Saturday Market

A little mention about tomorrow: there's a Makers' Market happening in front of Christ Church Cathedral on James Street North from 10AM - 3PM and yours truly is going to be there. I hear tell that there's going to be a lot of vendors out tomorrow and I just checked the weather--the forecast is sunny. Indeed. 

A Parsley/Basil Skills Competion

Day 8: A photo of something close up

Day 9: A photo of something distant

Day 10: A photo of whatever you please

The other day I went with my family down to the Hamilton Waterfront. We parked our car at Bayfront Park and then biked over to the Harbour Marine Services. There's a really big ship that I see docked by the Marine Services building every time I go down there. The ship, which might technically be a laker (a freighter that runs through the Great Lakes) is painted a very bright blue. When you get close to the side of the ship, you start to see the flaking layers of paint and the rust that's corroding the metal. The overall effect is quite lovely and, when taken out of context, looks like it could be an abstract painting.  Every time I've gone by the big blue rusting ship I've thought that I would like to photograph the side of the boat close up, and the other day I did just that.

For the Day 9 photo, I broke a photo challenge rule and took it on the same day as Photo 8. True confessions, I know. The fellow looking out over the water in the background is what makes this a photograph of something distant. My intended subject matter is the dynamic biking duo in the foreground but I think the man leaning on the railing sort of sneaks in there to steal the show.

As for the Day 10 photo, there's no question who's the star: parsley, it's your moment to shine. Every day I take pleasure in looking at the potted herbs by my studio window so it was only natural that I take an herbal photograph. Although scientifically improvable, I maintain that herbs taste better when you grow them yourself. I would've photographed my basil plant because basil is the lion of the herb kingdom, but my basil is not looking well these days. So while basil is tastier than parsley, parsley is currently destroying basil in the category of most photogenic. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong with my basil plant, apart from perhaps pillaging its leaves more often than I should. Hmm, maybe I do know what I'm doing wrong with my basil plant.

I Challenge You to an Art Crawl!

Day 6: A photo from a low angle
I love you, asymmetrical balance

Day 7: A silhouette photo

Posted above are my most recent efforts for the 30 day photo challenge. I seem to have really taken the notion of challenge to heart this week. For instance, you would think I've challenged myself to see how little sleep I need. Not a particularly wise endeavour or one undertaken for any great purpose. But tonight I'm going to challenge myself to be asleep by 11 pm. If my tiredness weren't a great enough motivation in and of itself, than the thought that I'll be a vendor at tomorrow's James Street North Art Crawl would certainly give me sufficient cause to rest up. 

The basic premise of the Art Crawl is that every second Friday of the month all the galleries on James Street North are open late and there's a great selection of art to check out. A number of artists who have their studios on James Street also open up their places for people to come in and have a look. And as if that weren't enough, the area is also something of a 'little Portugal' so there's some great food to be had as well (mmm...custard tarts). 

I've been to a number of Art Crawls, but I've never done the Makers Market that happens there so I'm quite excited to be a participant tomorrow. I'll be selling prints of my watercolour paintings and, although it's not quite done, I think I'll bring along the horse painting I'm currently working on to show as an example of the type of custom work I do. The Art Crawls are usually pretty busy with a wide range of people turning out so it should be fun to be part of the vibe Friday night. Things get underway at 7pm and the Market itself ends at 10 pm, although there's usually still other things open beyond that time. 

If you've never been to an Art Crawl, it's a great way to spend a Friday night. 

The Art of the Afternoon Nap

Day 2: A photo of what you wore today
 I lost the image file from the day I was supposed to take this photo, so this is actually what I wore this morning

Day 3: A photo of your favourite place to be
My favourite place  is wherever my loved ones are

Day 4: A photo from a high angle 

Day 5: A photo of whatever you please 

                                     
Here are days 2 -5 of the 30 day photo challenge. I'm sort of glad I lost my original day 2 photo because I wore something I really like this morning to church and I photographed that as my replacement. My favourite photograph of the bunch is Day 5-- a picture of my watercolour brushes. To me, they look like they're taking a well-deserved afternoon nap. It's a gorgeous day here in Hamilton, Ontario, so I bid you adieu for now.

Let the Photo Challenge Begin!

