Year Two Day Ninety Eight - Christmas with Deidre and Vince

Dear all, 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS! Hope everyone has had the most fabulous of Yules. We had a wonderful day spent with Deidre and Vince and the *first official* Christmas in their new home! After hitting a bizarre wall of traffic on the 427... *boooo*, we made it just in time for a pre-dinner drink and sensory overload from the kitchen. It was wonderful to see everyone and the Christmas cheer was in full force!  

After wonderful hugs and greetings, we all sat down to a fabulous, authentic Italien Christmas dinner: Vince's Ma had prepared soup which we all devoured with delight. The main course was fabulous: Turkey, veal and veg all absolutley delicious. 

The desert was Vince's Ma's speciality: Tiramasu!!! amazing! (Darren and I both had seconds.... I'll run it off in the morning... ). 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! And thank you Deidre and Vince for an amazing Christmas!!! 

Year Two Day Ninety Seven - Intuitive Painting

Dear all, 

Ahhhhhh, 'Intuitive Art'.... I hear you all wince and run for the hills.... Despite my grave concern over 'what art lies deep within me ( and not in a sinister way...just that I find the whole 'internal' quest quite tricky to manifest 'in paint' and thus engage immediate damage control when issued such a brief. 

But.. I managed to come up with something....? This is supposed to be my lovely sister OJ ( Jo). Kind of looks like her.....( it's intuitive)? 

And in other news:

1. I *shared with D* my first steak and mushroom pie! Yum! ( and no 'organ' meat was within shouting distance. Darren and I both are repelled by such things. No one should eat a kidney)

And at The Dam Pub In Thornbury no less... http://www.thedampub.ca/

Year Two Day Ninety Six - Sculpture

Hi all,

I LOVE SCULPTURE. And this is one of my Female Torsos... cast in Ciment Fondu (http://www.cimentfondu.com/gb/index.html). I had never done any sculpture before starting Art School in September and I LOVE IT!

 I'll try and get some better pics... but just to get a quick post up - here she is!

Made after hours and hours of work including:

1. Making the clay sculpture from a live model

2. Making a splatter mould of the original clay piece

3. Casting the mould with both ceramic clay and ciment fondu ( this piece - and more pics to come)

4. Cleaning up the ciment piece, waxing and brass brushing her until she was finished!

Et Voila! One of Darren's Christmas Presents!

Year Two Day Ninety Five - More School Work

Dear all, 

Ahhhhh, many apologies again for my absense of late: it's been a BUSY few weeks at the tail end of my first semester in Fine Arts so I thought I would share a few of my latest works:

1. Me... (Oil on Canvas and a blooming pain to paint because of the crazy angle. I was also trying to avoid any 'teeth-exposure'. Teeth are one of the hardest things to paint and tend to end up looking like inverted traffic cones)

2. My muscle man: Full musculature coverage of a human. Took about 20 hours. 

3. Ooooh yes, and then there was his skeleton. That took another 15!

But it was all worth it. I AM LOVING THE COURSE! More pics to come.. and more posts... I now have three weeks off and many a wonderful Yuletide adventure with D I am sure! Hurray!

Year Two Day Ninety Three - Christmas Tree Owl

 Dear all,

MANY apologies for my absence over the last couple of weeks... I have been rather preoccupied by a veritable 'mountain' of curricular actuvities at school. Anyway.... here is a photo-based update on our wonderful Christmas Tree!

The Purchase:

**This is the car park opposite Wall Mart.. 

The HomeComing: 

The Decorations:

Tree Love ( from many angles) and featuring 'Daxatron the Owl':

Year Two Day Ninety Two - November Snow

Dear all, 

EEEEEEEK! It's November 11th and the snow is here!!!!!! Here is the evidence:

1. Georgian College Parking lot:

2. The road outside Barrie

3. Highway 26 at Sunnidale Corner

4. More highway

5. Running this morning in Cwood

6. Our view this morning

Winter has started! YIKES!

And in other news:

1. Darren and I received the rather unusual gift of a toilet roll that was left outside our door today... 

Year Two Day Ninety One - Trick or Treats

Dear all, 

Ahhhhhh Halloween, the scariest night of the year... and one of the favourite nights of the year for the majority of 3-15 year olds in North America. Not so much in the UK so it is always a tremendous surprise for me to witness the scary unveiling of a swarm of mini spidermen, witches and marshmallow men (apparently one of the popular costumes of 2011... go figure???) on the streets of Collingwood.

Out in Ruperts Landing, we didn't really get much of the 'trick or treating' flow from town but this year, ensconced in the bosom on downtown Collingwood, I was hoping for some spooky visitors looking for chocs and sweets. I sped into bulk barn after work http://www.bulkbarn.ca/en-ca/index.html and picked up what I thought looked like 'good bounty' (hershey's kisses, hershey's minis, snickers and mini pumpkins). Darren was impressed when I arrived home and after a quick run, I was excited about the hoards of spooky folk trawling around the neighborhood seeking out candy. 

I also realized that we didn't have ANY Halloween regalia outside our place and it really did look spooky compared to our illuminated neighbors. People had gone crazy with lights, pumpkins and fake spider's webs. There were more decorations that at Christmas! Darren then informed me that i should have really put a pumpkin out to lure the choc-hunters in... ahhhh well.... next year... I am learning! 

And we now have a LOT of chocolate to eat! 

Year Two Day Ninety - Curried Boar Sausages

Dear all, 

Another quick post with a culinary delight from the cottage.. this time, another sausage-meat-treat, 'Curried Boar Sausages'. Despite his 'hunting gloves', Vince didn't 'hunt and gather' our dinner from the forest, I had picked them up from 'Black Angus' http://www.blackangusmeat.com/ a couple of days earlier.. 

It was pretty cold out there on the island and we were dressed up pretty warm - Bob even had has Russian Hat on!

The sausages were pretty lean and smelt amazing. We heated up some buns on the grill and were ready in about 10 minutes. Campfires are awesome!

The boar sausages were a great success - lean and very tasty. The curry was an extra sensory treat!

Viola les saucissons!

Year Two, Day Eighty Nine - Kangaroo Burgers

Dear all, 

As you know, I am always open to experience new things so decided, today, that for one of our cottage snacks, it might be interesting to try some kangaroo burgers... 

I picked up the burgers and the fabulous Black Angus Meats in Thornbury ( they have everything). 

http://www.blackangusmeat.com/

I heard that the meat was quite good and burgers always taste amazing done up at the cottage on the charcoal fire... We were all very excited!

Vince was on hand as BBQ king and got the burgers on the grill. As you can see, they look like burgers.. .just a little darker, had a slight purple tinge and smelt a little different... 

We were trying to use up everything in the pantry so threw together some bread, soup (chicken and clam chowder combined: it is actually very tasty) and beans and low and behold, a feast! Kangaroo burgers all round! 

The burgers were quite good. As Vince put it... good, but not memorable. But not gross at least. Phew!