The Midnite Streetcar

Virtual Vacation

2010-09-12T13:10:00.004-04:00

Didn't get to take a real vacation this summer ... so I took a virtual vacation of New Orleans. Going through photos, postcards and maps, I painted some watercolours while remembering a trip there some time ago.

Oriental Tags

2010-08-02T16:02:00.005-04:00

Shipping tags from office supply store with: Japanese papers and postage stamps; rubber stamps.

Paint-Out #3: Kelley's Garden

2010-07-21T16:19:00.001-04:00

Pen and ink with watercolour. Kelley has terrific Southwestern art (his own works) in his house and some cool cacti in his garden, too.

Paint-Out #1: Experimental Farm

2010-07-05T17:51:00.000-04:00

It's officially Summer -- last week we went on our first Monday Evening Paint-Out of the season. Location was the gardens off Prince of Wales Drive at the Experimental Farm. I painted a dianthus in pen and ink with watercolour (4"x6" Aquabee Super Deluxe Sketchbook).

Decluttering Success!

2010-05-28T12:35:00.000-04:00

My home office, which I use for both work and hobbies, was getting out of control, so about 10 days ago I decided to completely re-arrange the furniture and de-clutter.

My plan was to: (1st) re-arrange the furniture; (2nd) immediately make 1/2 of the room look super neat (as inspiration to see how great the whole room could look) and stash my stuff in the other 1/2 of the room while I sorted it; (3rd) work my around the room making the super-neat zone larger and the stuff/stash/junk zone smaller. It seems to be working!!

Here's a picture I took last night. I wish I had taken a "before" picture, too ... think I was too scared to :)

Now my stuff/stash/junk zone is down to about 2 ft x 2 ft x 2 ft ... not visible in the photo ... I don't mind it, though, because it's localised and, so far, getting smaller every day.

The entire room is 12 x 15 ... considerably larger than it looks in the photo (I took it from the doorway, but it's distorted because of the close range ... there's actually about 5 feet between the two pieces of furniture in the foreground.)

I think the key was to make one half look really great right away ... it really motivated me to sort through the stuff I'd piled on the other side ... I was surprised how quickly it went. I am so pumped ... also so relaxed because now my home office looks/feels so pleasant to be in!

Algerian Fruit

2010-04-06T18:37:00.001-04:00

These paintings, done in pen and ink with watercolour, are based on Algerian postage stamps from 1950. I'm a stamp collector and I've always liked this set of stamps. There's a third stamp, which pictures dates, in this Algerian fruit set and I think I'll do a painting based on it soon.

Still Life 2010-2

2010-03-03T20:01:00.000-05:00

Moroccan Embassy, Ottawa, Canada

2010-02-14T10:48:00.001-05:00

Currently the Moroccan Embassy, this house was built by Fred Booth, designed by Charles Saxe, in 1922. It's located on Goulbourn Street in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood of Ottawa, just down the block from my old apartment. I love its really cool gables, mysterious windows and tower.

Still Life 2010-1

2010-01-17T19:11:00.000-05:00

Watercolour and coloured pencil, while listening to John Coltrane, "A Love Supreme."

Sheaf

2009-11-11T22:16:00.000-05:00

Watercolour and pastel pencil

Joan Goody - 1935-2009

2009-09-11T23:16:00.000-04:00

Joan was my cousin, a great role model, a great architect and author of several books on architecture, writing her first when she was still in her 20s.

Joan was 18 years older than me. My first memories of her were that she looked like a fashion model and she was really smart -- and really nice too. Fluently bilingual, Joan did one year of her undergrad university studies in France and was a graduate student in Architecture at Harvard at that time in the late 1950s. (This was all very impressive to me as a young girl -- actually it still is.) She went on to become a professor of Architecture at Harvard and a founding partner of Goody Clancy in Boston in the early 1960s, with a very successful career designing major projects. This was before the women’s movement; it was still pretty rare for women to become architects

Joan had a special interest in the context of architecture and how it related to people, and as an adult I found it fascinating to discuss this with her. The people who use the buildings was always very important to her.

I last saw Joan last October, at her house where she’d lived the past 45 years, a converted 19th century fire station on River Street, in the Beacon Hill neighbourhood in Boston. She was 73, looked about 50, still very active in her profession, and I had every reason to believe she’d be around into her 90s as both her parents did. So I was surprised as well as saddened to learn that she became very ill this Summer. She died at home in Boston the day after Labour Day, September 8th, 2009.

