William making a game

 William has been conceiving of a new video game. I'm not sure how it is played but I saw a piece of graphics the other day. Most of the work has something to do with riddles. 

Fireplace cat

 Sylvie loves the fireplace. 

Basement workbench

 I finally finished this workbench (except for putting some shelf boards on the bottom) in my tool room. Mostly something for when I need to hammer a nail or hand saw some wood during the winter. 

The shelf is something that came with the house - I believe it was in the kitchen bathroom we removed when we moved in. I put a new coat of paint on it and hung it here. 

Paul for supper

It's been a while since Paul was over for supper. Had some steaks then played Lovecraft Letter  until dark. 
 

Morning with mom

 I picked up mom and we took her sewing machine to back to the repair place. The problem with it was a simple issue of how to engage the bobbin, which was more or less user error. Mom seems to have forgotten this detail that she had undoubtedly done hundreds of times in the past. I then took her out to "Dad's Diner" then to a couple of art galleries (pictured below is the Lobby Gallery within the Performing Arts Centre with an exhibit of Edie Marshall's paintings. Then to Slate (summer show) and then to the store to get her a replacement cane for the one she says was stolen. William has begun decorating it so that it will never be mistaken for someone else's (which is likely what happened to the previous one). 

Work bench in progress

Many distractions these days, so my tool room work bench progresses at a snails pace. Did some work on the top with the electric planer, but think I should get back to it and get it really smooth. The biggest challenge is actually the room itself and the contents crammed into it. Difficult to navigate. 
 

Holiday Monday

Kevin was over for a while this morning. He's back from a couple weeks at the cottage and we needed to talk about Sabastian. Afterwards, we washed, sorted, and pitted all of the cherries, converting them into six bags of about 4 pounds each. 

Cherry picking

William and I picked 32 pounds of cherries from the Motherwell tree this evening. The timing was perfect. Insects hadn't started getting to them yet, neither had the birds. Weather was good. Missed about 10 percent that were too high to safely reach. 
 

Photo shoot with Chrystene

Helped out Chrystene on a photo shoot today. Studio rented was on Dewdney and window looks out onto the construction that has been going on for a year. Here is the view. 

Photos were looking really nice. Lighting makes everything very painterly, which is great since the goal is to paint from these portraits. 
 

Fantastic morning

 Having numerous scheduling problems, last night we determined that the only practical time for us to the the new Fantastic Four movie would be this morning. When I checked the listings at 9:00 am, I mistakenly thought that the only times available were around 9:30, which was too difficult given that the theatre was on the other side of town. There was, in fact, a 10am screening time so we made it there and had a nice time. Half way through the trailers, we noticed that no one had given us 3D glasses (or anyone else in the theatre for that matter). Margaret exited (missing the Edgar Wright "Running Man" trailer) and had this rectified for everyone. Liked the movie. 

Work bench

 I was working on constructing my tool room workbench today but it was hot and muggy and I didn't finish. Margaret was out and I didn't want to cook so we took a nice break A&W, then home to read out a bunch of our stories. 

Lunch with mom

 I've not seen mom in a week. Picked her up for lunch and then to get the nose part on her glasses fixed. Realized the the tech person at the radio station is going on vacation so I needed to get two extra episodes edited this week. Fortunately the Victoria recording from Saskatoon was solid. 

Big green screen shoot

Shot for a few hours today with characters played by me, Geremy, Rory, and William. All in 4k with a total of over 300 Gb of footage. 
 

Costumes

 Focus today on gathering costumes pieces for a Nuit Blanche shoot. Needed to comb through old photos to see what the various characters were wearing. Time travel can be tiring. 

Last day of Saskatoon

Checked out of the hotel and headed to the Remai Modern gallery for a short visit. The high point was a retrospective of Shelley Niro's work, a mixture of paintings, photographs, and videos. I like her videos but they are sort of "non-event" sorts of things which are best suited for shorter viewings over a span of tiems. The total of the video collection was over an hour so we didn't see them all. We wanted to get on the road early enough to catch the tail end of the Lego show in Moose Jaw. In the parking lot below the Remai we ran into an old friends Carrie and Sandia. 

 

More art in Saskatoon

 We attended the second of the two Shakespeare plays, this one was Richard II, which I've never seen before (it is not often performed). It was decent. We swung past the Craft Council and were happy to find that the opening of their "Dimensions" group exhibition was still on and we had some great conversations with a bunch of artists including Linda Duvall and Courtney Pederson. We also saw Gabriela Garcia-Luna who currently has work up at the Art Placement gallery but we've unfortunately missed that (not open tomorrow). 

Saskatoon with lots of art events

Vacation today. First stop was Regina Beach to see the exhibition at the LMLCC. Arriving in Saskatoon at 1:00, we went to Paved where we got a tour and William took out a membership. Then to a cafe where Gerri Ann and other Saskatchewan illustrators/cartoonists are being exhibited for their work which is thematically connected as works of cryptozoology. We then met up with Victoria and attended the very interesting and extensive (albiet expensive) exhibition of Banksy art in a mall downtown. After supper we went to A Midsummer Night's Dream at Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan. The plan was tremendous. Very fun and lively. You could tell the actors were enjoying performing as much as we enjoyed watching. Kenn McLeod was spot on as Bottom. The actress doing Puck was also amazing. William and Victoria capped off the day with a lengthy recording for his radio show. 
 

William painting a gift

 William used a book of movie star couples (in this case, Louis Jourdan and Jennifer Jones from Madame Bovary) reimagined as bird people as a painting using graphite black and titanium white paint only. Gift for Victoria. 

Tate and lettuce

 Stopped past Lori's to drop off small Star Wars board book for Tate's upcoming birthday. We be in Saskatoon so will miss the event. 

More Nuit Blanche planning

 Loving Nuit Blanche. It gives us lots of reasons to go out for lunch to "plan".