Runs With trimmer.

graditude day 2 a day late

Hello

well already i am slacking off and my shift key is not working so that means no capitals because i am too lazy. i woke up yesterday sick so sick for the first time in my school history i missed a class. i have been kind of not being my usual diehard self at school because i am letting everything get to me, we have no money, my family appears to not be able to function without me here they don't eat right and the house is a mess our back yard looks like a dump site right now and has for the past three months at least, and i am beginning to wonder if i should give up the dream for now. as you can see not feeling to grateful today.

here is my list for today:

1. a cozy bed

2. movies and a dvd player.

3. a husband who takes care of me when i am sick

4. i was able to take the day off yesterday and rest even though it meant missing school.

5. bow flex

6. that soon i will have a place to paint at home.

7. photography

8. tivo it's the only way i get to watch tv

9. speaking of tv: glee the best show out there!

10. Jenny Saville- awesome artists and a huge inspiration

11. the bunch of girlfriends i met and keep in touch with from 'inspired it's good to have people who get it.

12. that i helped Jilliene find where she is supposed to be.

13. my friend Jen who deserves to be happy.

14. coffee...I know I said it already but it will be on everyday lol

15. my non-guilt inducing parents

16. that Gords hours haven't been cut even more and hopefully wont be.

17. going out with friends tonight (fingers crossed i make it)

18. the fact that we have friends to go out with.

19. the fact that fate worked out for the inlaws to be in town and able to babysit adam tonight because otherwise we wouldn't be going out josh has to work.

20. that for the past 14 years we have had the cabin to enjoy, it was fun while it lasted unfortunately it sold and only two weeks before it's gone:( we'll miss it.

Now i am going to go and make more coffee and try and feel better so i can go out tonight.

Attitude of Gratitude day 1

Ah so it's been a year since the last week of gratitude and my artsy friends have started a new round. Everyday for a week we will be listing 20 things we are grateful for that day.

I am starting out on a particularily non-happy day for me so this is a good time for me to snap out of it and make my list. I woke up with the sniffles and I am kind of stuck in school because I have ideas but am having trouble getting them realised.

here goes todays list:

1. kleenex with lotion :D

2. the fact that my bff lives four houses away

3. the fact that I can go to school at least for this semester.

4. Kwantlen has finally been approved for the BFA I can offically get my degree in Fine Arts.

5. paint

6. that I am almost done the entire text book for Issues in Contemporary art....no more boring reads.

7. that my kids are pretty self sufficient it makes not being home much at lot less guilt inducing.

8. cell phones...sometimes the only way I communicate with people lately.

9. The fact that I can occasionally say to hell with it and take a day to do something fun instead of stressing out about everything I have to get done.

10. facebook....it may sound silly but it's reuinted me with some really great friends who I had lost touch with.

11. Zombieland....a zombie movie that did not disappoint :D nothing better then a good zombie movie!

12. my new found ability to just see what happens instead imagining the worst possible scenario all the time.

13. The new book club the neighbourhood moms have started.

14. The time travellers wife....the first book in the club it was awesome!

15. Coffee!

16. Music

17.Wine from my Dad!

18. the fact that it is November 12th and I haven't heard a Christmas carol yet.

19. finishing and being happy with my latest digital media project.

20. a cozy bed and warm blankets because I am headed there right now with a cup of coffee and a box of kleenex.

Update for my mom :D

My moms been bugging me to show some more of my work from this semester on here so finally my first three paintings are done and I took photos today just for her.

Number one the cow

Self Portrait- 4'x 4' oil on canvas.
This one was supposed to represent the way women are so caught up in body issues along with the way they can be objectified in todays society ( a little feminist theory at work here I tried to resist but they got to me) along with the way we kind of do it to ourselves in order to try and meet that unattainable standard of beauty.
How's that for deep LOL

 
Next the Splenda pack:

The idea of this was to do a reworking of a famous painting I did Warhols Cambell Soup can (even though it's a silkscreen not a painting) I though his idea was that the soup can represented good wholesome family values of the time so I thought that this is the equivalent in todays society of where or values lie more manufactured fakeness and self centeredness.
Acrylic 3' x 4' canvas

 
and lastly The Hand but it's a really bad photo looks way better in person...