I miss Joan, but she lives on. I know this can be a trite phrase but she does live on in me and in others that she has been an inspiration to.

As an architect, she also lives on with a legacy of buildings that people in Boston and many other cities use each day, buildings she designed with the end-user, the people, in mind, and because of that she has had a positive effect on many people's lives. Even if they didn’t know her personally. And I was very fortunate that I did.

Rideau River at Strathcona Park, Ottawa

2009-09-04T19:39:00.001-04:00

Watercolour, August 2009.

Biru to ringo (Beer and an apple)

2009-07-09T19:28:00.000-04:00

I've been studying Japanese in my spare time, as well as painting, so decided to combine these two interests in my journal, using watercolour, felt pen and coloured pencils.

Echinacea

2009-03-04T19:13:00.001-05:00

Yes, It's a Gas Station. Really.

2009-03-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

This was a gas station, built in Philadelphia (Walnut x 40th Streets) around 1918. The pumps were located in a colonnade around this circular buildling. The Atlantic Refining Company later merged with Richfield, and became known as ARCO.

Well, I haven't blogged for a while ... I've been busy (work and stuff). But fortunately, I have found some time to draw and paint. Also I am designing a website on architecture, primarily art deco and mid-century modern in Ottawa (I'll probably put photos of favourite buildings I've seen on vacation, too) ... hopefully that will be up and running this month.

A Montréal Washroom

2008-09-07T17:44:00.000-04:00

Montreal built several public washrooms back in the 1930s. They closed some time ago. This one is in Cabot Square (Ste-Catherine x Atwater) and is currently used as a flower shop, though I painted it as it looked originally. At the left is the Cabot Square entrance to the Atwater Métro Station. Once again, I took some artistic license, this time with the background. In reality, there would be Alexis Nihon Plaza and the former Montréal Forum (now a multiplex cinema).

An Albany School

2008-08-31T18:17:00.000-04:00

I took a lot of photos of Public School 1 in Albany's South End. I was so intrigued by its Moorish arch. I will probably do some more paintings using it as my model. PS 1 isn't red; I used artistic licence.

A Braille Birthday Card

2008-07-22T13:28:00.001-04:00

My friends Luise and Peter, in Montréal, just turned 50 and treated ten friends to a super birthday dinner at Restaurant Mavi.

Usually I paint a card for such an occasion, but I wanted to do something different as Peter is blind. I got the idea of "writing" Braille using those multi-coloured candy dots that I remembered from when I was a kid. They came on a long strip of paper, like adding machine paper, and you bought it by the inch.

I didn't know if this candy is still made, but there is a candy store nearby on trendy Elgin Street (upscale, nothing like the neighbourhood candy stores of the '50s and '60, except it sells retro-style candy). Sure enough, they had the candy dots. No longer by the inch, of course, it comes in a sealed packet of about 12 inches for $1.50.

I got the translation for "Happy Birthday" from a Braille tranlsation website and cut the candy paper to match. It was esp easy because the sheets have three dots per line and Braille letters are based on a three dot line. I did have to squish the letters for the word "birthday" to get them to fit in 8-1/2", but it was pretty obvious from the context.

I didn't have a good glue handy, however, so I used scotch tape. I took one quick photo before leaving for Montréal and only afterwards discovered that the photo was too dark and the tape photographed with a glare. The card itself looked fine, though, in real life.

And I highly recommend Restaurant Mavi. It's a small restaurant on a side street, 5192 Gatineau, Montreal, specialising in terrific Portuguese grilled chicken accompanied by equally terrific french fries and salad, all in generous servings. The décor's not much, but that gives it a sort of off-the-beaten-track charm, and the service was exceptionally pleasant.

Patterson's Creek

2008-07-11T19:18:00.000-04:00

Went painting Monday evening at Patterson's Creek with Susan and Martha and sketched the O'Connor Street Bridge. Didn't do much outdoor painting last summer, but was at Patterson's Creek in July of 06 and sketched the Driveway Bridge.

Martha's Garden

2008-06-17T17:27:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago at our Jack Purcell Community Centre watercolour workshop, Martha brought in some beautiful honeysuckle from her garden. Then last week, she brought in some incredibly pink peonies that her neighbour had given her.

