I finished up my tiny painting for The Pocket Show tonight & it felt incredibly good to dust off my paintbrushes. This summer has been filled with plenty of work, but it’s been either the locket-making, market sort or packaging orders/off to the post office kind. This is precisely why I enjoy signing up for group art shows. There’s often a theme & there’s always a deadline, which means I get to put painting at the top of my TO DO list. Hopefully one day my life will be structured in such a way that creating art always comes first. A lovely dream!

On to the show! The Pocket Show is a HUGE group of artists (close to 100) exhibiting some very tiny art – nothing larger than 4″ x 4″, to be precise. I have a bunch of ideas sketched out in my sketchbook (thank goodness! one does start to worry when it’s been a while…), but the small size restriction meant saving some of my ideas for larger canvases. Since I planned to work on a 4″ x 4″ wood block, I decided to go with a more illustrative style & really enjoyed drawing on the wood in detail. I will often do a vague sketch, but then go over all of the lines with paint, completely obscuring them. I’m quite pleased with the way my girl turned out & hope she’ll fit right in at the show.

Only Dates Men With Beards
graphite, acrylic on wood
4″ x 4″ x 1.5″

For more details or to RSVP for the show’s opening, check out the Facebook event page.

The Pocket Show
156 West Hastings (@ Cambie)

Opening night:
Sunday, September 5th ~ 7:00pm to midnight

Show runs until Sept 18th

I have 2 paintings in the group show Dirty Pop which takes place tomorrow night at Box Studios. The artist list has some of my favorite names on it, so I know it will be a fun night. You can RSVP on the Facebook event page here.

BOX STUDIOS + FRANKLIN ROOM

by Rheanna Fancypants

by Kristen Ferma

Click here to see the other pieces or place a bid!

See you on Saturday!

I’m back at Harmony Arts Fest this weekend (Friday 4 to 8 pm, Sat & Sun 10 am to 8 pm), which means I’ve been a busy bee trying to re-stock the Cagey table with goodies after a wonderfully busy few days. It is such a beautiful spot along the water in West Vancouver.

I got to listen to great music all day, meet some lovely customers & fellow vendors, do a little shopping of my own plus strategize about how I’m going to become friends with people who own boats. Spending the day by the shore was nice, but I was a little envious of all the folks launching their boats into the water for the day. Got room for one more?

Highlight of the festival so far: overhearing 2 wee ones argue over which one of my paintings was “the awesomest.” Nope, not a bad way to spend a sunny afternoon at all! hehe

Harmony Arts Festival kicks off this Friday, July 30th in West Vancouver & I can’t wait! I’ve been up to my eyeballs in resin for the last couple of weeks, so I’m delighted to see the weather forecast is calling for sunshine & hopefully lots of folks out wandering around. If you’ve never been before, it’s a great festival with a big craft market right along the beach at Ambleside Landing, tons of concerts & bands playing (I think 84 performances in total – wow!), group art shows, artist studio tours, a wine garden, children’s programs, cinema in the park…seriously, tons of stuff to do!

The festival runs from July 30th through August 8th. You can check out the full schedule on the Harmony website here.

Want to find me? I’ll be at the:

Delany’s Coffee House Craft Market
Ambleside Landing
Friday, July 30th to Monday, August 2nd

And then back again next weekend too!

Friday, August 6th to Sunday, August 8th

Fridays 4:00pm – 8:00 pm
Saturdays, Sundays and Monday: 10:00am – 8:00 pm

Rocky Mountaineer Train Station
1755 Cottrell Street

Sunday, June 27th

noon to 6 pm

I’ve spent the last couple of days getting prepped for Portobello West on Sunday, June 27th, and though I’m usually busy working on new lockets or magnets for an upcoming market, this one has got me doing some extra dashing about because I’ll be in a booth instead of my usual table. I’ve had to completely rethink my set up & I don’t think I can be 100% sure I’m ready until I actually am there & setting up. eep! These are the moments where I’m grateful to have an excellent mister who doesn’t even complain when he has to drive back home because I forgot something. He’s also very good at bringing me coffee. *grin*

After Sunday’s market I’ll have two days of school (one of which includes a presentation – do you have any idea how long it’s been since I had to stand in front of a class? With, like, people LOOKING at me???) and then it’s vacation time. I’m heading out to my parents’ cabin for a few days of relaxation. Lots of sleep, hopefully lots of sunshine and lots of walking along the ocean sounds like heaven right about now. I’m tempted to not bring any work at all, just my sketchbook. But with the Folk Festival coming up in only a couple of weeks, I should probably at least make some Scrabble tile pendants while I’m there, right? Three days off, really off with very limited internet access, feels incredibly decadent to me.

What are your summer plans? Do you take real time off or mostly working holidays?