencils, more subtle and earthier in colour than the regular watercolor or Inktense, but equally easy to use. Just a bit more surprising when wet. I should note that they're on different papers - the dry version in an Exacompta sketchbook, the wet in a Canson. But both similar weight, and lightly textured. Aside from the creamier colour of the Exacompta paper, I would expect similar colour shifts to happen to the pencil drawing when wet in both books.

unwinding the right brain

2010-01-22T20:07:00.010-07:00

I actually really enjoy labwork. I like the orderly, persnickety process, the troubleshooting, the problem solving, the excitement when you see your efforts pay off at the end of the day. It is, however, exceedingly finicky and mentally taxing. So at the end of this very long and busy week, I very much needed two things - a gin and tonic, and some time with my sketchbook. Therefore,

a G&T fueled watercolour doodle, not quite a mandala, based on odd numbers, for extra random-ness :)
Title is just a play on William Blake's poem. The drawing itself is not particularly fearless (nor fearful either, for that matter).

And now, I apologize in advance to Polish people everywhere. I'm sorry I made your eagle look like a demented rooster sporting pantaloons. I really didn't mean to. It was very late at night, and I picked up my sketchbook after whining on Twitter that I couldn't sleep.

I did the coin rubbings earlier that day, then attempted to draw one of them. A friend had given me this little Polish coin he found in his pocket, and it was so tiny and worn I could hardly make out what was on it. I rubbed it, in hopes of getting a better view but really it was still hard to see. Then I tried to draw it, which didn't go much better.

And while I was on a roll with the coin thing, I dug through my drawer and found a few more coins worth rubbing - an Ontario quarter, US half dollar, and another Canadian quarter commemorating wisdom. I'm not a coin collector, but I do tend to squirrel away coins that look interesting to me, and now, I'm more likely to notice interesting designs on them. They're a handy way to look for a little drawing inspiration, sinceyou're very likely to always have them around, unless you've squandered them all on coffee.

And by way of a postscript to last week's post about whether or not a doodle is done, I did end up coloring the last one with gelly rolls. However I used metallic gellys, and now it looks like an overwrought easter egg that flung itself onto a pile of glitter. I'm not scanning it, but I'm still strangely happy with it: my school/work life is so concerned about doing things exactly right, this is the arena in my life where I'm perfectly fine with things going wildly askew.

I can't help myself!

2010-01-18T00:20:00.003-07:00

Why do I love Shakeit so? Because you can lie in bed before the start of the work week and instead of getting precious and much needed sleep, process pictures in a completely unnecessary way.
Thus:

and:

also:

Just because it was fun. And I could.
But really, part of it isn't because it's so easy (though it is). Part of it is that you give up a bit of control. When I use Photoshop Elements or Lightroom, there are almost infinite degrees of adjustment you can make to a photograph. I doubt I use even 5% of what these programs are capable of. Shakeit - at least the version on my iTouch, gives you one choice - do it, or not. There's an unpredictability to how it crops, and the colour treatment, which looks a bit lomo-ish to me, with the garish colours and blown out highlights, can't be adjusted at all. I understand the version on the iPhone gives you filters and other options, but on the iTouch, it's just the one thing. Shake, take what you get, and upload. Even lying in bed! That's cool.

are we done yet?

2010-01-16T09:51:00.004-07:00

When I'm drawing pictures of more-or-less real things, I have a pretty good feel for when it's complete: either the dog looks like a dog, the tree looks like a tree; I've reached the edges of the page or said what I have to say.

This month, I'm playing with shapes and lines and doodles, and I realize I'm never quite sure when I'm done. I'm not quite sure when to stop filling in space, or whether to just let it be white space. I'm not quite sure when to stop adding colour, or to add colour at all. In this hand drawing, I feel like I could add more, but I also like it the way it is.

I had just gotten a new fountain pen and ink, so traced my own hand with the intention of doing another hand mandala. But the blue colour made me think of images of the Hand of Fatima (or Hand of Miriam, or Hamsa) so it started to turn into that. I'm not sure if this is done yet, but am not really sure what else to do.