Omer de Serres leaves Centretown

2008-06-01T13:04:00.000-04:00

I was the last customer at Omer de Serres as it closed its Bank Street store for the final time on May 31st. I knew the 31st was their last day ... however I didn't know they were closing 1/2 hour early. So when I arrived around 5pm, I thought there were a lot of last minute bargain seekers milling around the store ... turned out they were movers. So much for my observational skills!

I bought a 4x6 pocket sketchbook, moleskine style, house brand. Over the past few weeks, they had been giving away coupons with each purchase .... $5 off at their new store. Since I was the last customer, they gave me a whole bunch of them, which I'll pass on to my artist friends this week.

Their new store opens June 6th at the St-Laurent shopping centre. There's been an art supply store at Bank x McLeod for decades ... E-Z Art for a long time; then Loomis & Toles (I think they bought out E-Z Art); Loomis & Toles was bought out by Omer de Serres. Although in recent years, they had been getting heavier into crafts and scrapbooking (at the expense of fine art supplies), I will really miss having Omer de Serres in walking distance. Fortunately, Wallacks Art Supplies is still in walking distance. They've been on Bank Street since 1927 or something like that ... hope they stick around!

Albany

2008-05-18T19:30:00.001-04:00

The top picture is a section of the NY State Capitol's roof.

The second picture is from a sketch of 714 Madison Avenue, next door to where my friend Sue used to live.

Rochester vacation

2008-03-30T14:06:00.001-04:00

We spent four days on Easter Weekend visiting Rochester, NY, photographing architecture and the remnants of the long-abandoned Rochester subway. A highlight of the trip was shopping in person at Rochester Art Supply. They sell many brands of pastels, some of which are not otherwise readily available.

Inktense

2008-02-28T12:49:00.000-05:00

I recently got a set of Derwent Inktense pencils. They are water-soluble coloured pencils. I was never too keen on watercolour pencils because I felt the colours were not saturated enough. These pencils, apparently containing ink, are really saturated. After colouring the paper, just brush with water and they spring to life with bright colour.

Ansonia

2007-12-30T14:16:00.000-05:00

Haven't been posting because I was sick for about a month ... and then had a lot of catching up on things to do for the Christmas season. I wasn't able to knit for a few weeks when I was sick, but when I was able to, I started making some throw-pillow slipcovers ... something easy ... and now I'm thinking about a sampler afghan to go with them. Also I have been drawing and painting. Was thinking it would be cool to be in New York, so here is a picture of the Ansonia (Broadway x 73rd). Although streamline moderne is my favourite architecture, beaux-arts sure is fun to draw!

Watercolour card

2007-11-07T17:15:00.000-05:00

I do a lot of painting, mostly watercolour. This is a card I made for an exhibit of flower paintings. The pansy and geranium on the left are coloured pencil and the other are watercolours.

Streamertail completed

2007-10-28T14:06:00.000-04:00

I finished Streamertail a few weeks ago.

Lliclla

2007-10-21T17:07:00.000-04:00

I am making the Lliclla (large shawl) from Andean Inspired Knits by Helen Hamann (Interweave Press). A really interesting book ... the patterns are very creative with interesting use of shapes, and it's a good read with much information about the region and alpacas and their yarn.

The Lliclla is pretty easy knitting, mostly stocking stitch with mitred corners. The only tricky part is the beginning ... cast on 512 stitches. It was tricky keeping all the stitches on the needle the first few rows. I'm down to about 350 stitches per row now and it feels like just flying along!

The Lliclla in the book is done in earth colours, cinnamon, brown, etc. I opted for rainbow colours ... however I went for some variations on the rainbow, including turquoise and hot pink, for example. I am using mostly Paton's Look at Me, which was discontinued circa 2005.

Streamertail

2007-09-08T10:56:00.000-04:00

I saw a picture of this Louisa Harding design, Streamertail, when browsing in one of the UK magazines, and I had to have it. The colours are really me, and I like vertical knitting. Since the design is quite simple, normally I would have made it from just looking at the picture ... but I wanted this to be completely exact, so I got the pattern book, "Hummingbirds" ... rather pricey but has a couple of other patterns of interest and I'm enjoying looking through it. Louisa Harding uses a ribbon yarn. I had some Paton's Katrina in those colours in my stash. Back (or front, they're the same) was done in 9 days, so will probably be ready to wear by the end of September.