Settled in the Maritimes of Canada, surrounded by the forest and Acadian Mountain Chain, I live a simple life of gratitude. This blog is a journal of my art, food, furkids, garden, home, my life and my thoughts. Thanks for reading!
Hello Friends and Happy New Year!! ππ Here's to 2021!! πΈπΈ
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, our last art date of 2020!!! Today our theme is Full Cold Moon. Tuesday's Full Moon was called the Cold Moon which symbolizes winter's grip on the Northern world. Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck decided to go tobogganing during the Full Moon this year!
I decided to go for a walk. I love how quiet it is on a winter's night during a Full Moon. When I'm out in Nature, I can leave all of the "noise" behind me. I drew this with ink and graphite. I only wish I could see the Northern Lights!
➡️ ➡️ ➡️ ➡️ ➡️I have a treat for you!! ⬅️ ⬅️ ⬅️ ⬅️ ⬅️
I was in a movie with Kiefer Sutherland and I'm going to show you my scene!
Okay, that's what's called "click bait" - an attention grabber lol! It is true though, I was cast as an extra and I did have some camera time! The movie is called Crazy Moon (1987) - one of Kiefer's first movies. It was filmed in Montreal and I remember that we got ginger ale and a free concert ticket to see Rational Youth, a popular Canadian band in the 80's.
I found the scene and added a few freeze frames so you can identify me in the crowd. It's a bit choppy, and only 11 seconds, but this was my "15 minutes of fame" so to speak! You can click on the "You Tube" button to see a bigger video. Yes, that's me alright, very 1980's!!! Can anyone relate to this era?
**Just to clarify!! I am the one with the black dress dancing, I have a black bandana on and Kiefer and his co-star are walking behind me!
Speaking of the 1980's, David Bowie was one of my favourite artists, especially during that decade. I know I don't necessarily look my age, but I am 52 years old and I did graduate high school in 1985. The 1980's was my favourite decade for music. The MTV, Much Music video era! I recently heard "Let's Dance" on the 80's channel and decided to draw David Bowie as he looked during that time. This is my favourite medium, white charcoal on black paper.
Baby Oscar the cat, sitting on my lap, watching "cat television" on You Tube.
Marlene is slowing down, sigh...she is nearly deaf, has trouble with bowel control, is showing signs of dementia and her hind legs give out sometimes so she doesn't always bother to stand up to eat anymore. I'm so grateful to have her in my life. We rescued her from a very cruel situation and I feel privileged to be able to give her a safe and loving home for the rest of her days.
Santa brought me a waffle iron for Christmas! Actually after reading Gigi's post on how she got a waffle iron, I couldn't help myself. Oh those Belgian waffles turned out so good! A nice little gadget that will be used very often! Gigi, I told you I'm suggestible lol!
Christmas day Raclette dinner. (I didn't make the Raclette cheese this year due to lack of time, but I will next year!) Raclette is a Swiss dish and type of cheese, where you heat up the cheese and scrape it off onto meat and/or veggies. It's SO good. "Racler" in French means to scrape.
I'm still enjoying feeding the chickadees from my hand!
This little fella is thinking big!
I'm linking up with these wonderful bloggers today, please visit them for some really interesting posts! And why not join in on the link parties? You can meet some really neat people!! π
That's all for now folks! Please check out the link gadget below to see more Full Cold Moon artwork!
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Vampire Lips (Ink and Graphite)
January 7th: Next Thursday's theme is A Facial Feature. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! π¨
Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! Please revisit to make sure you don't miss those who join in a little late! Also, if anyone adds a link that has nothing to do with the art date theme, it will be removed! The link gadget expires Friday at midnight (EST).
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is 'Twas The Night Before Christmas - what are your plans for the next few days? My guests are starting to arrive to share Christmas with me!
"Christmas Eve" (white charcoal on black paper)
The 25 Days of Looney Tunes Christmas Doors:
Porky Pig
Egghead Junior
Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf
Daffy Duck
Foghorn Leghorn
Pepe Le Pew
Yosemite Sam
Bugs Bunny
When I first committed to Alexandra's 25 Days of Christmas Doors, I didn't realize how much time would be involved in these daily drawings...finding the concept, drawing and colouring! I will definitely need to be better prepared for these challenges in the future - but it was SO much fun. Above are my last offerings for the challenge!
Breakfast for dinner (Toasettes and Crepes filled with Jarlsberg cheese) and my Yule Log Cake. The cake was so delicious with my Homemade Egg Nog (spiked with Pear Brandy)!
Creamy homemade tomato soup with grilled cheese! I tried this recipe for the soup and it was really delicious, the only thing I'd do next time is reduce or omit the butter!
Close-ups of the Canine Critters. No matter what's going on in my life, my dogs are the brightest lights of my days. They bring me the most joy, fun and love!
I finally got my bird feeders up! This is the first customer!
After seeing pictures of my bird-watching friends feeding birds from their hands, I decided to try it out and I'm so thrilled and grateful to have tried!
And I got a Spirograph! I'll have a lot of fun with this!!
I'm linking up with these wonderful bloggers today, please visit them for some really interesting posts! And why not join in on the link parties?
That's all for now folks! Please check out the link gadget below to see more 'Twas The Night Before Christmas artwork!
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Lady Moon (Ink, Acrylic Paint and Graphite)
December 31st: Next Thursday's theme is Full Cold Moon - our last art date of the year! Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! π¨
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! Please revisit to make sure you don't miss those who join in a little late! Also, if anyone adds a link that has nothing to do with the art date theme, it will be removed! The link gadget expires Friday at midnight (EST).
NOTE: IF the link gadget below isn't working, let me know please! Blogger is having issues again.