I used Pilot Iroshikuzu kon-peki, drawn with fountain pen then washed very slightly with waterbrush. I realized right away I wouldn't be able to use watercolors to color it, then also found that Pitt brush pens would also muddy the ink, so I used gel pens for color. I think, in the end, this is as close to finished as I want it to be.

This, on the other hand, seems to be asking for more colour:

But really, I just don't know where to go from here. Like many others, I draw while waiting, and at this point, my son's haircut was finished, I closed the book and left. So I lost momentum, and don't quite know how to resume this. I have some options since this is in Pitt pen and gel pen and would tolerate a neocolor or watercolor wash. I'll probably play with this later this afternoon.

Tammy at Daisy Yellow suggested trying to draw a mandala starting with a linear shape working inward, then outward from the centre till they meet. I still don't know if this is finished, but it occupied time nicely while waiting for my kids at their piano lesson.

Bar at the top doesn't mean anything - I was just trying to get my rapidograph flowing again. But I didn't enjoy the scratchiness, so I pulled out my fountain pen with Noodler's black. That's a great drawing combination except for the tendency to dry slowly on smooth paper, as can be seen on the lower point of the mandala where I rested my hand. Smmmmmmmudge. So I don't feel this is quite done either, and would like to add colour. But I know that the paper in this pocket Habana buckles horribly with watercolor, and that Noodler's black doesn't always stay put, so I think I'll try gel pens again with this one. Or...maybe it's time to try Tammy's suggestion of putting fountain pen ink in a rapidograph? I haven't tried that yet...so off I go to clean out a pen.

Footwork

2010-01-15T19:40:00.001-07:00

Footwork, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

Possibly the most ludicrous thing I've done in the name of science.

The lab centrifuge went on the fritz last month right in the midst of an experiment, and in the heat of the moment my supervisor dug out this old beast from the '70s, fired it up, and lo and behold it worked (and saved our bacon). Then last week caretaking polished the floor in the lab, and did such a great job that it now kind of tries to walk around the slippery floor when it reaches full speed. So I was sitting on it to try to keep it in place while centrifuging my samples. Longest 15 minutes of the week, and yes, I tried many different positions to avoid going numb.

Creative with the body? hell, yeah.

Out of the vault

2010-01-08T22:25:00.006-07:00

An old - well, not that old - picture from a trip I took to Seattle with my mom and two of my sisters. We were picking up a cousin from the train station, but had plenty of time to kill. It was my first time to Pike's Place Market and I had so much fun - it was like Granville Island on steroids.

I played with this pic early last year. It was one of my earliest attempts at Photoshop Elements, learning how to use layer masks and before the happy times of discovering actions like those so generously provided by Rita of CoffeeShop photography. Then I forgot about it for several months.

My kids started this silly game: running Shakeit on my iTouch, and choosing pictures at random by pressing the touchscreen with it facing away from them. This one wasn't quite random - I kind of cheated, actually. But I liked how it came out.

Handala

2010-01-07T21:53:00.005-07:00

Handala, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

inspired by Stephanie's hand mandalas, and along with CED for January's theme, Body. Marker pen (Pitt, Sakura) with fountain pen ink and watercolor.

I really enjoyed working on this; I want to do another one and take it a little further. This time, I just wanted to keep the mandala part small and play with colour.

This was done in my new best friend, the Exacompta Basics sketchbook. I had some small vials of fountain pen ink that I'd gotten as samples from the Pear Tree Pen company, which were handy - I didn't have to worry as much about spillage. I tried a few different ways to put it on - water brush, regular brush, and drawing it in with the pen then wetting it. But in the end the method I liked best was to wet the paper first around the outline, then dip the fine brush point into the ink and apply it around the black outline. I'd let it bleed a bit over the wet portion of the paper, and sometimes help it along by adding a little more fresh water. The smaller areas in the mandala, were just painted right onto the dry paper - I didn't want to fool around too much there.

Inks used were J. Herbin Vert Olive, JH Rose Cyclamen, PR Arabian Rose, and then just regular Winsor and Newton watercolours for the yellow.

Be sure to check out Stephanie's many hand mandalas for more inspiration!

eta: oh no! I just noticed hair on the scanner! it's too late now. maybe I'll rescan it tomorrow. Maybe.

