Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Growing Girl

Hide & Peek Fox

Every year about the time our daughter is about to have a birthday, I tend to go craft crazy. The paintings that are half done and hanging around the house get pulled off the wall and finally tackled. It's actually nice to be able to work on pieces at my own leisure; they seem to turn out best when I have no deadline, wake in the middle of the night with Ah Ha! idea's and go running for my brushes.

Our woodlands nursery theme is my all-time favourite projects, but we ended up never using the nursery, so now our whole house looks like a childs room! The pieces are spread out bringing bursts of tangerine and sunshine yellow to all corners of our rented abode.

The idea for our height chart came before Olivia turned one and I was feeling a bit blue about the fact that we have no permanent place to call home; no doorways to mark up with her height progress, or tree in the backyard to grow along with her. In the end, I decided to stick with our woodlands theme and paint a tree that could travel along with us wherever we go.

The fox was once a raccoon, but he seemed kind of drab.
So last week before O's party, raccoon became a fox.

The owl, now up top was not there until last week either even though the painting has been hanging for a year now! Owl was inspiration from an aspiring artist here in Shanghai, whose work I saw last month. She paints with lovely strong outlines (something I love to do and my art teachers always scolded me for) blocks her colours like a stained-glass window. She goes by the name Keok Ke, but has no website for me to introduce to you. We purchased a mouse pad with Keok Ke's art on it and she got down to O's level and gifted her an artsy button for her coat.

O was very proud to stand against the piece for her yearly 'height mark' and compared it to last year (a whole 9 centimeters taller!) and the day she was born (37 centimeters taller!). And so, our Canadian woodlands follows us around the globe;)

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Birch Baby

 Little Orange Owl
 Birch Tree-Stage One
Birch Branches & Leaves

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Owls Galore!

 Tiny Tot
Owl Friends

Whoooo is getting a new painting this week!?

None other than our beautiful friend Tara!
Lollipop-like blossoms of teal, tangerine & cotton candy pink, sprout up to the sky while three little owl friends flit around like bumblebee's.
By request, Tara's name is scripted in the top corner to further personalize her one-of-a-kind art.
Big hugs to our friends here in Shanghai!



Monday, May 21, 2012

WHOOO?

Oooh! How I've missed you!

It has been SO long since I have sat down to paint, I started hanging unfinished pieces up on the wall because I could not handle the stress of seeing a pile of half-complete canvas stacked in the closet! Painting is my passion, but something else trumps all; Olivia. Painting is now reserved for the days that Daddy is primed for pillow fort productions which keeps Olivia in a state of bliss for at least an entire half hour!

This weekend the living room was transformed into fortville, while I got my hands a dirty with bits and pieces left on said unfinished works, as well as start (and complete) Miss Owl above. She was painted with a sweet toddler in mind who's mommy happens to be a fan of pink and yellow. Sadly, they are leaving town in the weeks to come. Both Olivia and I will miss them and their good company dearly, but wish them happy trails on their new journey!