The Ditherer & Instagram nonsense

The cover of my latest art journal - The Ditherer

From my Mill Hill hike this morning

From my Matheson Lake hike last weekend

Sushi in the window

This and that

I've been arting a lot, but it's all rather personal and I'm not sharing. Have a random photo dump instead.

Twilight lantern in the art room

Bean and kiddo on the Ridge Top Trail

Rhodo, of a variety I've never seen before. It's outside my art room and  is easily 8ft tall.

East Sooke

Also East Sooke

Again with the East Sooke.

Mt Wells hike

Mt. Wells has an amazing view from the summit, which is surprisingly quick to hike up, considering it's 352m or so. Very steep and I was pondering the wisdom of carrying both the Nikon and my cup of Timmy's when I really should have had both hands free. But no falls or broken bones, so I got to enjoy my coffee and muffin with the following.

There was a whole field with these tiny moss flowers but we stayed on the trail like good hikers.

It started out nice and shady.

Once we lost the cover of the trees it was reeeeeally warm.

That's Mt. Baker in the background... we waved hello to the U.S.

Bean, one hot dog. He drank a whole litre of water to himself  on the hike.

Settling in

I have new space... it's just for arting. It's small, but filled with windows, surrounded by huge cedars and ancient rhodo bushes and it's mine. MIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNEEEEEE! Muahahah!

An in-progress shot.

Making art in there is wonderful, though I get the occasional furry lap-leech interruption. The kitties looooove all the windows and so I have to keep most of the sills clear or I'll just end up picking stuff off the floor all the time. My grandfather's desk fits in perfectly. My new house is vintage (and dinged up) 1947, so it matches all the 40's and 50's (also dinged up!)  furniture I have which I inherited along the way from my grandparents and their friends. 

In between all the work on the new place I've managed to get in to my new studio and make some shit.

The latest carved stamp: Urchin

I went hiking on the Barde Knockie again, went further than before and found The Milky Way which had an odd pumping station with fabulous graffiti.

Fabulous graffiti in the middle of nowhere.

And this is a phone photo from downtown. I love the cat-like pattern of this concrete wall and have since I was a kid.

Hoping that with things calming down I can get back to some regular blog posting. Paint-stained fingers crossed. :)

Carving, waterfalls and apple blossoms

Carved lily inspired by Barb's photo

Chocolate Lily - flower & photo courtesy of Barb

Easter Weekend

I am kicking myself for not taking the Nikon with me today. I wasn't expecting to discover a new trail, which is actually a very, very old trail. Can't believe I was born and raised here and hadn't heard of the Barde Knockie Trail before. It was apparently cut through the forest by Sooke settlers in the 1850's and is one of the oldest BC trails still in use. It was amazing and I'll have to go again soon with proper equipment.
So instead of amazing Barde Knockie photos, here are a few pretty Devonian Park photos, the cover of my latest little journal and an Easter imposter.

No, I'm not giving you the easter baskets. You're fooling no one!

2 Years Old

My Bean boy turns 2 today. :-)

Happy Birthday Bean!

It doesn't seem possible that he used to look like a small, black potato with Dorito ears, but I have evidence...

The first photo I saw of him, when we thought we'd call him Chilibean

He had hardly any legs!

His first night home which is when we figured out he was a Bean.

That's changed a fair bit. Now he sometimes resembles a deer.

How can legs that skinny climb so much faster than I can??

To celebrate the momentous occasion Bean and I shared breakfast on a mountain. He is the best trail companion anyone could hope for and has exceeded all the hopes I had when I adopted him. He's kept me company, entertained and sane, turned me into a dog-person and reminded me what unconditional love is like.

Sure do love that dawg.

Little bit of everything

mixed media - jade snake

No hiking

I broke my toe on Friday. Boo! Boo, I say!
This guy amply illustrates how I felt at being confined to walking Bean in the neighbourhood parks all weekend.

The Noble Bean

Blog slacker

"Blog Slacker" sounds like a mythical beast that I would slice'n'dice with my dual swords in Skyrim instead of me just being too busy to post. Lots of arting and hiking and... other fun things going on to take my attention off the computer. Which is new. The computer that is, not my attention being off. I managed to kill the old XP machine - both mine AND the one spare we had kicking around. I have a mini-tower now that ought to do the trick for a bit. Lost every single photo I had, though. Le sigh.

Here's a few new ones.

T'is the season to be fungal

I'm hoping to keep hiking all through winter, but Mt. Work had me wondering this morning. It was so chilly when I started out, though by the time I hit the summit I was warm enough and then some.
I don't have any spectacular fall foliage to share; my eye got dragged downward and I discovered that fungi were have a big old party all over the mountain. Once I started looking for them, they were everywhere!