The Hand- 3'x4' oil on canvas.
Ok this one admittedly I don't know what the heck it is about. The idea was for it to look like the hand of a woman and the viewer not really know what has happened in the end I ended up coating the whole thing with a red glaze which gives it kind of a disturbing feel and the teacher loved it so it was kind of a happy accident I kind of love it too. Really hard to photo because it is super shiny.

 
Ok Mom there you go now I have the rest of the semester to do a series of four paintings I am doing 4 foot by 6 foot self portraits on canvas can't wait LOL today marks the end of my social life.

I also have a series of three digital images to create on photo shop based on the short story Johnny Mnemonic for my digital media class and today he introduced the big project for the semester which is to create a 1 to 4 minute video which I think is going to be alot of fun but also alot of work. On top of that is the short paper (5 pages) and research paper (12 pages) for my Issues in Contemporary Art class. I can do it but I will not be home much I can tell :D

   

the madness begins or the week where I begin to wonder if my mother was right....

hello all :D

So this is my attempt at regular blogging :) I am in week two of school and things are starting to pick up. This is reinforced by the fact that I spent 14 hours at school yesterday 10 of which were spent in painting a gaint 4 foot by 4 foot cow....titled self portrait.

Truthfully I spent the first 4 hours of painting class in a funk because when I presented my cow idea it got shot down for being too literal to which I argued what the hell is wrong with being literal? Isn't art allowed to be in your face occasionally? After four hours of me sitting there contemplating how to make my idea less literal the teacher (who I respect 100%) told me to just paint the damn cow and let the ideas come to me as a I paint. I think he was starting to worry about my mental health LOl I have had him for a teacher since I started and I was totally honest with him at the start about my mental health challenges:) I felt like crying several times during that class LOL.

 I should mention this since everyone has had to hear about my real low points and struggles that I am currently pretty much mental health issues free. I don't take any medication anymore and I most of the time love life :) I still struggle with a bit of anxiety but I am more able to cope and talk myself down which I attribute to how happy school and doing what I love makes me. I honestly think art school has been the turn around for me I just wish I had of done it sooner. I am a big believer in being just honest and out there so yah I layed it all on the line here on my blog and I don't regret it a bit if my telling my story helped someone then great. Until you've been there you will never understand the absolute loneliness that comes with mental illness. I look back and think how lucky I am for that rational part of my brain or my kids or whatever it was that when I was sitting the bathtub planning all the different ways I could end my life my brain said wait a minute you need help call a doctor!!! because I had plans people plans to not be here anymore.

THe first four hours of my day yesterday was spent in a class called Digital media which could also be known as Photoshop 101........this class literally makes me want to pull an "Office Space" on a Mac computer oh my gawd is it ever boring. The teacher assures me it will get more fun in the next few weeks but I have my doubts I am so not a tech person. To  top it all off the class is in a room I like to call the cave it's window less and gloomy so as to maximize the computer screen bleh....I like to get messy with paint and canvas not keyboard and monitor! This just reinforces my love of all thing non technical. While I am learning to embrace the cell phone and Ipod I could safely ride a horse and buggy to school everyday and be totally fine with that.

OK so getting back to my blog title I had some serious doubts about my artistic ability this week and I was thinking perhaps I should be in the creative writing program my mom would like to see me in instead but I perservered and I am feeling better about my cow. I know that once I am able to put into words the meaning behind the painting the nay sayers will come around. Yay for me for standing my ground and not giving in and forgetting my concept. What's really funny (it's about to get PG people) is that in talking to my prof about ideas and concepts we pulled out a book on Kiki Smith (look her up) she does some interesting body casting sculptures so interesting my prof actually uttered the sentence " this guy is sucking his own cock" while talking about one of the sculptures LOL. Lets mark that down on the things you will only hear on in a Fine Arts course list :D

Yep and my cow is somehow too obvious and literal!!!! whatever!

My attempt at trying to re instate a weekly blog post....

Helloooooooooooo ok I know I have been shirking my duties again as a blogger but it was a busy, busy summer for me. I went from thinking we had nothing to do to being gone for 75% of the summer it was awesome!

