New Work: Streetscapes

Come see the new work at downtown Caffe Rosso!
( I will do a post later on perspective and how, well I don't care much about it! Ha ha! )

How to Make a Painting in 13 hours

The New Craft Coalition was a total blast! Got to spend 13 hours with some of my favourite artists---seeing old friends and making new ones! It was also a rare opportunity to spend a long stretch of time making work. I was the unofficial artist-in-residence and set up my easel to work on the latest ViewpointYYC piece. People came by to chat and had a lot of great questions and interesting observations. We tweeted pics of the work as the Show & Sale went on, so here are some action shots of the piece in progress:

Blank canvas! Just starting to draw

Black acrylic underpainting.

Here comes the first color!

Scrutinizing the source photo

New Craft Coalition This Weekend!

Hi Friends! If you are visiting from the blog at Uppercase Magazine, an extra special hello! 

Those of you in YYC, I hope you can join me at the New Craft Coalition Spring Show and Sale this weekend. Amazing artisans from my art school days at ACAD have organized this event. I will be setting up an easel and painting my latest Viewpoint piece and you can buy some great things from some of our city's best such as Kari Woo Jewellery, the ethereal White Owl Ceramics, Calgary fashionista Natalie Gerber and the hot shop boys of Bee Kingdom. Don't miss it!

DIY Roman Blinds:The Joy of Sewing

In between paintings for the ViewpointYYC project, I am taking creative breaks and sewing. Recently I made blinds for our bedroom and kitchen. It seemed totally daunting, but thanks to a lot of internet searching, asking D to do the math, and a few glasses of wine--it turned out to be not so bad after all...

The project began because tin foil was what was helping us sleep. Not pretty.

I never did have a blind in the kitchen and it felt creepy somehow when eating.

A big part of measuring is deciding whether the finished blinds will sit outside or inside the window frame. I chose inside. Even though it was a bit tricker and my window trim isn't anything special to emphasize, I felt like having the blind inside the window frame looked cleaner and more contemporary.

If you decide to do this is really helps to have a handsome and handy guy around to cut the mounting strips and mount them. Some people hang roman blinds by stapling them to the mounting strip, but I used velcro so I can remove the blinds easily to wash them-- or the windows.

The bedroom curtain fabric came from the cute Etsy store, Kalla, from Japan

For the kitchen blind fabric, I used a fun poppy print from vintage curtains I found thrifting. It matches my red bakelite vintage cupboard pulls 

If you want to make your own roman blinds, this site was helpful. It is a bit detailed for someone who just wants to cover their windows at home and not become a professional window treatment seamstress, but it does help you do the math and figure out all the terminology so you can find the parts you need at the Fabric store. Canadian designers Steven and Chris have a more simplified set of instructions and so between the two sites you should be good. 

Next up, re-covering my patio furniture and then, new seat cushions for the Tulip table in the kitchen. Yay sewing!

*Learn from my mistake: If I make blinds again, I will try a mitred edge, rather than sewing the right sides of the fabric and lining together.  I did this, turned them inside out, sewed up the gap and ironed each fold crease instead of inserting rods at each fold. If your blind is longer than it is wide, like our bedroom, I discovered it is hard to have it up and clean and crisp at each fold without the mitred trim and batten rods. But ours is down most of the time, so no biggie. One smart move I made was use black-out fabric for the lining. Melatonin is a good thing.

Peeps + Mini Eggs + Chocolate = Easter

D refers to these as sugar bombs and his niece and nephew literally jumped up and down when I made them last year. This year the chocolatley sugar eggs come with a marshmallow chicken.... Hoppy Easter!

This is my grandmother's recipe for "unbaked cookies". Some people call them haystacks or drop cookies. Whatever they are called, they are dead easy to make and make great nests for your peep and her eggs.  Don't question the amount of sugar. Just close your eyes and enjoy!

Unbaked Cookies (Uncle Donald's Favorite)

1/2 cup margarine
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup milk

-boil all for 5 minutes, no longer
-remove form heat and add dry ingredients:

3 cups oats
1/2 cup coconut
4 Tablespoons cocoa

-mix well
-drop by the 1/4 cup onto waxed paper/cookie sheets
- using the back of a spoon sprayed with Pam, create a hollow in each haystack for your nest.
-before it cools completely add a "peep" and a few Cadbury mini eggs
-brush teeth well before bed ;)

Viewpoint YYC: Bankview 17 A Street

Bankview 17 A Street, oil on canvas, 48x48

Calgarians can check it out at Caffe Rosso on Stephen Ave!

Granola with Granville Island Chai Spice

Homemade Granola with Chai Spice

-preheat oven to 325 celsius

1 cup canola oil

1 cup maple syrup, honey or combo of both

1 T cinnamon

1T chai tea spice -- I like Granville Island Tea Company Spice Mix

(or make your own with ground cinnamon, nutmeg, garam masala, cardamon, clove and ginger)

1/2 teaspoon of clove, ginger, cardamon and/or nutmeg if you want to enhance the chai spice flavour

1 T vanilla

-mix all of these in a saucepan and heat until simmering. Allow to simmer for 5 min until everything is aromatic. Be careful to stir often and to not let burn!

8 cups of oats

1 cup coconut

1 cup flax seeds

2 cups raw/unsalted pumpkin seeds, sliced almonds, sunflower seeds, walnuts, pecans etc...

-mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl. If you are short some, don't worry about it. Add more of something else. The oats are key and then I use whatever I have on hand for nuts and seeds. If you don't like one ingredient, leave it out.

-pour the hot liquid in the bowl of dry materials and mix well, coating everything.

-spray baking sheets with cooking spray or cover in parchment. Flat cookie sheets will not do! The oats are simultaneously sticky and slippery until cooked and will fly everywhere if they aren't contained on your cookie sheet!

-spread the mixture evenly onto baking sheets. 

-bake in the oven, tossing the oats every 15 min or so. At first it will seem like nothing is happening, but after about 30 min they will start to brown quickly. So keep an eye on them and keep tossing!

- remove when a golden brown throughout

1 cup each of raisins, chopped dried apricots, currants, chopped dried figs, craisins etc...

-add any dried fruit that you like (or none at all) to the cooked granola and store the granola in air tight containers.

*Note: I once made the error of roasting the fruit with the oats. Don't do this as they will come out brown, shrivelled and super chewy! The granola is much more beautiful when the fruit is added later and the colours of the apricots and dried cranberries are set against the roasted oats and green pumpkin seeds. Makes a nice gift!