Puppet progress

 William in the garage studio working on his puppets. We needed to get the space cleaned up as it has become a dumping ground for furniture and other half done projects this winter. Feels much better now. 

Last painting class

 Last day of painting for this course. Did a self portrait in the reflection. Eventually people noticed. 

Hand processing film

 Some good success developing 1500 feet of film in class today. 1400 worked out. One roll needs to be re-shot. Good numbers. 

Country Corner Donuts

 Dropped by the donus shop. No progress evident. The old counter, which as a burn mark on it, has not been removed. 

Geremy and a story plan

 Geremy explains some story structure plan that he has over zoom. 

Writing

 Helped William get started on his re-write of his screenplay. He has all his plot points on cards and needed to get the overall plan in order. 

art shopping with mom

 I took mom out to galleries today, for something to do. The other day, she took all of her art off of her walls and put it all on the floor. Today she bought this new work. 

Painting

 Lori has returned to painting some chickens (and in this case, a rooster) which is very exciting to me. I think they come easy to her, which might be why she has been doing other subjects for the past few months. Everyone in the class admires these. 

Class photo

 Did the class photo today. Had faculty plus 14 of the 15 students. The final student arrived late so we do  have images of all the students (without the faculty) together. 

Story meeting

William, Geremy, and I met about William's project today at Geremy's house. William wants to do a complete re-write - more of a comedy. Geremy dropped a few ideas his way. 
 

Cards with mom

 William and I went to visit mom and play some cards. We couldn't find her at first, as she had decided to attend a video church service. Says she hasn't been to a catholic service in decades, even though she was at one last week. 

Sock-Vile talk

Gave a talk about my puppet films to a (fortunately) small crowd today. Went off the rails and never came back. Probably the worst public talk I've given this century. 

Deaf Tempest

 Kevin joined us at the opening night of the Deaf Crows / Chrystene Ells production of the Tempest, re-designed for a deaf cast. Some really cool puppets, pantomime, and acrobatics. A very good event. 

Funeral

 

Joanne's father passed away a few days ago. We were at the funeral today. Good service. Church based, but accepting that many people there were not church folk. Michael B suggested that we move from middle pew to a front pew. More respectful. 

Painting

 Background sketches in brown is starting to work better for me. Evokes sepia and memory. 

Dennis Jackson in class

 This week Dennis Jackson came in from Prince Albert to talk to my class about his various animation television shows he has produced. He's also doing some promotion (see hat) on his "Chums" show. Great to catch up. I gave him the nickel tour of the department while he was here, as he's not been on campus much in this century. 

The Long Cleaning

 I think we have quite a few days of cleaning and rearranging coming as the insertion of new furniture has cause a ripple of changes around the house that won't be quickly reconciled. 

Snowman in the sun

 

Lori and Maureen see William's show

 Weather is really cold again, so making it downtown and looking at the Neutral Ground show from even the inside was a major challenge today. Maureen is heading home tomorrow so we bit the bullet and came down. Looked at it more from the inside than the outside though. Sun was still up but not direct. It seems like every time I see this show, the lighting is significantly different. 

New furniture

Moved mom's china cabinet and dining room table into our house today. 
 

Photo of me

 Took this selfie. Like it. My inner me. 

Painting

 Carrying on from last weeks' plans but shifted the background drawings to be colour other than the black and white image of the camera. 

Condo getting emptied

My sisters have been working hard to get mom's condo emptied out. My duty today was to do stuff with mom. Eventually I brought mom back to the condo but my sisters has already left. We picked up a few things and took them to her new apartment. 
 

Old photos

Going through stacks of old photos with my sisters. This is a curious shot of my dad from the 50s, probably by a street photographer. 
 

Student gala screening

We attended a fun annual event that the film students put on to screen and celebrate the films they made a few weeks ago under the "12 Hour Film Challenge" banner. Everyone dresses up and they give out awards. Dani (pictured above) has been at the past 5 and did well tonight, winning the top awards. 
 

Relaxing day off?

No, it was not a relaxing day off. I sat down to start writing but only put six words down when I got a phone call and had to do some family stuff. Retirement inches very very slowly forward. 
 

Mom comes to see art

We took mom to see William's show this afternoon, around 3:30. One magical thing was that the sun, which is obviously to the south, was reflecting off a bank building north of the gallery and lighting the exhibition with direct northern light, making it look quite different than it usually does. 
 

Game night

Margaret's only night off from both work and visiting her dad is Thursday. We had a game night. 


 

More painting

 Continuing the sketches as underpainting. This one might have worked better. 

Arts Board talk

 Great presentation from SaskArts in class today. Slide show was wordy by decent and as the session went on, it became less formal and more artist to artist. 

Feels like freezing rain

Everything is coated with ice as the frost falls like rain from the trees, hit by intense sunshine. 
 

Neutral Ground

 William didn't get an opening reception for his Neutral Ground window show, but tonight there was a reception for the regular gallery show so he piggy backed on it and we invited people to come out and see his work at the same time. Good even overall. Lots of people and conversations. Paul came out, even though he's not allowed to drive for another week and it is too icy to walk anywhere. 

Painting continues

 I've been painting once per week. Not been posting on instagram. Not sure what the direction is with these new ones. I've been putting sketches in the background but it doesn't feel as useful as I thought it might be. 

Anniversary

 Weather was fantastic today - highest temperature on this date since 1991 when Margaret had me over to her parent's house for bbq and then we walked through the puddles. I bought chocolates and we had steak and a game night. 

archives

 We went to an event at the CBC building and got a tour of the archives spaces that are there now. Amazingly tall shelves. This room has about a dozen rows like this and I think there are four similar rooms. 

Cody on tv

 My student Cody was up north the other day on maneuvers where a news crew was covering their activities. He ended up on tv yesterday and brought up the clip in class.