Painting and watching snow melt

While cold weather is returning soon, the weather today was above zero. I painted and documented my painting with video while also watching my little snowman outside the window droop and drop an eye. 

 

Margaret experiments in pie

 Margaret made three pies today including an apple strawberry experiment. 

Early Valentine's Day?

 Valentine's Day came early this year and I bought Margaret the tried and true vacuum cleaner. She couldn't be more pleased. 

On our shopping trip we were slowed by a line of truckers protesting covid or something. They had a route on College Avenue they were circling which required a U-turn from the right lane. To accomplish this, they had a truck stop and block the left lane and make the large u-turn possible. I managed to get into the right lane and stop four lengths before the turn and allow about 20 stuck cars to pass and make the trucks wait. I am inclined to do it again tomorrow. 

Double fisting online art

At 7:00 this evening, I was watching Shelley Niro's artist talk at the Dunlop as well as an MFA-Interdis dance performance taking place at the Fifth Parallel. Afterwards we went to Dunlop and had a fine time. . 

 

Shelly Niro talk online

 We didn't attend the screening (probably should have - was at the RPL) but we did watch (online) Shelly Niro talking about her film and art. More tomorrow. 

Camera comes clean?

 Painted Marc's standard 8 camera again as I wasn't entirely happy with the first version. From the front, it looks a lot like a front-load stacked washer/dryer set. 

Rabbit friend still nameless

 

Painting crisis

 My day off, Monday and I hear William crashing around. He is supposed to be in class, a remotely delivered landscape art class. When I go see what he is up to, I discover that his class needed to do a painting under the prof's guidance. William had to switch from the office computer (not enough table space), throw on his speed suit (even remotely, he doesn't show up in class with less that three pieces of a suit), rifle through my acrylic paints (couldn't do oils) and hammer out a landscape. All things considered, he did very well. 

I built a snowman too

 While bar-be-quing on the back deck, I grabbed up snow and some junk out of compost and recycling and built a snowman on a table just outside of the living room window. Weather was so great, I didn't need gloves. 

art supplies

 William and I picked up black paper, white "charcoal" and other supplied for his next project. 

Cat sleeps through anything

 I've been reading an exhibition catalog called Camera Atomica. It has some great images and bits of interesting history of atomic bombs and other radiation related things being photographed but is also not really a page turner. Catalogs never seem to be written with a reader in mind. 

Shit fireplace collectable

 Margaret build (modified) this chintzy decoration into a mini-shit fireplace as a gift for Jeff who is leaving the Dunlop for exciting new ventures. It is a surprise, but since I am back-dating this post, it has already been delivered. 

Painting at Balkwill again

 Did this point and shoot camera. Happy to be able to attend class as I had been short listed. Lori had reminded me to register but I got busy in December and dropped the ball. Tim called last week and gave me the good news. 

William trees drawing

 A while back William took some flash photos of trees. Today he started sketching them. While this is not what he usually draws, he drew quickly without hesitation. I know I'll never be able to do that. 

Robot camera

 Painted a different pov of a video camera from Steve Wolfson and afterwards noticed that the top down view, when turned sideways, looks like a robot. 

Snowman building

Weather is improving and so are the opportunities to build snowmen. Margaret made a few in the front. 
 

William testing bat vision

 William is thinking about his next drawing project to "see" like a bat. He went out to take flash pictures of trees at night to start getting models of front surfaces of branches to work on drawing from. 

Winter disco in our yard

You 'd not believe what the snow crowd get up to at night in our yard. 
 

Face to face art opening

While limited to a smaller group, it was nice to go to the opening of the exhibition at the Art Gallery of Regina and talk with the artist Katherine Boyer whom we've not seen in years. 
 

Need a rabbit name

This guy is spending lots of time in our yard. 
 

Class begins

 First day of classes for me. I was using this air can as a subject talking about some composition issues. 

More painting

Monday is my non-teaching day. I thought that it would be my prep and research day but now realize that William is on his computer beside mine all day due to our temporary remote sessions. Therefore, I found myself unable to really work so I painted again. This is one of Noelle's cameras. 
 

Edge of Night, no, edge of shadows

 

Paused the Dark Shadows when we caught sight of the missing landing up the stairs in the old house in Dark Shadows. 

Camera from Marc

 Played the Snake River vinyl lp I bought at their show a week ago while painting a camera that Marc LaFoy sent me from Toronto. 

New batch of cameras

Noelle Duddridge dropped off a batch of cameras to paint. I've felt a bit uninspired to paint for the past month but with the new year, I am getting pumped to dive back into them again. 
 

Cold birds

 One, and only one, of William's bedroom windows had a collections of sparrows huddled on his sill. They are all puffed up and super cute. 

Dinner with friends

 After everyone took covid tests, we had a really nice evening with Martin, Barb, and Emma at their house. Played Snake Oil until after midnight. Felt great to be normal. 

Tree comes down

 The tree we bought was nice but even from the moment we bought it, it was a bit dry. Taking it down shook literally half the needles off. 

Boosting cars

 William's car hasn't been started in a couple weeks and needed some tlc. 

Bacon pancakes

Cold day comfort food. 
 

Stopping time

 Just before midnight last night I realized that this clock was off so I adjusted it. The result was that the clock jammed at 15 seconds before the new year, the second had struggling to click forward but always being bounced back. I left it there for most of new  year's day before replacing the battery.