Blues of winter

2010-01-05T20:29:00.001-07:00

One of the things I promised myself I'd do this year was try out some techniques I had only read about. Stephanie has written elsewhere about using fountain pen ink for painting, so I gave it a shot. I'd do it again. I like the way the ink dried a bit irregularly, and the colour stayed vivid. I wish the white gel pen I used was more opaque, though.

Again with the experimenting. I've never painted a journal page background before with the intention of drawing or writing over it. But I have quite a bit of acrylic paint lying around from various kid's crafts, so I used some turquoise, gold, and purple glitter.

I had thought to draw something body-like on it, to keep in with the January CED theme, and the necklace I happened to be wearing that day might make a good subject, I was thinking.

And finally I vaguely remembered reading an article about using modge-podge to do photo transfer, and since I was procrastinating anyway, I printed out some of my recent winter photos, slapped some podge on a couple of sheets, and rubbed them as if they were a tattoo. It wasn't exactly a success, but I liked it anyway, and will probably play with this a bit more. I would welcome suggestions as to how to make this work better!

Watercolor and lyrics, from the very Quebecois chanson Mon Pays added after the podge dried.

I'm not Quebecois - but it IS awfully wintery here; the world looks mostly grey, white or blue - but I like blue better.

whole body sock

2010-01-03T15:33:00.005-07:00

I'm fixin' to make a sock, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

as I was plying this, I was musing on what I could do for the Creative Every Day challenge theme for January, Body. The obvious thing would be to get back into anatomical drawing - usually my own injuries, or that of someone in my family. But, as I stood in the family room watching LOTR with the kids, rolling the spindle along my leg with one hand, letting the single-ply roll off the improvised nostepinne with the other, and wrapping the plied yarn around my elbow to grab the spindle and roll the yarn onto it, I realized this is a whole-body process.

Skeined and waiting:

At the true turn of the year

2010-01-02T22:37:00.005-07:00

The day before school begins feels much more like New Year's eve to me than December 31st, because for me, that's the start of when things need to get done. I've had eleven or twelve delicious days of waking up without the alarm, enjoying my family, not checking my university e-mail account, and gently pushing aside all my thoughts and plans for the next semester. Now, it's time to pull them back out again, and prepare to give them my full attention.

As the school holiday draws to a close, some time around the last day of December I start feeling mournful. I thrive in the company of my children and husband and dog. I know that soon we have our duties and responsibilities to attend to, and I feel reluctant to face that. Then, in the first days of January, my mindset starts to shift. It's not merely duty and responsibility, it's opportunity and challenge. It's purpose and commitment. And as that start to takes hold, I feel ready not just to start school again, but to hit the ground running.

So why be creative every day? Two (among many) reasons. One, my discipline is science, and research. It requires a very left brain, orderly, logical approach to problem solving, leading to the need for some stress relief. Two, my discipline is science, and research. Without a right brain, intuitive approach, I think there's a risk of getting stuck in dead ends, of losing the context in which the research question lies. I don't necessarily think that doodling on a piece of paper or knitting a sock will guarantee I'll be a better thinker. But I hope to be a less stressed one, with a more open and exploratory approach to what problems may arise. I believe that science demands creativity.

On a practical level, I sometimes find myself in the middle of the work day unable to string two thoughts, never mind two words together; and since I am too old for the usual student vice of gleeful midday drunkenness (that sure came in handy a couple of decades ago), I can at least relieve some of that with a restless pen, or a walk with a camera.

(picture not really related to post. I just like it. Shakeit is fun)

Shake it, baby!

2010-01-01T21:31:00.004-07:00

Okay, just because I'm done with project 365, doesn't mean I'm going to stop taking pictures, particularly not when there's the tail end of the Christmas holidays left to enjoy. I apparantly can't quite let go, and am still lurking at the 365 groups at flickr, especially the Shutter sisters 365. That's where I ran across a terrific picture by brklynphoto processed with shakeit, an iPhone application. I only have an iTouch (I stubbornly refuse to go the smartphone/contract route) but shakeit works on that too. Also, a milestone, my dear husband is picking up the camera these days, yay! Using our old but trusty Canon S2IS, he got a nice pic of a coyote while on today's walk. I love seeing the pictures my kids take, so I hope he keeps it up.