Journal – Page 5

March 13, 2014May 1, 2015

Something I did last summer…

It’s a squirrel.

It used to be a rock (well It didn’t occur to me to take a picture of the rock before I started carving, but you get the idea).

09sept03casscam 168 — Tthe squirrel beginning to take shape

How did this happen?

Well, a woman I know that happens to be a busy lawyer (a lovely woman, who I am very grateful for and to) had signed up for a week long class with Zimart. As she was very busy, she offered me to take over the class for her. I was able to rearrange my schedule so that I could have 3 days of the week off to be at the class for those days. Since I was only going to be there for a few days. I searched the rock pile and found a relatively soft one (I believe that it is some type of serpentine) which I thought was in the shape of some type of animal (or I could see a little being inside the rock). I thought that it was probably a dragon or a sea serpent and I began carving. As I explained it to the artist in residence for my group, Simon Chidharara (a sweet guy, who is a powerhouse with the carving), it somehow became a rat, then a squirrel. Knowing that I had little time to work on it, I had to just go with it. I focused and worked hard, then the squirrel was revealed before the three days were up. The best part is buffing up you little creation with the power of fire. I recommend trying the class if you have the money. As long as you work a little harder than you socialize, you should come away with a piece of art, especially since the artists-in-residence are very skilled and can usually smooth over any mistake you make.

09sept03casscam 170 — Simon Chidharara taking off excess squirrel rock

09sept03casscam 169 — This is the squirrel before the exciting buffing process

March 7, 2014March 7, 2014

Tulip Top Spring Sweater

I was given a gift card to Needles In the Hay for my birthday, about two years ago, from a friend who knew that I love to knit (a great gift idea)! I wasn’t quite sure what to get and started imagining what I might like to knit. I had bought a pattern book for myself around Christmas time that year and had an idea that I might try something for the spring. The book was Stitch’n Bitch Superstar Knitting: Go beyond the basics by Debbie Stoller. The pattern is called Tulip Top by Laura Grutzeck.

This spring/summer sweater is made of cotton yarn and didn’t take long to knit. This was my first attempt at a fitted garment. I think it turned out nicely!

March 1, 2014March 1, 2014

Handwoven Scarf

This was one of my first weaving projects. I made it for my Mother for Christmas one year.

I bought a lot of yarn at an auction and used it in several scarves. This is a wool blend and quite fine. The woman that had previously owned the yarn used it in a knitting machine. She got her yarn from the old woollen mill in town. I also bought (by mistake) her knitting machine. I just didn’t want to learn another craft so I haven’t used it.

February 23, 2014

Sugar Skull

When I moved to Toronto, I had the vague plan to draw a postcard every week to send to my mom and sisters back home. I’ve lived here a year, and so far I think I’ve sent three. This is a drawing of a sugar skull or Calavera. In Mexico, they’re used as part of the Catholic celebration of the Day of the Dead. They’ve kind-of become a popular decorative design, and I’ve been seeing them pop up on things like purses and t-shirts.

I’m not necessarily the best at drawing – you can see a lot of pencil lines, and the inked lines are a bit inconsistent. I’m fairly happy with it anyway; it was a lot of fun to draw.

February 13, 2014February 13, 2014

Peter the Great and Alexander II

It was my goal to post something brand-spankin’ new this week, but as it goes I haven’t had any time to work on things. Instead, its time for another oldie but goody. Plus Candace told me that I have to post these sometime. Plus it vaguely ties in to the Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

While taking Russian Imperial History at Trent I developed a Historical Figure Crush on Peter the Great. Although he was a douche at times, he had all of the magic and machismo of an important Russian historical figure. Including, most importantly to me, a death surrounded by an unlikely but awesome story: death by gangrenous bladder.

Anyway, as we studied him, I felt the urge to paint a mini-portrait of him so that I could carry it around like an old-school lover. I just looked it up and it is referred to as Portrait miniature. Good thing we cleared that up. One night when I had an evening to myself, I sawed a piece off of an old mandarin orange box and began to paint. At first I had to fight off the feelings that it was a silly plan and that I could never paint that small. But then I got into the zone, as they say and the time flew by. When I looked I had painted this. It’s a little wonky and unfinished, but I love it, so don’t mess with it.

After this I wanted to do it again. The next Russian dude with an awesome death story was Alexander II. This guy had several attempts on his life and reportedly lectured one of his would-be assassins on how he could have done a better job. …and then I saw this portrait of him, which my boyfriend would refer to as “Don” or maybe “Boss don”. So here is what I painted.

Yesss!!!

After this, I attempted to do other minis, which I may post later. None were quite as awesome as these were.

Anyway I totally recommend the Russian History courses at Trent University, so long as it is taught by Olga Andriewsky.

February 6, 2014March 7, 2014

Hearts and Anchors Toque

This is my Hearts and Anchors Toque. Designed and knitted by myself with consultations and design help from my sister, Cassandra Shaw. I wanted to use up several ends of balls of wool from previous toques and wanted to try to design knitted pictures myself. This was the outcome. No pictures of the finished product, but here it is with the main part of the design finished.

January 29, 2014February 8, 2014

Cat Quilt

I made this quilt as a Christmas present for Candace and her cat, Mr. Kippers (aka Zephy). Mr. Kippers is a black cat and likes spooky dark things. Cassie helped me with the project and we had a plan to try to sell “Cat Quilts” to other cats. We put in a cat nip pocket and Mr. Pinky just loved it, so we made a quilt for him too!

January 23, 2014January 23, 2014

Troll Queen Theatre Mask

Back in my late teens-early twenties, I occasionally made papier mache masks for theatrical/costume purposes. Though I never achieved the mastery of mask-making that my classmate Doug Witt did (see his work here – it’s terrific!)), I’m proud of the work I did.

This Troll Queen theatre mask was created for a one-act play called ‘Under the Bridge,’ for the character ( duh) of the Troll Queen. The features were sculpted from plasticine onto a plaster mould of the actor’s face. I then applied a very light layer of vaseline to the sculpt, and covered it in papier mache. once removed and cleaned up, this papier mache cast was attached to a basic blank of the actor’s face with more papier mache, at which stage the ‘hair’ and the elastic (to hold the mask on the actor) was attached as well.

I then painted it to finish it. In hindsight, this mask is probably too dark to really read on stage; if I was doing it again, I’d be much less subtle about the highlights; the paint job is more appropriate for costume parties or close-up theatre, like street theatre. Overall, however, both myself and the players were pretty happy with my work.

January 20, 2014January 21, 2014

Entomology!

Here is my collection of insects. Years ago I took an entomology class as a part of my Biology degree at TrentU. The main component of the class was to make a collection of 40 different insects. I spent the summer before the class collecting (which was fun) and killing (which was horrible) all types of insects.

Our home garden was particularly rich in Hymenoptera (Bees and Wasps, etc.) and beetles, and Sammi helped my find and catch the super-creepy, agressive and impressive Dobsonfly. Now they are mostly just a cool souvenir, but they also serve as pretty good material for drawing and painting. I did this painting of one of my large beetles. I painted it at John Climenhage‘s dark and cold studio above what is now Aryana on George Street, in Peterborough.

Although my brain was screaming for a smaller paintbrush, I actually think that it turned out really well. I think that it has some of the nicest brush strokes that I have ever made.

January 13, 2014March 7, 2014

Knitted Lodge Socks

Just thought I should knit a pair of socks over Christmas. It was fun and relaxing, and now I have an awesome pair of socks! I used some variegated wool that I had bought to knit leg warmers, but socks are so much quicker and you get to ‘turn the heel’, the magical part of knitting…