Zoe and her Skunk
11″ x 14″, acrylic on canvas
available in the shop

My new painting, Zoe and her Skunk, is now up for sale in my Etsy shop. I’ve been nabbing frames of various sizes when I see them on sale lately, so it was nice to be able to photograph it looking…finished. I don’t mind hanging canvas paintings without frames, as long as the edges are painted, but sometimes a frame helps a piece look a little more important, gives it a little more oomph. This is particularly true with the size of canvases I like to paint on. They can feel lost on a big blank wall without a frame to anchor them.

In other totally random, train of thought blogging, an audiobook recommendation – Stephen King’s Under the Dome. I’ve been listening to it over the past few weeks while I paint and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s definitely not an easy listen or read – there are some seriously disturbing scenes of violence against women – but it wouldn’t be considered “horror”. Think more Lord of the Flies for grown-ups. If you read (or listen to) the first chapter, you’ll be hooked until the very end, if for no other reason than to find out how the dome got there in the first place.

Now what should I listen to next?

I’ve been having so much fun turning my paintings into wearable art in the form of antique lockets and cameo pendants, but you probably wouldn’t know that if you weren’t able to make it out to any of my winter markets. Adding the new jewelery to my Etsy shop has been going at a snail-like pace. It seemed like as soon as I got a few of them photographed and edited and ready to go, they were sold! A good problem to be had, for sure.

There are now 6 fancy necklaces in the “Pendants” section of the shop, along with the usual group of Scrabble tile pendants. I’ve got a few more that will go up tomorrow and then I really need to get to work on creating more! Tracking down the lockets themselves has not been easy and the BIG ones I had at Christmas time are nowhere to be found. I’m kicking myself now for not holding onto one of them to wear myself. The hunt continues…

I’m a huge Alice in Wonderland fan & have been plotting a series of Alice paintings for years. There are so many fantastic scenes that would make amazing paintings that my biggest problem has been not knowing where to start. If I’m going to do Alice, I want to do justice to both Lewis Carroll’s story and the enchanting illustrations of John Tenniel. A tall order!

I got a new copy of the book a few months ago, an annotated collection with both Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass in one book, plus lots of odd little footnotes and interesting blurbs. Every few pages a new note goes into my sketchbook under painting ideas – walrus & the carpenter, caterpillar, drink me. I have pages and pages of sketches, but this month I finally started painting and I’m tickled with the results so far.

With the Tim Burton movie coming out in March, it was high time for me to get busy on my Alice paintings. I love Tim Burton and I’m so excited to see what he does with the story, but at the same time, I don’t want his version of Alice to influence my own paintings. Influence and inspiration are a tricky bunch.

We’re all influenced by other artists every single day. Even if you never set foot in a museum or gallery, art is everywhere. From movies and tv, to the graphic designers working on ad campaigns to the packaging you see at the grocery store – it’s unavoidable. And for the most part, that’s just fine. But with this…I don’t know. I’d almost like to do two sets of paintings – one pre-Burton and one post. Would make for an interesting experiment, no doubt!

Chances are I won’t have time for that little experiment though because I’ll be busy co-organizing a local Alice-themed art show (and tea party, of course). The details aren’t quite finalized yet, but I’m going to be putting a call out to artists very soon and my brain is bubbling over with ideas. I’ll need a costume too. Oh, this is going to be such fun!

Who’s your favorite Alice character?

Yay! I’m nominated for a Poppy award over at Poppytalk.com. It’s a fab site run by a fellow Vancouverite that showcases some of the most interesting and unique designers, artists and crafters. I’ve got a whack of pages bookmarked for their tutorials and images saved in my “dream house” folder.

In the Affordable Art category, I’m thrilled to discover that little ol’ me has been nominated. Head on over to vote for me & I’ll be your BFF! I think you’re allowed to vote more than once too. *hint hint* Voting closes on Wednesday, January 27th.

THANK YOU!!!

My introverted inner hermit is getting a workout with all of the visits as of late. We had the mister’s parents stay with us for a week over Christmas, then off to visit my folks for a few days and then on Friday I had my two sisters and their respective crews in for the weekend. Phew! I’m about ready to get back to my anti-social routine of holing up with a fresh canvas, a messy palette full of paint and a podcast (or twenty).

One of the things I like doing best when people are here to visit is going to movies. I know…kind of defeats the purpose of visiting when you can’t talk, but with my ADD-adled brain, I just don’t do well when there’s a bunch of different conversations going on at one time. One on one? Fine! Bigger groups are fine too if the conversations are one person at a time, one speaker addressing the group. It’s those dinner party situations where someone sitting across from me is trying to talk while the person beside me is talking to someone else at the end of the table that throw my brain for a loop. I catch a bit of the other table conversations & my mind (& usually my eyes too) jump over there. My mister says I’m like a dog; focus, focus, focus – squirrel! Focus, focus, focus – bouncy ball!

And with that, here are my latest movie recommendations:

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Recommended. Loved it! As soon as the folding stage came on screen, I was hooked. It’s like a paper doll theatre, but life size! The layers of trees, the way it all folds up and DRIVES AWAY, the little compartments that still exist when it is all folded up for sleeping or chatting or playing with costumes and make-up…*swoon*. My eyes were big as saucers watching it unfold and after whispering, “I want that” to my mister, I spent the rest of the movie trying to figure out how we could build it. Or where we would put it. Awesomeness.

FYI: the rest of the movie is good too. The way they finished Heath Ledger’s scenes with other actors works beautifully and Lily Cole is an absolute doll.

Sherlock Holmes

Recommended. I was never a huge Sherlock Holmes fan. I’m sure I’ve read at least one of the books, but not for a good 15 years. Still, a good story is a good story and the characters are fabulous fun. Robert Downey Jr has such an expressive face, he can crack me up with one eyebrow. The little nods to the future were interesting too.

It’s Complicated

Not Recommended. Admittedly, I didn’t have huge hopes for this one and 80% of the movie was perfectly fine, fulfilling its romantic comedy duties nicely. I adore Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock and the trailers looked like he was going to be the same smarmy character in this flick. Sold! There were lots of funny, sweet moments, but the ending just didn’t make sense to anyone I saw it with. If you haven’t seen it yet (& want to), you should probably stop reading here – spoilers ahead!

It’s not that I would’ve ended it differently, but the reasons she gave for not getting back with her ex did not seem to match up at all with the movie I’d just watched. Them sitting on the bench agreeing that it had never felt “right”? Huh? When was that, exactly???

She could’ve said she didn’t want to risk trying again and then disappointing the children all over again. She could’ve said that she was so hurt from him standing her up that she realized she would never be able to forgive years of problems and truly start over with a clean slate. If they had fleshed out the Steve Martin character more she could say that though she still cared for her ex, she didn’t think she could ever be in love with him again. But after one date? Really?

Movies like this really irk me because it feels like the writer or the director just ran out of time and needed to end it, so they slap in an ending regardless of the fact that it doesn’t fit with everything they’ve spent the last hour and a half telling us about the characters. Fracture is another one (totally different genre) that springs to mind. The genius mastermind is tripped up in the end by a really basic legal loophole that even I, a lowly painter, has heard of? Not buying it.

Have you seen any movies lately that you’d recommend? And don’t say Avatar.