Today was my second day back to school and it was a doozy the class was part two of the Issues in Contemporary Art class I took last semester lots of big words and theory :) but something about digging into a really indepth article secretly makes me giddy. I love really academic stuff but I don't think I could do four classes of it and still be having fun LOL.

I had my first Intro to Sculpture class this week as well and theentire four hour class was the safety training what a snooze fest but this means all the boring stuff is over with and next class we get creating :D My first asignment is to bring in a few different objects and one we will be recreating in cardboard. 

Monday I have my first Digital Media class and my first Advanced Painting class :D I am super excited to get back to the painting and more then a little nervous about digital media. The computer (even though I blog) is not a friend of mine I am easily frustrated by technology I think I secretly could be very happy as an amish person:D

The kids are into their routines Adam finds out tonight who his teacher is and Josh is already on schedule his electives this year are power tech (aka mechanics) and drama that should make for a well rounded kid :D No band this year but he is still into drumming and will be taking private lessons he really rocks out on them all the time still.

This weekend I am heading out for one last hurrah of summer on a 4x4 trip with friends it should be tons of fun but we are leaving at 6 am tomorrow and we will probably be up til all hours of the night so hopefully I am fully functioning by monday because it's my double header class day two four hour classes! I am hoping I get to hitch a ride on the back of an atv for some of the trip just for fun and the rest of the time I will be hanging with my BFF Nicole in her jeep :D

I am going to attempt to keep this blog updated weekly but I can't guarantee anything I better let my mom know to start checking it again so she can see what I am up to :)

Ciao for now I am off to pack and eat dinner!

Lazyish day....and I am now the mother of a cell phone owning teen.

    Hello our summer vacation is rolling along! We spent a few days out in Princeton at my BIL cabin on the lake and we had a great time with all the inlaws and their kids, except a couple wayward teens and husbands but I can't complain because it is usually me skipping the reunion for some reason or other.

    Yesterday was Josh's 14th birthday! I can't believe he is fourteen already. We gave into the pressure and got him a cell phone, mostly so we can keep track of him but I can tell already it's going to be a texting fiesta everyday LOL. Thankfully most of his friends don't have cells or they have cells but can't text. Did you know you can pay an extra five dollars a month to get GPS tracking on the phone so you know where your kid is LOL we didn't do that but it's an option if he ever gets out of line :D

    I spent 5 days with out kids they went home with the inlaws after our weekend at the cabin and used it to basically recharge. I did nothing at all not even art I just read books, watched movies, went out with the husband and had coffee with my friend.

    While I was away in Oysoyoos Gord got to work on quite a few different projects one of which was replacing the back stairs on our deck which ahs turned out to be a bigger job then it looked like and as a result there are still no backstairs to the deck. This annoying bit of business has kept me from getting out to the studio it gave me a mental block having to trip around the front of the house and back but yesterday I went out there and painted and I might head out there again today sometime. I'd really like my stairs back though.

Today's plan is Laundry, Laundry, Laundry and then packing. I am super excited we are heading out to Quesnel for a few days to stay with an old friend from my youth Erika and her family. We haven't seen each other since Josh was but a wee babe and the bonus is our other friend May and her family will be there as well. I can't wait to catch up with them all!

We made the hilarious discovery yesterday that Winnnie (our 110 pound Newfoundland dog) is afraid of the Happy Birthday song. We brought Josh's cake out and started singing it and she got up tucked her tail between her legs and slinked to our bedroom which is her hiding spot. Since we are big meanies as soon as she was brave enough to come back out we tested the theory by singing the song again and yep she ran away again....I guess she doesn't like getting older.

Apparently I am allergic to laundry.....

Well Adam and I had a fabulous week in Osoyoos, we are tanned and happy :) We had such a fun time, we jet ski'd, tubed, floated, watched fireworks, got drunk (ok maybe just me not Adam) met lots of wonderful new friends and got to hang out with our BFF's :D We ate junk food, layed in the sun, sat around the fire and relaxed.

