Mother's Day 2013

Mom, you are a very creative person. You have made many wonderful things over the years to enrich my life.  Practical things and whimsical too; a hand embroidered tea cozy made from the remnants of the silk and brocade green wedding dress you sewed for me, hand printed baby clothes (remember the close encounter with a snarly dog for the ginko leaf?!), mini and full sized quilts, eyelash scarves with a few curse words thrown in, painted Christmas balls, a toll painted dresser, a doll of me emblazoned with tattoos, wearing my signature fleece vest, birkenstocks and red hat. The tattoos are quirky, considering the fuss you kicked up over me piercing my ears when I was 18. And no Mom, I don’t have any tattoos.

The really big deal is that you encouraged and inspired creativity in me all my life. And Erica and Brigit have had the full benefit of your quiet creative force, too. They stay up late at night, working away on arty pursuits. I sure wish we had lived closer so the girls could have had you at hand but summer days on the porch at Cypress made up for that. Your influence is so tangible that, this fall, following in her Grandma’s fabric footsteps, Erica will go to Capilano University to start a Costuming for Film and Theatre program. Wow.

So on this Mother’s Day, I post a page from my illustrated journal as I try to capture a couple of your projects in ink and water colour. I seem to have a procrastinator’s relationship with Canada Post, so please accept this Mother’s Day card via blog. Have a wonderful day. I love you. Susan

Hutong Doorway

So here is an attempt at pure watercolour, no pen lines. I'm reading a great book about watercolour by Tom Hoffmann called Watercolour Painting. Brilliant title. Seriously, his paintings are loose and beautiful. His premise so far is that you have to see things in terms of colour values (light, medium and dark) and basic shapes. He has a lovely, underworked and fresh style, which I think is vital for lovely watercolour. It helps that the guy is a painting genius. Never mind. Here is my attempt at trying to keep things simple and trying to have three basic values

Granville Island Urban Sketchers

Things are a little out of order. Never mind. Sometimes I get ahead of myself. A while back, I joined the Vancouver chapter of Urban Sketchers. This is a group of people who enjoy sketching out and about in the city and get together for camaraderie and a chance to share ideas and inspiration. It is a great way to see how other people work and what kinds of materials they use. We had a recent meet up on a rather cold day on Granville Island. Here are the drawings from that day.

Lovely, juicy Dandelions.
Harbingers of spring.

Corrugated metal and planters.

Suspended sail boat as my fingers froze!
Quick and unfinished.

Hanging out in New Westminster in the Sunshine

I had my car over in New Westminster getting some work done and it all took a little longer than expected. The good news is that I had hours to draw and paint in the sunshine. I started in the superb Westminster Pier Park facing the Fraser River. As tugboats moved log booms, the sky train made that distinctive high whizzing sound on the bridge above me. I decided to use the open length of my sketch book to try to capture the feeling of height. You have to glue the two parts together in your mind. It still amazes me that my eyes can see mountains under a bridge when my brain expects them to soar up into the sky. My mantra holds; See it. Sketch it. Yup, trust your eyes.

Top and bottom of the Skytrain bridge.

This was an odd scene of a boat filled with tires and floats, behind a chain link fence at the end of a huge empty parking lot. I did not quite capture the fence and it looks a bit like the blue banner is water. Never mind. I remember the scene and was drawn to the bright red roof with the bridge and mountains behind.

Nice colours and composition but confusing
scene. The blue is a banner in front of a fence.

 I spent part of the day in thrift shops, looking for costumes for the high school cabaret. I lucked out with these flapper shoes and sketched them as I drank a huge, strawberry milk, bubble tea. The people in the booth behind me joked with the waiter in Mandarin. The girls at the table in front of me chatted in Korean and ordered in flawless English. People's linguistic abilities are wonderful.

Flapper Shoes

Bowling and Hiking in England

Susan's Bowling Shoe

On one cold and blustery day, we got the crew together to go bowling. We had an extra body so I volunteered to watch and grabbed the moment to sketch my bowling shoe.

On another bright day, we walked a triangular route from Snowshill to Stanton, on to Stanway and back to Snowshill. The Cotswolds were covered with snow. The valleys were over the ankles in mud. The views were lovely. As we waited for others to catch up, I did a quick scene with my reservoir brush and travel paints. As I stood there, the paint turned to slush on my paper and palette. A hilarious first for me. The colour of the painting is as muddy so to mark the event, I put my muddy boot on the lower right side of the page. When I opened my sketchbook later, I could smell manure. Scratch and sniff painting!

More of England - Nanny and Grandad's House

The weather was freezing while we were in England, so if I wanted to try to paint and sketch everyday, I had to choose some inside subjects. Joan has lots of precious things around her house that the girls have loved over the year including frogs on the bathroom counter and lots of  teddy bears. I sat at the dining room table in the evenings.

Frog Figurines from the Windowsill

Artist Teddy

My Grandma's Tea Cup Feels Like England

Trip to England

View from Chris and Phil's window.

  On this day, poor Erica had food poisoning so she and I stayed behind while the others went to a bird sanctuary. I took the opportunity to draw and paint  the views from Chris and Phil's childhood bedroom window. It was a freezing blustery day and the birds were being blown about the sky.

Continuation of the same

This was the other side of the same spread.

The shed in the neighbours yard.
Don and Joan's neighbours have the hugest bunnies in their yard!