April News

 Fantastic News:

The Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA) has just granted me signature status.
What does that mean? Signature Status with the FCA recognizes a high level of excellence achieved by an individual artist. I can now add the letters AFCA (Associate Member of the Federation of Canadian Artists) to my signature.

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Interesting weekend:

I had the opportunity to meet Alba at Gallery 1710 on Saturday April 2, 2022.

She is a Barn Owl, and such a beautiful bird, the feathers around her face are like spun gold. She is a permanent resident of OWL (Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society); a badly broken wing when she fell out of a nest as a youngster has rendered her unable to survive in the wild.

 

Barn Owl

OWL rep, Colin Iverson, brought Alba for gallery visitors to see, and talked about the OWL organization and their resident raptors.

 The Gallery show "Skies and Wings and Feathered Things" has 121 pieces of 2 and 3D art, 43 decorated birdhouses and two showcases containing16 whimsical corvids.

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 News from my Studio:

New Watercolours:

Chickadee (graphite)

Raven Watching (varnished watercolour)

 

 

unnamed shell paintings: ( both varnished watercolours)

 

 

 

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My paintings in Skies and Wings and Feathered Things show:

 

Chickadee and Raven Watching from above and

 

The Watcher

 

 

Pecking Order (diptych)

 

We are also selling decorated birdhouses, 40% of the sales will be donated to OWL.

 

My husband built two houses for me to decorate:

 

Blue Rapsody:

Tweety Bird Express:

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UPCOMING EVENTS:

 Federation of Canadian Artists - Success Exhibition 

Granville Island

April 12 to April 24 (opening reception April 14, 2022)

Here are the paintings I have in the Exhibition:

 

Paisley Watcher 2

 

In the Early Morning Sunshine 

Paisley Cobwebs

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Artists in our Midst - West of Main Artwalk

I am participating in the Preview Exhibition at the Roundhouse

and in the West of Main Artwalk - located at the Knox United Church at 39th and Balaclava with more than a dozen other artists!

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Bird Videos:

Ballet, bird style  

 

Alba visits Gallery 1710

That is all for this week,

 happy Wednesday, with whimsy,

 

Gillian, AFCA

In my Garden

 

My June Haiku:

Whispers of summer

rejoicing, hands in warm earth

birds singing with joy

Life begins the day you start a garden.

Chinese Proverb

The glory of gardening:

hands in the dirt,

head in the sun,

heart with nature.

To nurture a garden - is to feed not just the body,

but the soul.

Albert Austin

Gardeners, I think dream bigger dreams than emperors.

Mary Cartwell

Promise of fruit, blueberries above and figs below.

A life without dreams is like a garden without flowers.

unknown

Kind hearts are the garden,

kind thoughts are the roots,

kind words are the flowers,

kind deeds are the fruits,

take care of your garden and keep out the weeds,

fill it with sunshine, kind words and kind deeds.

unknown

My garden is my beautiful masterpiece.

Claude Monet

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From the studio:

Another character tree, no name yet.

and another Super Sculpey creation:

A hanging decoration, Santa of course.

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Art News:

Next Exhibit at South Delta Artists Guild:

I have 5 paintings in this exhibit:

Windswept

Wreck of the Pesuta

What

Hanging Around

Sticks and Stones 4

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Not much happens in the garden without pollinators.

The Beauty of Pollination:

one last thing for today - Stairway to Heaven - flash mob

That is all for today,

Happy Wednesday,

with whimsy,

Gillian

Problems solved or losing the battle?

In my last blog I think I mentioned that I had been having trouble with my old computer, well I  made the decision to not only get a new one but also to switch to a Mac.

Problems solved ..... well not really, just a whole new set of problems and challenges. I have had an iPad for years, how much different could an iMac be??? Well, very, very different it turns out.

Why don't computers come with manuals these days??? When I asked this question at the Apple Store I was told to sign up for an Apple class and/or go to YouTube for answers. I did sign up for a class and I did learn a few things before the class was hijacked by someone incensed because her mail wouldn't do what she wanted. So is YouTube the answer... actually it is. I found some great free classes offered by David A Cox at Tech Talk America.

