Stickin' Ideas Together

Here's the final painting that came out of my time with Ecole Pauling Johnston. What a great group of kids to work with! Kudos to their teacher, Laura Delasalle, for enthusiastically supporting this project and for accommodating my schedule. This piece really supports the work the school has done in adding to their existing playground Specifically, the wooden rounds are a new feature for the kids to jump and play on. They were simply calling out to be a feature on this painting too. Here are a few of the techniques used to make this piece: • CREATE: Vaseline resist and spray paint • Wooden rounds: acrylic transfers of vector art • Children illustrations: colour copied from a vintage story book • Support textures: combination of collaged papers and acrylic paint I'm looking forward to hearing the result of the silent auction for this piece. Good luck class!

This past Monday the fantastic students at Ecole Pauline Johnston’s gr. 6/7 class and I worked together again on their mixed media collage for the school’s gala fundraiser. Since I’d left the painting at the school last week, but needed to prepare for this next session, I decided to make a quick mock-up to help guide the process. I started by bringing a photo of the work-in-progress painting into InDesign. Then I tested out colour schemes and layered various elements to give a sense of what the final may look like. By then a strong idea of the final was beginning to form in my mind. On the second photo posted here you can see the mock-up at the bottom of the frame — the paper with the word PLAY printed on it in yellow. With that printout in front of us as a loose guide, we spent the afternoon adding on a few more magazine clippings (including words such a SPRING, GROW and J’ADORE), splattering and dripping a tinted acrylic glaze and transferring some photocopied imag...

Yesterday the Gr. 6-7 class at Ecole Pauline Johnston did an amazing job creating the base texture for their gala painting submission! This 30"x 24" deep wooden cradled panel from Opus is the perfect substrate. It provided enough room for everyone to collage at least 3 pieces of found paper and begin to layer on some acrylic paint too while taking the expected abuse from so many enthusiastic hands. Next week we'll add another layer of imagery and textures.  The kids seemed to enjoy themselves -- or at least enjoyed a change of pace from the 3 Rs : ). I'm really looking forward to seeing how we progress this together. Check back to see how it goes!

... and SPRING! Today it's a wonderfully crisp and sunny day in Vancouver. Finally. So much rain and snow this winter has been emotionally challenging for many of us. However, there is always joy to find in any weather pattern from today's bright sky to our foggy grays such as renowned artist Toni Onley used to portray. Right now it's easy to find my joy since I have been invited to share my collage style with some students from West Vancouver school, Ecole Pauline Johnson, next week. This year their annual fund raiser is taking the form of a gala Art in the Park event. Working together with their grade 6/7 class, we will provide one of the actionable items. This will be so much fun! How did you survive the winter? Did you take a vacation from your local scene or engage in a new hobby? Maybe you simply hunkered down and created your way into bliss? Let me know if you have any "how-to-survive-the-winter-dulldrom" secrets to share. We may wish to stash the su...

In early February I was still greatly enamoured with my Christmas "urchin" necklace ( see Jan 20th posting). I put it on daily feeling extra warm and fuzzy with the knowledge that my guy had showered me with such a special gift of love. And then I lost it. I mean I physically lost my necklace. One morning, apparently the clasp wasn't fully closed, the chain released and the necklace slipped off of my neck. I was beside myself with sickness; and my better-half was using all of his energy to restrain anger-based comments from exiting his mouth. Pulling my emotions together, I retraced my steps multiple times, posted LOST signs around the neighbourhood and sent out a lot of gratitude vibes hoping a Kind Soul would return it to me.  One very long day later we received a call from a Kind Soul. A fellow Starbucks regular found my necklace on the floor near the coffee bar! English isn't his first language so he didn't know how to go about finding the necklace...

Over a year ago my husband & I decided to take the plunge into the Vancouver housing market. By housing I mean house. We currently own a loft-style condo but it seems to be shrinking as the years go by. We have a 7yr old daughter so space is a precious commodity within our four walls. Since we have purchased our 1928 East Van house, we have gutted it, hired a draftsperson, a contractor and purchased stocks in Valium. But it's been worth it. In the above photo you can see my family last summer tending to the weeds that overtook this neglected lot. In this fab aerial shot, you can see the new metal roof and front windows (sills are yet to come). The stairs are staying where they are with new tile cladding and rail work. Of course the house will be painted once complete -- maybe a misty North Shore blue-gray. Time will tell. In 1928 rooms were small.  Since we are coming from loft-living, we decided to maintain that sense of space by keeping the main floor as open ...

OH YEAH!! Check out this inspiring book by  Betsy Greer  that I just purchased. I discovered it in a promo catalogue by local Vancouver publisher  Arsenal Pulp Pres s.  The write-up describes craftivism as follows:  Craftivism is a worldwide movement that operates at the intersection of craft and activism;  Craftivism  the book is full of inspiration for crafters who want to create works that add to the greater good.  To me, creating for the greater good is what creating is all about. I am keen on using many of the ideas in my work with school children. Encouraging them to dream, to express and "craft" their own world is are important human awarenesses. Sometimes those acts get lost in the shuffle of chores and responsibilities. I'll keep you posted on how this book plays out in my life. In the meantime, get the book. You'll love it! Keep creating. Keep craft-ivisming ~ Kathryn