My Messy Table

erengi art aspirers

caran d'ache neopastels

caran d'ache neopastels

sennelier

sennelier

I've been working from home for the last few days, which has meant toting all my art supplies from my studio to my house. Fortunately I'm pretty portable these days. I have less space working on the dinner table, and it doesn't take long before I'm spread out everywhere, especially now that I have 3 different brands of oil pastels I like to use.

I just bought a box of Erengi Art Aspirers having read a few reviews comparing them to my much beloved neopastels.They were on sale and in spite of having to get them shipped from the States were still a pretty good deal. An example of overconsumption though - I did not need to buy more, but now I have a lovely new range of colours to play with!

I'm working on the color images now for the picturebook for Rubicon, and this is the tough part for me. I've read a bunch of books on colour and it still pretty much boils down to instinct. They'll either feel right, or they won't. Its funny that I've been having troubles with skin tones - why is it in nature we never look at someone and say, your complexion completely clashes with the landscape! Wouldn't that be funny. But my kids were far too orangey in the beginning, and making them a little darker brown sure helped.

Here's a version I played around with a bit on the computer. Not the final piece, though!


click to view larger

As Good As I Get

I've just sat down in a cafe with my coffee and realized that I haven't brought the pen for my tablet with me, and while I do have a pencil here to do my drawing I don't have any paper, all because of my silly rush to get out of the house.

Part of the reason for trying to get out of the house quickly is because I should have been working all day, but instead I went to stick and puck (and here I am still not working). Its seriously been about a year since I've done any practicing on my own, and I have come to the conclusion that I am as good as I'm ever going to get. I simply cannot seem to get better. Ok, one could infer from that, that maybe I should go to stick and puck more than once every year and maybe I would get better, but there are things that I was doing better a year ago that I can't seem to do anymore. Like handling the puck while skating backwards, or my backhand. And because stick and puck is so much more exhausting than a regular game, every now and then while I'm resting I like to check out the skills of all the men on the ice (men everywhere! I was the only woman, and I had to change in the bathroom because they took up all 4 dressing rooms!), and I realized that here is where I need work: backwards crossovers. mohawks. stopping left foot first. A proper hockey stop. Speed. A quicker start. stickhandling. my backhand, forehand, slapshot, and wrist shot - I'll probably never manage a snap shot. Actually, probably the same for the slapshot, and part of me thinks, who even cares about a slapshot? Although, being a defenceperson, the likelihood of my hitting top corner from the point with a wrist shot seems very, very, unlikely. At this point the only thing that I seem to do well is wear my helmet properly, although by the end of it I was getting this pain in the side of my head so maybe I can't even do that well.

Seriously, I'm not discouraged though. I've come to terms with the fact that some of those beautiful goals that I see on the tv I will never, ever be able to do. But that's ok, cause the main thing is I'm still having a hell of a time playing.

A Dream Come True

Most musicians dream about having their band mentioned in Rolling Stone, for me, its on the Canucks website (it’s down at the bottom).