We rolled in around 11 pm last night, on the way out of town I stopped and got a big bottle of lotion because my skin was dried out and I felt like I wanted to crawl out of it, Osoyoos is a dry, dry, dry town. Today I woke up covered head to toes in hives....I am apparently allergic to the lotion and I am itching like mad LOL but coincedently I started all my laundry just as the hives started think I can convince Gord I am allergic to laundry?

I really want to get out to my studio and create something but I am missing my back porch stairs and I am feeling so crappy that is actually enough of a hindrance to stop me from going around the front LOL talk about lazy. I might venture out soon I am hoping the Claritin kicks in soon otherwise I might just hole up in my room naked with wine and movies and try not to scratch my skin off.

Anyway we had a blast on vacation and isn't it nice to have a friend who you can spend an entire week with and never get on each others nerves even once? Even our kids got along the whole time I am so glad we all know each other and even better we live four houses apart :D

With all the junk food eating, drinking and lounging I managed to lose another 5 pounds ....I think exercise might just be a crock because I tend to lose more weight when I don't do it. Oh and I wore my bikini's proudly and with out any self conciousness I am so proud of myself :D

Ok Gord is BBQing dinner and it smells good so I am off to eat some steak and potatoes!

rain rain go away

Hello so my GOventuring is on hiatus, I tried yesterday but I was suffering from a bit of a headache and then on the way out to my studio in typical Heather fashion I wiped out. We have some 16x16 pavers that are going in front of the doors to the studio and they are kind of just sitting all willy nilly out there til they go in properly well I was jogging to get out of the rain and I mistepped on one of them twisted my foot and went down hard. The good news is I am ok LOL and this type of thing is a regular occurence for me :D

It was one of those falls where you can feel it happening in slow mo and in your head you have come up with four different courses of action to take before you hit the ground. My first reaction of course was to check to see if anybody saw me fall in which case I would of popped up and done a "TAAA DAAAA!!" but I was the only one stupid enough to be outside inthe pouring rain. Well me and one of the cats who of course had the "stupid human" look of disgust on his face like didn't I know that the pavers were for him to lie on and what was I doing sprawled out on them???? Needless to say I am nursing a bit of a bruise on my foot and a couple scrapes but they are barely noticable because they just blend in with all the other bruises :D

Anyway today I have a bunch of stuff to do, it's the last day of school for Adam he's there til noon so my friend and I are taking the opportunity to hit the mall one last time while we can, then we are going to do the grocery shopping for the camping trip we leave on Saturday.

I have quite a few things to get done one of which is to open up my tent and make sure everything is ship shape but it is pouring rain here again today I may just have to take my chances. I am pretty sure everything is ok but I am a little paranoid since this one time I went camping with my parents and it poured rain and my tent literally collasped in the middle of the night, rivers of water were running through it and I had to use my blankets to build dams aroundthe kids so they didn't get soaked LOL. I on the other hand was a soggy, grumpy, pissed off mess by the time morning rolled around and had to call Gord to go buy a tent and drop it off to us LOL because we still had like 5 days of camping left.

There are sleeping bags to wash, laundry to do, eye brows to shape (yah that is important because when you are camping your eye brows should be nice since nothing else will be), packing, grocery shopping, air mattress testing to see which one will deflate the slowest ....because they always deflate. I have crossed paint toenails and bikini wax from the list because yes the toes and other areas should also look nice :) Was that too much information? I don't think I will ever get used to going in and letting what is basically a total stranger look at my hoo ha but these are the things we do for beauty. She does attempt to make chit chat which is nice I like a little pillow talk before I show my girly parts off. Yesterday she asked if I had kids I contemplated saying no those stretch marks are just because when I hit puberty I shot up three feet in one month. Apparently my little lady area was also glittery LOL I have a new body wash and it has glitter in it, it's nice that she noticed LOL I told her it was special just for her :D

Ok I guess that was enough info for you all, Cameron that was special for you I said I wasn't afraid of talking about my vagina on my blog and now I have....where's my $40,000 in advertising revenue???

GOventure day 3 : POCKET

Good morning I am up early to check the status of beach day for Adam and it looks like we will be skipping it because it is raining.

I was just reading back to my last post before I went MIA and realised I never posted my other marks for school. I ended up With A+ in Issues in Contemporary Art, A in photography (you never know that by my crappy photos of my work!) A in Subversive Art and the previously mentioned A- in Drawing 2. I made the honour roll again and my GPA is 3.94 so I am hoping that will help me out on those scholarship applications.

