Still life

Patti inspired Barb and I to try our hands at still life photos. I used my phone and Instagram to get this one. :)

Instagram fun

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

Playing with my phone

A few weird WiPs.

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.

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. :)

In between packing and cleaning and more packing and more cleaning...

Fun with Instagram and my phone camera

Bean wonders if flowers are in fact cheese.

A white rose in Devonian Park, left at the bottom of a huge tree

A grey and church-y kind of day.

Her Royal Sushi-ness.

Fun with art journals

A flying grannybug and her prey.

Watercolour sketching

Sunset with Bean

Captured on my phone again.

Clearing out photos from my camera

... and a bit of art.

Yesterday's hike was a wet one, though I'd been lulled into a false optimism by early morning sunshine. I didn't want to risk the Nikon, and I hadn't properly charged the phone, so this is all I got:

Witty's Lagoon Oct 22 2011

I take a lot more urban photos with my phone and I like how some of them turn out.

Early morning Douglas St

One way... like most streets in the downtown core

Pioneer Square

I've been working in my art journals a lot. Finished a couple and bought a new one to celebrate. Here's the front cover and inside front:

Front cover - extremely mixed media

Inside front - one of my carved stamps and a sketch.

Fun with phones and Project Noah

I caved and got myself a smartphone... not for the phone part, but for the apps and the email. :) Yes, I'm very silly.

Anyway, one of the free Android apps is for Project Noah which is an online database documenting wildlife and biodiversity around the world using the photos uploaded by its members. It's way too fun, and Bean definitely does not approve, as it means even more stops to take photos. With my phone I can take the photo and automatically upload it to my PN page from wherever I am.

For instance this honeysuckle:

I now know its scientific name of lonicera ciliosa. I'm such a nerd. :)

Here are a few more shots I took with my new phone: