Art Eco: The Birch Forest

Branches on the overhead. Not the best, but the only photo.

Just back from a fun (yes, and exhausting!) day at the Art Gallery’s Children’s Festival: Art Eco. I was working in the Young Learners Studio. There were many exciting and wonderful things going on all over the gallery, so I really tried to make sure the activities I chose were accessable to the VERY young. It’s a good thing I did because we were almost over-run by the two-and-unders!

We used pieces of corrugated cardboard to stamp trunks and branches on lovely pieces of wood veneer. The corrugated part of the cardboard looked a lot like birch bark.

Small pieces of rolled up card and sponge were perfect for making leaves. Of course, it was an open activity so we had a lot of abstract work, and “a digger” but there were some beautiful pieces. It’s funny – I felt the younger children (3 year olds) did the nicer work. While I was walking home it occurred to me that the younger children approached the art making by thinking “What is a tree? It is a stick with other sticks and some leaves on”. The older children who came in worked more along the lines of “What is a picture of a tree? It’s a trunk with a bumpy green bit at the top.” They may have made very obvious tree representations, but the first approach captured more of  the “tree essence”. Well, I thought so anyway. Here are some beautiful birch forests.

We also made some simple recycled flowers using egg cartons, pieces of scrap fabric and centres from old magazines. They were fun and easy.

For the last activity I cut out a bunch of “recycling arrows” and set them out for the youngest participants to colour with pastels and paint. I’m glad I did, since this was perfect for those who just needed to get busy. All in all a pretty good day. I only wish I had more of a chance to look around at the other activities in the gallery!

Little Polar Bear

I feel like there has been a dearth of creative blogging recently. I’ve actually been quite busy on the workshop/class front, but that hasn’t translated into any blogs, for various reasons. I did a lot of prep for a stuffed animal workshop that didn’t happen in the end because of a scheduling mishap (hopefully we will reschedule). I also did an autism arts outreach class and forgot my camera, and the same thing with my class this morning! I’m doing something tomorrow at the Children’s Festival at the gallery, and hope to bring you a blog about that!

In the mean time, here is another little Christmas ornament I whipped up. It’s a little polar bear holding a traditional Swedish “paper heart”. I’m not entirely happy with the face but I think he’s cute enough.

So far I’ve only been using “basic back-stitch” for the embroidery, but I have a book with some more advanced stitches I may try. Until then, things will go on looking pretty rustic, I think!

Rainbow Haven Beach

I love going to the beach “off-season”. Mainly because my idea of the beach is a quiet and wind-swept expanse, without (and this is most important) lots of people. It’s something easily forgotten, a destination easily overlooked for fall and winter days so when the idea occurred to me this morning I thought we had to act on it. Off we went to Rainbow Haven Beach.

The First Snow

I can’t help it. Even as others grumble about the weather and complain that winter has come too early, that this is the beginning of an unending cold season, I can’t help but feel excited about the first snow. I don’t know if it’s just an optimistic, positive attitude, but I always feel ready to embrace the change in seasons. Spring is always welcome, and the summer – these are easy to understand, but somehow I’m also eager to greet the fall, and then the winter, when it comes. I suppose too, that this is a rather practical approach, since it’s all going to happen, and we may as well celebrate!

This morning we woke up to snow. Wet snow, admittedly, but snow on the ground nonetheless. And snow sitting heavily on the branches of trees; something pleasing to the “artists eye”. In the garden, our “marriage rose”, still blooming, was bent over with the weight of the snow, pink and green looking so fresh against white.

It seems a peculiar thing to be picking flowers in  November, but I cut the rose and took it inside to melt. As I write this I am listening to one my favourite winter music album Den Fragraste Rosa (The Loveliest Rose), by Bukkene Bruse, named for the song “The Loveliest Rose has been found”. Fitting, I thought.  And does it not create a beautiful image, the idea of discovering a lovely rose, and all it stands for, in the midst of a snowy white world? So here’s to the first snow, that magic that happens every year, and the lovely moments to be found!

(I’d better post this before the snow turns to rain!)

The Last Harvest

Yesterday I went over to the allotment to harvest the last of the vegetables. Strictly speaking, there are still some brussels sprouts on their stocks, so we’ll hopefully get a few more, but in general the garden is looking pretty tired. I picked a good number of brussels sprouts which I made into a vegetable stir-fry for supper. Also a few more turnips and pieces of broccoli (those brocs just keep on stubbornly producing!) The cabbages, alas, were a right off as they were absolutely decimated by slugs and bugs. Not sure exactly why, but to be fair I sort of gave up on them. Anyway, I think for such a small garden maybe it makes the most sense to be growing things to be enjoyed through the summer – we can always get local cabbages, and they last for ever.  Soon it will be time to put the garden to bed. I’m not quite sure what needs to be done and whether I need to pull things up or let them rot down, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out. Next year (if we are once again given the space) will have to be different since we grew a large number of Brassica plants, and I know it is not good to grow them where Brassica have been planted the year before. So we’ll have to think of some different veggies, and it will be a whole new experiment.

 

Let the Christmas Crafting Begin!

Is it too early? It might be. But seeing as every year I find myself with not enough time to do all of the Christmas crafting I want, it makes sense to get a good head start! I’ve already, as a blogged early, got a start on Christmas knitting, but that isn’t the same because the projects are not deliberately Christmas-y. Yesterday, November 1st, I made my first Christmas ornament gift. I was trying to think of a nice design for an ornament and then assemble a bunch all at once, but that was getting me nowhere. So I decided to just start making and see where it takes me. I may make a bunch the same or no two alike, who knows?  In honour of the start of Christmas crafting, I have made a new category: Celebrations.

I started out with the intention of making a little character, but was inspired by a stone sculpture at the art gallery. Several people, somewhat lumped together, are carved out of the same piece of stone. It’s kind of hard to tell where one person stops and another begins. Once when I was talking with the kids about it somebody said they thought it was a family. Here is my “little family” ornament. And as luck would have it I know a new family for whom an ornament like this will be particularly fitting.

 

Hasty Halloween Luminaries

Halloween and we have no pumpkin. I don’t know why we didn’t learn our lesson last year, when we left it too late and ALMOST couldn’t find one. This year we couldn’t. I’m not overly interested in Halloween, and we get very few trick-or-treaters, but it seems somehow a bit wrong to not have a pumpkin. (we have candy, that much we managed) So when we returned empty-handed I felt we really had to figure out something so that our house would be at least a little bit festive. So I threw together these quick little paper-bag luminaries. I hastily cut out some spooky silhouettes from black construction paper and glued them on the bag. When they were dry I dumped a bit of rice in the bottom, to weigh them down. I was going to use tea lights in glass jars but…. surprise surprise, we only have one. And anyway, it didn’t seem to be giving off enough light. So we stuck a flash-light lantern and a headlamp in instead. Ta-Da!

Happy Halloween!

The Making of Delicious Yogurt

As you may have guessed from the title, I made yogurt! And delicious yogurt it was too. I have been wanting to do this for a long time but was recently pushed into doing so when I discovered the wonderful yogurt I so love from the market comes in a container that we can’t recycle in Halifax. (As does all of the yogurt and pretend yogurt in the stores.) I was feeling guilty about throwing away a plastic container a week, so it seemed like the perfect reason to start making yogurt. (Yes, I still have to buy milk but the carton can be recycled.) Plus, it’s just the kind of thing I like to do.

I gathered my ingredients:

1 L of homogenized milk (you can use any milk, but I like it creamy)

I used 4 tbsp of skim milk powder to make it a thicker yogurt. This is optional, and I more or less guessed an amount.

1/2 cup of yogurt

And gathered my materials:

a pot

a crock-pot or wide mouth thermos (there are lots of recipes for making yogurt in a crock-pot from start to finish but…..I didn’t. I might try it though.)

candy thermometer

Then, the making:

Warm the milk SLOWLY in a pot on the stove to 180F or 80C. While you are doing this mix the yogurt and milk powder in a bowl. KEEP AND EYE ON YOUR MILK!  When milk is heated, remove from heat and cool to 110F of about 54C. Preheat the thermos or crock-pot with boiling water. I used a crock-pot and also put it on low for a bit to heat it up. Take a bit of milk (say, 1/2 cup) and mix it into the yogurt mixture. Then add that to the rest of the milk in the pan. Empty the water out of your thermos or crock-pot and unplug the crock-pot, if using. Pour in your milk mixture. Put the lid on and keep it in a warm place over-night (up to 24 hours). I covered my crock-pot with a warm blanket for insulation. The next morning you will have yogurt! It’s all VERY exciting.

Here is some of mine, with a bit of blueberry jam. I made 5 cups of yogurt, 1/2 cup of which I will save as a started for my next batch.

 

Yarn Bits for Birds

Yesterday I was cleaning up a little pile of yarn ends left after my weaving-in on a pair of socks when I thought of the birds. I have heard of people providing pieces of yarn and string to birds for nest-building. Of course, it’s a little out of season, but this is the prime knitting time, so it actually makes perfect sense to start collecting now.I did some research and it appears that the yarn should be in 2 – 3″ pieces, to prevent the little birdies from being tangled up. Standard delivery methods are mesh onion bags or suet cages. I think maybe I’ll see if I can come up with something attractive made out of a recycled material. Alas, Pekoe has proved himself a keen hunter so I don’t want to actively encourage nearby nesting – I would feel complicit if tragedy (in the guise of Pekoe) should strike. Maybe I can make a few “yarn dispensers” to give away. And come up with a nicer name.

So let the collection begin! Maybe it is the perfect thing to be thinking about as the weather gets colder; a reminder that spring, however far off, will come again. But I’ll tell you what HAS come – my copy of Selvedge! So many beautiful things to look at.

Morning Yoga with Erik Satie

Recently I’ve been trying to acquire a habit of morning yoga. I’m getting there. I have only limited experience of yoga practice so I’m using a book for my routines. I suppose it’s more like a glorified stretching session, but I do try to incorporate breathing (hard not to!) and balancing mind and body. Today, as the beautiful fall sun spilled in the window,  I found myself wishing I had a place to do yoga outside.  For me this would mean a private place – I’m too self-conscious to be doing yoga anywhere I thought people could see me! But as I’m inside, I usually like to play a bit of music. I’m sure that strictly speaking you are supposed to practice in silence but for my purposes, I find that gentle relaxing music helps me in that it stops my mind from going on to other things. This morning I chose some Erik Satie, and found it perfect for relaxing, breathing and being in the moment. I’ve tried lots of other music, even some with soothing nature sounds, but this was by far the best. It was too tricky to get a photo of me doing yoga ( I’m fine with that!) so, in honour of Satie’s “Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear” here is a little drawing I did a few years ago.