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is A Portrait. I remembered just a few hours ago that I hadn't drawn a portrait of my Looney Tunes characters for the art date! Tweety Bird was sweet enough to quickly pose for this charcoal drawing. π
I spent many hours on my portraits this week! It was a lot of fun, but very challenging for me.
I've been wanting to draw Robin Williams for a long time. He has so much expression in his face. Also, he was one of my favourite actors - not just for his comedies. His dramatic work was stellar, the movies The Night Listener and One Hour Photo are two of my favourites. This is my ink and graphite piece of him as a younger man. Do you remember his first tv show Mork and Mindy? Actually he made his television debut on Happy Days as Mork from Ork the alien! Then Mork and Mindy became a spin-off success.
I decided to draw Robin from a photo I found online of him as an older gent with his full beard. He always looked so sad in the later photos. The left is white charcoal on black paper. The right is black charcoal on white paper.
Lastly, I wanted to do a watercolour painting, using a glazing technique. I learned how to do this a few years ago but haven't really done it since. This is Robin as an older man, with another sad, pensive looking face.
The 25 Days of Looney Tunes Christmas Doors:
Marvin The Martian
Hippety Hopper
Tasmanian Devil
Wile E. Coyote (Genius)
Rocky and Mugsy
Elmer Fudd
Hugo The Abominable Snowman
Above are my next seven daily art drawings that I did for Alexandra's Instagram drawing challenge called The 25 Days of Christmas Doors. I'm having so much fun with this and reacquainting myself with the lesser-known Looney Tunes!
On the food front, my Christmas Cookie list isn't going anywhere! I've made only one off the list and Christmas is fast approaching! But...I did have a great Potato Night! I made potato rolls, potato puffs, homemade sour cream, potato gratin, and yes, potato candy. We had leftovers for 3 days! (Recipes will be added to my recipe page in the new year!)
My Colby cheese was ready to taste and it was AWESOME. We've noticed that New Brunswick milk is much better than Quebec milk, my cheeses have better flavour, texture and fragrance!
Pancake night with lacy hash browns.
My critters π If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that I used to live in the Laurentian mountains in Quebec and that I bought my first home and moved to the Maritimes in May of this year. Well, in Quebec, we had snow (and I mean knee-deep to shoulder-high snow) from October through to May. It's December 17th and I can happily report just a sprinkling still! My days of back-breaking shoveling are over!
I'm linking up with these wonderful bloggers today, please visit them for some really interesting posts! And why not join in on the link parties?
That's all for now folks! Please check out the link gadget below to see more Portrait artwork! See you on Christmas Eve! π
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Santa - ready for his long winter's nap (Acrylics 2018)
December 24th: Next Thursday's theme is 'Twas The Night Before Christmas. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! π¨
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! Please revisit to make sure you don't miss those who join in a little late! Also, if anyone adds a link that has nothing to do with the art date theme, it will be removed! The link gadget expires Friday at midnight (EST).
Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Cubism. I wasn't too thrilled about this week's art date theme, I had no clue what to do. I started to browse images online to get some inspiration and came across Picasso's Girl With A Mandolin. I asked Bugs Bunny if he wouldn't mind being overly expressive while posing for this drawing and he was sweet enough to comply. He asked if he could keep the guitar though!
Life has been super busy again the last week! Yesterday I did my last grocery shopping trip of the year. It was really an endeavor to plan a month's worth of meals around the holidays, but I got it done! I used to share my menus all of the time, don't know why I stopped. I like to share to give dinner ideas because I get lots of ideas from reading my friends' dinner menus too!
I have big plans for widening my waist this holiday season too with my Christmas Cookie baking! π I will be taking lots of photos of my holiday meals! And sometime in the new year when time allows, I'll update my recipe page!!
Rubik's Cubism! π I had fun doing another 3D Trick Art Tutorial! I was NEVER able to solve this puzzle...I remember feeling so desperate I actually ripped off the coloured stickers and moved them around to at least have two sides done lol...so embarrassed!! π
By the way, I've put together the Art Date themes for 2021!! You can check out the list here! I also added a gadget to the ride side bar of my blog with the link! This will be my third year hosting the Art Date! π
We are getting very light dustings of snow every day but nothing is sticking around. I'm always so proud when I walk along my property line and see MY lovely woods! Most of you know how long I'd dreamed of home ownership and now that I have it...it's overwhelming to my heart and spirit. π
The Rescues: Alex and I call these four The Rescues. Alex had two cats when we met but we adopted these four at a rescue in 2015. From July to October we brought these four home - after that we had to stop visiting the rescue because we couldn't come home without a pet!
Dinners have been quickly put together lately and I haven't been taking photos! But...this dinner is photo-worthy. I found this recipe for authentic Italian pizza on a You Tube Channel called Buon-A-Petitti. Many of you already know Gina, the Italian grandma who shares her recipes there. This pizza is to die for!
The 25 Days of Looney Tunes Christmas Doors:
"Witch Hazel"
"Granny"
"Sylvester"
"Gossamer The Monster"
"Sam Cat"
"Tweety Bird"
"Road Runner"
Above are my next seven daily art drawings that I did for Alexandra's Instagram drawing challenge called The 25 Days of Christmas Doors. Are you a fan of the Looney Tunes? Do you have a favourite character or episode? My favourite is Bugs and I'm saving him for Christmas Day!
I'm linking up with these wonderful bloggers today, please visit them for some really interesting posts! And why not join in on the link parties?
That's all for now folks! Please check out the link gadget below to see more Cubism artwork!
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James Cagney from "White Heat" (Charcoals, 2020)
December 17th: Next Thursday's theme is A Portrait. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! π¨
Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.
Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! Please revisit to make sure you don't miss those who join in a little late! Also, if anyone adds a link that has nothing to do with the art date theme, it will be removed! The link gadget expires Friday at midnight (EST).