There is a cafe in Goldbar that I always mean to go to but have never gotten around to it, until today. The Blues Java Bar (or Blue Java Bar - both signs are displayed outside) is a funky little coffee house that kind of reminds me of Cheers. You know. The bar where everyone knows your name. Only this isn't a bar and the regulars are retired folk from the neighbourhood. Or at least, that was the kind of crowd (if 5 people is a crowd) on a sunny, sleepy, Monday afternoon. The ambience is kind of African, hippie, homey, rural kitchen. Totally relaxed. My kind of place.
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The other day, when I looked up from my knitting, I noticed that the Christmas holidays were just about over and I hadn't made any drawings at all. Not. One. Not. Good. So I took myself to the museum for a short "artist's date" and sketched this bison skull and a couple of motionless animals posing in the Canadian dioramas. I only had two hours before the museum closed but it was enough to charge up those drawing batteries. There are a couple more uploaded to my Sketches link. One more day off and then it's back to work and this blissful, restful, peaceful vacation will be over. It's been lovely, a foretaste of retirement! :-) What have I been doing lately? Not a lot of art, that's for sure. (I uploaded a couple of pencil drawings that I made in October to the Sketches link). But I did pick up my knitting needles a few weeks ago and immediately got whisked away on a new obsession. Well, not so new. It comes around every few years and the next thing I know, I'm wandering around yarn stores, examining YouTube videos for instruction on how to do a particular stitch and checking out free patterns on the internet. Then I stumbled on Ravelry! Why didn't anyone tell me? What an awesome site! Not only are there hundreds of free patterns, nay, thousands, but you can also fave them for future projects and chart your knitting equipment and stash - which I did immediately. It's the librarian in me that likes to keep things organized and catalogued so I can see what I've got and how much of it "at-a-glance". I'm not an experienced knitter, not by a long shot. I spend almost as much time unravelling (aka frogging because when you "rip it, rip it" it sounds like "ribbet, ribbet", you know, frog talk - no I did not make this up) my work as I do knitting it up. Sometimes, the needles and what's on them fly across the room because I'm so frustrated. But, I currently have three projects sitting in three bags on the living room floor and have managed to finish two. Real simple stuff. Scarves and neckwarmers mostly, and a pair of legwarmers for my daughter (her choice of colours). They were fun to knit up once I figured out the "jogging" problem. With all the wonderful free time I have over the holidays though, I am planning on spending some time in my "pseudo studio" in the messy basement cavern and making stuff that doesn't involve fiber. Happy New Year! Gah! I can't believe it's been a month since my last post. Cardinal sin in the blog world and a sure way to lose readers. I know this. I do. But if you're still with me, I'm grateful and hopefully, the wait for some new images will be worth it for you. I haven't done much sketching I'm afraid, or much of anything using a pen, pencils, paint, glue, paper, etc. But I had a great summer and lots of photos to show for it. One of these days, I may even add a Photos page and post some of the good ones. In the meantime, I've added a couple of sketches. And I spent tonight scanning pages from one of my visual journals. Sometime in the next few days, I'll upload a selection of my favorites. On Monday, I head back to the Edmonton Potters' Guild for another season of clay work. Can hardly wait to get myself muddy! And I pray to the kiln gods to smile upon my work this year :-) I never know, when a piece goes into the kiln, what will come out. I'll take pictures of the pieces that have been kissed by the fire and show you. But that's a few weeks away. I've added a few quick sketches to the Sketches gallery. I've been inspired lately by a book I picked up at the library. Fast Sketching Techniques, by David Rankin makes a clear distinction between "drawing" and "sketching" which I find liberating. No more moaning and groaning that my quick drawings are terrible, because they aren't drawings! Yippee! They're sketches! So it's ok if they're terrible, or maybe I should say "imperfect" :-) Because they're just little studies of a place or object or situation and they are so much fun to do. They're small visual stories... I've come across this wonderful world-wide phenomenon called Urban Sketchers, also on Facebook, where sketchers of all abilities sketch urban environments alone or in groups. I recently met an urban sketcher enthusiast who is hoping to set up a local chapter. Drawing urban environments is a LOT harder than sketching natural environments. They're full of straight lines and people and movement and activity. Good old mother nature usually poses quietly without too much fuss. And no one ever knows if the drawn tree isn't exactly like the real one. But if I try to draw city hall or scenes from the farmer's market, well, the sketch has to have the right kind of energy to be true. But I'll give it a go. Stay tuned. You might notice I'd added another page for selections from my visual journal pages. They're collages but a lot smaller than those on the Collages page. They're fun to make. Toodle-oo till next time. |
Welcome to my occasional posts
My name is Yvonne Rezek. This is a blog about what my hands are up to. Mostly sketches and drawings, some of my pottery, maybe even some knitting.
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