Day 1: A photo of yourself

Not too long ago I wrote about undertaking a 30 day photography challenge wherein there is a list of 30 days and each day has a brief instruction of what to photograph on that day. The self portrait above is from June 1, I just didn't have the chance to post it until today. I'll be taking my photographs in order according to the photo challenge and posting them in order, but not necessarily posting the photos on the day they were taken. Doing this little exercise has already taught me something or, more accurately, reinforced something I already knew: the days certainly do go by in a hurry.

Where's the Rest of Me?

I'm happy to report that my current painting project is coming along nicely. It's safe to say that the horse painting is moving at a fair clip. The days are getting longer so I now have sunlight to paint by in the evenings. Rather than show what the painting looks like still incomplete, I've included a detail of the horse's eye (and don't worry it's an extreme close-up or otherwise I'd be painting a monster horse). Whether I'm painting a person or an animal, the first place I zone in on, after I've roughed out the overall shape, is the eyes. As soon as the eyes are established, a painting looks more alive and I find it easier to do the remainder of the body. It's as if the subject is looking at me and saying, "come on! where's the rest of me?"

I'd like to share artwork on this blog more frequently, but aside from the larger pieces that I set out to do, I don't find the time to make sketches and drawings of other things that suit my fancy. In place of doing actual sketches of objects I come across, I'll sometimes imagine myself drawing. If I see something aesthetically interesting but don't have the time or opportunity to draw it, I like to conduct a kind of mental exercise in drawing. What line quality would I use? How much pressure would I apply with the pencil? What would the focal point be? And as I'm thinking, I visualize my hand carrying out these decisions. The really great bonus is that in my mind sketches invariably turn out just the way I want them to. In my real life sketchbook there's a lot more scribbling out.

The other day, I came across a posting that may just inspire me to have an image to post everyday for the month of June. My friend Johanna was writing on her blog about a photo challenge she discovered where the premise is to take a photograph of a given topic for each day of the month. I'm no photographer (unlike my friend!) but I do like photography as a creative outlet that doesn't take me as long as drawing or painting. Although, as I write this, I'm thinking there are probably a great number of photographers who could tell me just how time consuming doing great photography is. At any rate, the other advantage of doing this photography challenge is that it will force me to get better acquainted with my relatively new camera. That puppy has tonnes of features I haven't even taken a crack at yet. So included below is the challenge rundown:

Bunny Horse?

It feels like quite some time has gone by since last I wrote and I hold the weather and reading accountable for my absence. Most of last week was wet and dreary which made me want to spend my evenings on the couch with a book in hand. A friend of mine loaned me her copy of The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (the book is published as Someone Knows My Name in the USA, Australia and New Zealand), and I can barely put it down. In the novel, the protagonist Aminata Diallo recalls her life story, starting with her abduction from a happy life in West Africa when she's eleven years-old. So far I've read about Aminata crossing the Atlantic ocean in a slave-ship and her first couple of years as a slave in America. Although The Book of Negroes is a work of fiction, knowing that it's based upon the historical realities of the18th and early 19th centuries makes the novel that much more impactful. Considering it was a Canada Reads 2009 Selection, I'm late out of the gate in reading this book and I'm probably telling some people what they already know, but if you haven't read it, The Book of Negroes is worth reading.

As of the last few days the sun has come out again and so has my inclination to get some little tasks out of the way. It's amazing how much more verve a little sunshine puts into your step. That, and the news of a possible Canada Post strike--since one of my little tasks required going to the post office. Today I mailed away my applications for two different markets. One is the Grimsby Festival of Art that happens Saturday, Sept 10, 2011 and the other is the Harvest Crafts & Marketplace Fiesta at St. Paul's Church in Dundas which happens Oct 28 & 29, 2011. I'll be selling prints of my watercolour paintings at these evensts, and since both markets are still some time away, I'm thinking about also including some original oil paintings.

In other news, since I last wrote about my latest painting being a commission of a horse, I came across a veritable horse convention this past Saturday while out for a walk. My family and I went for a hike at Dundas Conservation Area and there were a lot of horses out with their riders. I guess the wet weather had made the horses pretty anxious to stretch their legs as well. Looking at these horses I photographed on Saturday, and the horse that I'm currently painting, has reminded me of how expressive horses' ears are. But I also find them kind of odd, although not in a bad way. The more I look at horse ears, the more I think of bunny rabbit ears.

I inadvertently gave the woman in the background a horse's head.