One problem I had was that after I had transferred my photos from my old computer to the iMac I noticed that for some reason I had two or even three copies of almost every picture, no idea why this happened. I looked online and apparently I was not alone, there were pages of forums and videos addressing this problem. I tried a free app to resolve the problem, no luck, ended up having to download a duplicate finder online that cost me about $30. Why should I have to pay to fix a known problem? Why didn't I go through manually and delete the duplicates, well it turned out there were over 11,000 of them.

I am finally getting used to the computer and winning most of the battles now.

So for a change from my new computer woes, I go outside; after all the good weather and diligent watering the garden is producing all kinds of great fruit and vegetables.

But it turns out that the critters seem to like what I am growing too. Bites out of tomatoes, beans and strawberries and entire branches of raspberries eaten. But by far the worst "theft" has been from the fig trees.

I love figs and look forward to the crop: we have Italian Honey (green) and Dessert King (red) Figs this year. I lost most of the first crop of green figs in a wind and rain storm in the early spring but the red figs grew really well. We had our first figs and they were wonderful then the remainder of the figs started disappearing.

The critters were getting more figs than we were, so I put netting over my fig trees, problem solved?

Well, no. The first couple of days that the netting was on the trees, we witnesses a couple of daring daylight robberies and chased the culprits away. But since then...

Have you seen these suspects:

Wanted for:

break and enter,
theft (under $500)
and
disturbing the peace

Warning hide your food!

 It's enough to try the patience of an ....

You guessed it the critters have gotten almost all the figs, I definitely lost that battle.

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So I have finally managed to load my pictures, sort them, learn to use the editor and get the blog to work, sigh. Next, if I am feeling brave, maybe I'll try to edit movies with iMovie.

😅 😂 🤣 😜 😥

I have not had time for much painting, just these two:


 "Purple Clematis":

and "West Coast Sunset":

That is all for this week, happy Wednesday, with whimsy,

Gillian

Turtle love

Green Sea turtles are the largest hard shell sea turtles. Sightings are not rare in Hawaii, but neither are they abundant; I was excited every time I encountered one of these gentle creatures.

 

 

They can be seen in the water around reefs, grazing on algae in shallow water or on the shoreline soaking up some sunshine.

 

 

 

"The green turtle is listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. In 1978, the Hawaiian population of the green turtle was listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973. "

 

"Green turtles were a source of food, tools, and ornamentation for early Hawaiians. With the arrival of western culture, however, the level of exploitation of this resource increased dramatically. Large numbers of green turtles were harvested throughout the Hawaiian Islands through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1974, the State of Hawaii finally passed a regulation providing some protection, but this was virtually ignored until 1978, when the Hawaiian green turtle was placed on the list of threatened species."


"In other parts of the world, green turtles face a serious threat from the destruction and loss of nesting sites. Fortunately, over 90% of nesting activity for the Hawaiian green turtle population occurs at the French Frigate Shoals, inside a National Wildlife Refuge System administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This, combined with its threatened status under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, has created an environment in which the Hawaiian green turtle should prosper."

http://www.turtles.org/hawgrnd.htm

 

 

I was pleased to get several videos of turtles. here are my you tube videos of turtles:

 

 

Eating:

 

 

Swimming:

 

 

Swimming:

 

 

 

Moving up the beach:

 

 

 

This is a longer video and at the end the turtle yawns (I think)?

 

 

 

That is it for turtles today.

 

I have been busy very busy painting and gardening recently, the garden is coming along, now just need some slightly warmer weather.

 

 

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I have completed a number of paintings, unfortunately I have only photographed one of them.

 

Here it is "Notre Dame Watcher":

 

It is a painting (watercolour) of a grotesque or chimera, most would recognize it as a gargoyle but since it does not drain rain water it isn't a true gargoyle. This one is high up on Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

 

 

 

It is an odd bird or penguin like creature in a shroud.

 

 

Thanks for dropping by, happy Wednesday,

 

with whimsy,

 

Gillian.