BirdBrain Designs

feedback

August 5, 2014 by Birdbrain 5 Comments

We were at the lake for the past week and I had a chance to do some sketching. Our cottage is on an island about three miles from the marina and this means that wherever we want to go, we need to travel by boat. My favourite boat is my kayak which I have had for over 25 years. The kayak allows me to travel alone and in silence and soak in all the details of the lake. There are lots of remote bays and inlets and I haven’t explored them all yet. I can’t sketch from the kayak–sometimes I clamber on shore with my paints and sometimes I take a photo–it just depends what works.

On Sunday we went in to Bancroft for the afternoon (boat to the marina and then an hour’s drive). Here there is a great independent café, Mixin’ Mommas, right beside the art gallery. I sat on the patio under the umbrella, drank a good latte and sketched the church across the parking lot. Really, a Sunday afternoon in August doesn’t get much better than this. Four people stopped to look at my sketch and make friendly comments! And, speaking of comments…thank you all for the feedback on the blog and via email. It’s a curious adventure, blog writing, and it’s always good to connect with the outside world.

Before we headed back to the lake, I spent half and hour in the art gallery with an interesting juried show and stopped in at Ashlie’s Books for a new novel, The Light Between Oceans, a story of life on an island, somehow seemed the perfect choice.

the end of the trip — Montréal

August 4, 2014 by Birdbrain 3 Comments

We spent the final couple of days of our trip staying at our son’s apartment in Montreal. His place is on the third floor of a brownstone and like much of Montreal has a steep exterior staircase and a twisting interior one–always a challenge when you are carrying a bicycle or three bags of groceries. Parking is also a headache, but that’s another story. The important thing is we love Montreal and this location in the midst of the city, steps from the Jean Talon market, is wonderful. We enjoy walking the aisles with all the local produce and they make the best lattes there as well. In this sketch I used a water soluble pen as suggested by Brenda Swenson in semester 2 of Sketchbook Skool. I really like the effect of the bleeding sepia ink and have been using it quite a lot lately.

I got that sepia Staedtler and a couple of sable travel brushes Avenue des Arts, an art store in Montreal I have been planning to visit for some time. It surpassed my expectations–they had everything I wanted and had trouble finding — and amazingly helpful staff. This is an independent art store, not part of a chain, and you could sense the knowledge and love of creativity in the people there.Across the street were some typical Montreal houses, each one more vibrant than its neighbour. I was sorry I didn’t have the time to sketch them.

a few more sketches from québec

August 2, 2014 by Birdbrain 1 Comment

One of our favourite places on the trip was L’Anse St. Jean on the Saguenay River. We stayed in a b&b at the end of the road and from our window we could see the sailboats and kayaks out on the fjord. I sat on the verandah one morning to sketch this, trying to capture the deep blue of the fjord and the wall of green rising up from it. The bright red roof of the yacht club was irresistible and I think I went a little overboard on the colour!

We also stayed a couple of days in Jonquière and one morning as we were waiting, I sketched this view of the church from the window of the library. Below that is a pastel sketch from the museum in Jonquière which houses much of the material from the Price Brothers Pulp and Paper Company. I found the pastel sketches of the workers in the pulp and paper industry, done over a period of years by Kathleen Shackleton and Francesco Iacurto, absolutely haunting. Kathleen Shackleton is the sister of the antarctic explorer, Ernest Shackleton, and also produced paintings for the Hudson’s Bay Company. Amazing to think of her travelling in the 1930’s through the northern lumber camps and outposts with her paints. She seems to have been an intelligent and independent woman whose criticisms of the residential schools for native children got her in trouble with the press and her employers. Read more here.

more of Québec

July 29, 2014 by Birdbrain Leave a Comment

After two and a half days in Québec City, we drove up the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, stopping in Baie St. Paul (a wonderful artistic community) and then reaching Baie Ste. Catherine where the St. Lawrence meets the Saguenay River. The whole drive had spectacular views of the river, really one of the most beautiful drives in Canada, but Pointe Noire was breathtaking. I sat on a picnic table just before we boarded the ferry and sketched the few valiant trees on the hill. The background music of the ferries’ horns and the sight of the soaring birds is still in my mind as I looks at this sketch.

A short ferry ride from Baie Ste. Catherine is Tadoussac, a small town with a great restaurant, La Bohème, which is located in an old general store from 1892. We spent a couple of days here and ate at La Bohème 3 times! I did a bit of sketching in this picturesque place including the red and turquoise church on the shore of the river, reported to be the oldest wooden church in North America. What sketcher could resist those colours! I had my stool with me, so sat right out in front to sketch and paint. The church was visited by lots of people as it was Sunday morning, so I had many comments on my work. The town has a lovely wooden boardwalk with a gazebo at the end where I retreated to finish the sketch.

québec city

July 26, 2014 by Birdbrain 5 Comments

Hello again! I am finally back here. We have been travelling for the last couple of weeks in Québec. I wanted to sketch everyday of the trip and to try to find comfort with my still developing skill and style. I pretty well kept to it, with some days completing two or three. Our first two days were in le Vieux-Québec, a totally perfect place to sketch. We stayed within the city walls and wandered around amid the old beauty. I sat on patios, benches and walls and sketched.

My rule was to complete the sketch, including watercolour, in situ, no matter how wonky or bad it seemed. And as I look at these, even though I cringe a bit (look at those weird people in the last drawing!), I can remember so much about the time I was sketching, the weather, the conversation, the taste of the latte. And I kept sketching all the way up the St. Lawrence to Tadoussac and Lac St. Jean, so in the coming days I’ll post some more. Meantime, it’s nice to be back here.

tea cups!

