fear, grief and forgiveness...

The weak can never forgive.

Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I write this post with a heavy heart

but i am writing it anyway.

I live near Shediac, a small coastal town in Eastern Canada.

The nearest city is Moncton, about 15 minutes away.

This week was a crazy week for Moncton

and the kind of week we're not used to in this small, friendly,

peaceful place we call home.

A young man of 24 went on a shooting rampage

and killed 3 Mounties and injured 2 others.

For 30 hours, the city was in lockdown

as the RCMP searched for the gunman.

These brave souls had just lost 3 of their own

and grieving would have to wait because

they had a job to do.

People were asked to lock their doors and stay in.

They were also asked to keep their porch lights on,

to help with the search in the darkness of night...

People did leave their lights on

and in a show of solidarity,

others across Canada and elsewhere in the world

left their lights on as well...

You can see some of them here:

http://globalnews.ca/news/1379152/social-media-lights-up-with-lightsonformoncton/

Whenever something like this happens

i'm reminded that there are FAR more good people in this world than bad.

At 12:10am on Wednesday, June 4th,

the shooter was caught and taken into custody.

We all breathed a sigh of relief...

and then of grief.

The next day,

people began to bring flowers at the RCMP headquarters in Moncton...

by 7pm last night, about a thousand people had gathered
to pay their respects to the fallen...

My heart goes out to everyone -

including the young man who did the shooting - and his family.

No parent raises their child

hoping that he or she becomes a mass murderer.

It broke my heart when i heard people wish him dead...

it doesn't mean i want him FREE,

but i think it's wrong to wish the death of another,

regardless of what they've done.

As much as i understand the anger and the fear -

I also believe there are far more people

on the brink of a mental breakdown

than we may think

and I believe in forgiveness more than i do hate.

I have decided to stick with love.

Hate is too great a burden to bear.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

And soooooo....

when the time came to paint,

although my heart felt heavy,

I wanted to paint something light...

so I started with this - on canvas, about 2 x 2ft

from a photo of my uncle who loves to bake. :-)

 at first, it didn't look too bad...

as i went along, i was more and more uneasy with it...

by the time i got here, he looked like a man
who had lost his arms... 
or like he had lobster claws for hands... hehehee.

 So i tried fixing it by showing more of his shirt,
lowering the pan,
widening the arms,
lightening the background...

Then i decided to put one of his arms
under the pan completely...
in the photo, he's holding it with his 2 hands -
but i'm the artist, and that means i can put his hand where i want!
giggle.

 I also decided to stretch his head right out of the canvas
rather than try to squeeze his whole body AND the pan inside the canvas.

Certainly not done yet, but I'm a lot more comfortable with it.
At a certain point,
i came so close to painting over the whole thing.
I sat and stared at it for about 5 minutes
wondering if I could really salvage the lobster claws... ;-)
We'll see where it ends up after the next sitting,
but i already like it more than i did, so it should be ok.

When the palette starts to look like this,

it's time to take a break!

And something I thought you'd all appreciate...
i definitely relate to some of this.
Much of this.
ok, all of this. 

thanks for being here Munchkins.
Be kind to one another.
Be grateful for what you have,
where you are,
WHO you are.
xx

summer sketches...

Must i tell you how good it feels

to see blue sky and green grass again?

No.

I didn't think so.

I've been spending time going for walks
and noticing the little big things -
like this...

and this

and this...

 and this...(see the full moon way back there?)
So impressive when you think about it...

Did this the other night
when i didn't really know what i felt like painting.
From a photo in a magazine.
A depressing painting, now that i see it here,
but a painting nonetheless.

And then this morning,
i treated myself to a walk at the nearby beach
for a bit of plein air sketching.

It's not something i do often.
Sketchbook Skool has inspired me
to go out and sketch in the great outdoors. 

This isn't the most beautiful beach,
but it's filled with so many great things to sketch...
flowers, driftwood, seaweed.

So i sketched on site
and added the water-colour once i got home.
I left out a lot of detail
mainly because i was sitting on a log
and my butt felt like it was gonna fall off after a while.

The bridge you see is only wide enough for one car at a time.
Tourists are always in for a surprise in these parts... ;-)

So there you have it.
Shediac Bridge, New Brunswick, Canada!
Home.

Then this afternoon,
a bit more sketching,
just cause it's summer,
and i'm so damn happy about that...
and about getting some time to myself
to do what i love.

Some cross hatching!
something else i don't do often,
but SBS got me going again... 

You've probably seen this quote a thousand times,

but i'm posting it again anyway.

Just cause i love it so much.

And i thought you'd like this little sign i saw
the other night as we took a drive to the wharf & had ice cream.
I'm not big on seafood, but it's a big thing here in the summer.

and for those who don't know what fried clams look like...

here they are - in all their glory.

Thanks for being here!

I'll be back soon...

xx

Sketchbook Skool is over... WAAAAAAAH!

Not much to say tonight,

so i'll just share a bit of what i did this week...

a quick detailed sketch of my messy table

 Not so bad when i add colour...

 Photo taken in the daylight

The little angel in the glass bubble (in front of the wooden pencil holder)
belonged to my mother.
She always watches me as I paint. :-)

The plastic bottle was fun to do.

So many reflections in there...

 
Then a quick charcoal sketch
to warm up for my Tommy Kane portrait...

Tommy made the incredible proposal
to Sketchbook Skool participants
that he was going to publish a book
of his portraits.

So we all went mad
painting his portrait...

Totally generous, totally inspirational,
and just such a refreshing human being.
ALL of the teachers were wonderful.

So here we go...
acrylic on paper

 And those of you who know a bit about Tommy
know how much he loves his tiara.

I swear I tried it without, Tommy
and it just wasn't working.
(giggle)...

For those who aren't familiar with his work,
here's a little video of the genius
struttin' his stuff...