Since I was up showered and dressed (for no good reason) and it`s totally overcast  I snuck out and took a photo of todays GOventure project. I actually painted it last night because I thought I would be at the beach all day today :)

The prompt was pocket which immediately got me humming that ear worm of a song ``pocket full of sunshine`` which for some reason made me think of this little guy I call him Norm doesn`t he look like a pocket full of sunshine LOL, actually he looks kind of grumpy but cute. It was sprinkling when I took the photo so there are some rain drops on there just ignore them :D

 

This little painting is done with acrylics and is on a 4x6 flat canvas board.

I forgot to mentionwhat I used on the other projects so here goes:

Zombie for I love you is a 8x8 deep canvas and painted in acrylics

All we need is LOVE is acrylics on three 3x4 deep wood panels.

Ok I am off to plan the day we may sneak to the opening day of Transformers with the kids :)

Don`t forget to check out Kals version of todays GOventure:

http://www.lovelife.typepad.com/

Back to our regularily scheduled programming

Howdy! Boy I sort of fell off the blogging wagon for awhile I was just giddy with no school slacking off :) Actually I lie I haven't been slacking off I have literally been working my buns off I am down 39 pounds now:) Yay me. Gord worked it out and I have been walking around 7 miles a day. Right now I am sick so I have not been exercising the past three days and I hate it.

So one of my favourite blogs to visit is Kal Barteskis http://www.lovelife.typepad.com/ not only is she Canadian she is from Manitoba which holds a special place in my heart because I spent the first 6 years of my life there :) Not only that she is an awesome artist and I love her work. I first discovered her when I went to the INSPIRED event in 2008 and she taught a workshop there she has such a positive spirit about creativity I just love it.  Anyway to make a long story short Kal has been doing something called GOventure creative prompts and sharing them with her readers and inviting us to create something using the prompt as inspiration. So I figured I have this new backyard studio and a whole bunch of spare time I should join in :)

Day one's inspiration was GREEN and DIZZY. Now if you know me at all you know I love zombies so that is what came to my mind right away and I settled in to make this silly little painting which cracks me up and makes me smile. I found the saying online somewhere it was a toss up between this and "Zombies love chicks with brains" :) It actually says "Aaarg... that's zombie for I love you" What an awesome way to officially break in the new studio with a zombie painting.

Just a silly little painting :) It's fun to paint for fun and not for grades LOL this would never fly at school.

Ok day 2 prompt was NOT MY TYPE. Which for some reason got me thinking about relationships, which made me think about love and I had these three little wood panels sitting around and so I messed around and came up with this....

 

Have I mentioned how much I hate taking photos of my work if you have any tips for me that would be awesome because it never looks right in photos.  I don't know if you can make it out but it says "All we need is love" ala the Beatles.

What else is new? I am registered for next semester for Intro to Sculpture, Advanced Painting (aka Painting 3), Intro to digital media, and Issues in Contemporary art 2. It's going to be a full load again but I am looking forward to it and I am hoping to apply for some scholarships because my tuition is in the $1600 dollar range and that doesn't include the many supplies I need.

In other news school is almost out for the summer for Adam  two more days tomorrow is Beach Day and then half a day Thursday and then on Saturday Adam and I leave for a week vacation with our friends to Osoyoos. I am so frickin excited and so happy they invited us along our vacation prospects are pretty slim this year because of Gords busy work schedule. Josh has opted to stay home he thinks a week away from his mom and brother sounds heavenly, I say poo poo on him :P

Ok I think I have rambled on enough ...oh but wait the most exciting news!!!!! JOSH AND I ARE GOING TO SEE BLINK 182 on July 28th !!!! I am so excited Josh and I like alot of the same music and I introduced him to Blink but by that time they had split up. We got a chance to see Plus 44 in concert which was one of the spin off bands but we are super excited they reunited because we love them and Josh, the drummer of course loves Travis Barker. I can't wait!!!!

Ok now I am done! Tomorrows prompt is POCKET and I  already have mine done but no photo yet I will share tomorrow.