Friday, March 20, 2015

Ottawa Citizen and the Vancouver Sun

Wow, its exciting to discover that the photo taken by Greg Southam of the Edmonton Journal of me wearing the Recycle Reuse skirt design that I created for the juried SkirtsAfire fashion show in Edmonton has also been covered by the Ottawa Citizen, The Province and Vancouver Sun. Amazing, not only was the SkirtsAfire HerArts Festival Fashion Show covered by CBC and CTV News Edmonton but my skirt design was covered further afield.
To see me shimmy a green and pink reuse tablecloths go to the link.

http://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=557381&playlistId=1.2250397&binId=1.1203428&playlistPageNum=1

The following is an article I published to the Edmonton Nature Blog https://natureedmonton.wordpress.com

In February, delighted to be chosen to design a skirt for SkirtsAfire herArts Festival that celebrates women playwrights, authors, actors, poets, musicians and visual artists I set to the task of creating in 1920 era Flapper style. The mandate that skirts be made of found or reuse items was the key inspiration. A brightly colorful skirt was created from plastic pink and lime green tablecloths and surveyors tape acquired from the Edmonton Reuse Centre. Flowing christmas tinsel, cassette tape ribbon, vegetable netting as well as metal strainer parts that musically jingle and clanked when the skirt was worn were the embellishments. 

Edmonton Reuse Centre is a wonderful place to send items that could be reused by parents, teachers and artists in creative projects. Now one may ask what has this got to do with a Nature Blog, well for one it diverts useable items from being landfill, and thats something every citizen can do to help protect nature. Its also a place for creative ideas to blossom, to look at items in a different way and encourage people to seek out new uses for items they generally discard.


The seven skirts chosen to be designed were showcased in the SkirtsAfire Fashion show broadcast by CBC, CTV News and the Edmonton Journal which kicked off the festival. A photo taken by Greg Southam of me dancing in the colorful plastic skirt was also featured by the Vancouver Sun, Province and the Ottawa Citizen, now thats wonderful coverage. The skirt and vest has since been donated to the Edmonton Reuse Centre and will be displayed in the board room so that others may enjoy it as well. The bonus, a bit of plastic has been diverted from the landfill and kept out of the natural environment.

Everyone can do their part to respect and protect Nature by reuse, recycle and upcycling items by thinking up new ways to use them rather than just tossing them out to the curb. 

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Was it not complete?

Was it complete? Well no. When I'm not satisfied with the overall look I can't help myself but to jump back in with paint on brush and make changes. At this point in a painting it can go two ways, worse or better. I am happy with all the hours, days that added up to a months worth of work that this painting improved with the extra days work.

this is the last image I posted which at this point I let the painting rest for a week then took another good look at it. Though it probably was good enough, I could see where it could be pushed further and strengthened by adding more darks into shadow areas and scumbling color into the foreground to integrate it into the rest of the painting.

This is the completed painting of "Watching the Hikers" it has since rested for over a week and I see no areas that leave me troubled. Done and ready to sign and get an isolation coat painted on to protect the image from dust.

Have a wonderful day.