July 13, 2014 by Birdbrain 3 Comments

I have been inspired by Liz Steel’s approach to sketching forever. But it was her charming video (a taste of what is to come in semester 2 of Sketchbook School) that propelled me to the back of the cupboard for my very small collection of tea cups. These two cups have connections in my family; the pink one was painted by my aunt when women of a certain age did such things for their hoped-for marriages. It was great to have a chance to use Potters Pink which has been neglected in my palette. And although I never drink from these cups–well, made an exception for the drawing–I really enjoyed sketching their shape and pattern. Here is a quote from Liz’s blog which captures my feelings about sketching too: …my sketchbook journal is the celebration of the little things in life – the everyday becomes special and worthy to record and it is a great way to realize how much we have to be thankful for – even in hard times.

Speaking of SBS, I watched the videos of week 2 last night and have already tried one self-portrait. This week’s assignment is various approaches to self-portraits, daily! Koosje Koene is so charming and encouraging, I almost think I can do it. I’ll be posting my attempts later this week, maybe.

Here is another cottage sketch, not trees this time but fruit. The plate is vintage Hotel Quinte (now sadly a parking lot) and the fruit, you may recognize. I’m just playing with wet-on-wet and line or no-line, just having fun.

2 big thankyous

July 7, 2014 by Birdbrain 1 Comment

I am sitting on the screened porch at the cottage, still marvelling at my access to the world from this little piece of granite. A message from Kenya popped up on my screen a few minutes ago. My mind boggles. Unlike my son who feels harrassed by his emails when he is here and is a bit compulsive about checking, I feel I can open this window to the world when it works for me and glance out. This morning the note from Kenya and the weekly message from Brainpickings.

But that’s not why I am writing this morning. I am writing to say belated thank yous. First, a big big thank you to Wendie Scott Davis, who during her wide-cut/primitives class at Trent Univeristy, sold loonie strips to support the rug hookers in Matangwe Kenya. The class raised $63.00!! This will go to materials, used t-shirts etc. that I hope to buy in the markets of Nairobi this January. We are working to make the venture sustainable and to source the materials locally. That said, if you have burlap or hooks or fine cotton jersey t-shirts etc. please send me an email. You can find the info under contact on the right hand side of this post.

The second thank you goes to one of the blog readers. He sent me an email telling me that he had been inspired by the blog and my attempts at sketching and, as a result, had signed up for Sketchbook Skool. It’s always wonderful to hear from blog readers and to know that something you said had an influence. He writes: “Funny you talk about seeing things in a different way, on my way to work the last couple of weeks since I started sketching I see shapes and color everwhere, where before I only saw things and objects…SO exciting.” Very exciting. And I am about to start Semester 2 which is called Seeing, and I’m pretty excited too. More on that later in the week.

the lake

July 1, 2014 by Birdbrain 8 Comments

Our cottage is on an island, a small island, on a big lake where the properties can only be accessed by boat. Even on a busy holiday weekend like this one, it is relatively quiet. A return to the cottage is a return to the past. Here the life jackets from our two and four year old sons (now well into their 30’s) still hang in the boathouse and New Yorkers from twenty years ago hide at the bottom of the magazine rack. At a cottage you can ignore the terrifying changes in the world and in yourself. Because this one place, this one lump of granite with its wooden cabin, does seem to be as it always was.

Of course, that sense of permanence and security is illusory. This year we have cell service on the lake which brings the world in. The news is delivered to ‘our door’ just like home. But it also means I can connect with you. So here is a little tour of the cottage and some of the early pieces of hooking that I rediscover each year. The Maud Lewis was hooked by my mother and the fish, one of my first pieces, is a pattern from Christine Little of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. The other two were doodles in wool, the one beside Maud, a record of each day in October 2007. Just looking at that piece, like my sketch above, evokes the feelings and the thoughts running through me as it came to be. This is power of creativity, and that is something that doesn’t change.

Innsbruck

June 20, 2014 by Birdbrain 6 Comments

We visited the magical old city of Innsbruck (meaning bridge on the Inn River) with its notable Golden Roof, Rococo architecture and trompe l’oeil church ceiling. In the afternoon we climbed to high Alpine terrain, 2256 m, using the Hungerburg funicular and two cable cars. It was cold and barren up top with circling birds , a very few tenacious wild flowers and mountain goats for company.

visit to the Geiger outlet

June 20, 2014 by Birdbrain 3 Comments

The church bells in Stans wake us each morning. Today is Thursday and looks like another day of sunshine. We have been very lucky for the whole holiday with sunny cycling weather.

Yesterday was a day off cycling and we took the hop-on bus for a tour around the area. While we were waiting for the bus, I sat on the curb and sketched the church in Stans with pencil and a waterbrush–pretty fast. Then the open air bus took us through Schwaz and Vomp and back around through Stans before we got off in search of the Geiger factory. I have loved Geiger woollens since I was in highschool and I was delighted to find the outlet store. We asked if they sold remnant pieces of their fabric and the wonderful staff there told us to come back at 2pm. They recommended a bakery for lunch–and even in this industrial area, the bakery was a delight both for the building and the food.. Canada could learn alot from the Austrians–this is a chain of bakeries, but well done. You can see our lattes on the outdoor table. Of course it helps to have the scenery you see below on all sides! This was taken as we drank our lattes.

Back at the Geiger factory, there was a big a pile of remnant pieces of wool in two weights waiting for us. We each loaded up with several pieces which they sold by the kilogram. Here is our combinded pile including the wool binding. And below that the sketch I did of our balcony after we got back. I haven’t had much time to sketch on the trip and this too was a quick one. But it is great how sketching opens up conversations. The server, Tamas, even went to get his phone to show me his own art work. I love that about sketching.