My story of grace.

Sunday, November 18, 2012 marked a huge milestone in my life. After 14 years of journeying and struggling with reconciling my sexuality with my faith, finding peace, and marrying the woman of my dreams... I was asked to share my story.

At church.

What a miracle that was to me! It was truly one of the most moving, humbling and blessed days in my entire life. Our church community truly loves us as Jesus does, and it moves my spirit deeply within.

Click here to listen to the audio of my story. It's the one entitled "A Story of Grace."

Our amazing church in North Vancouver, The Cove, also has their sermons available for free on iTunes here.

Also, my amazing friend Kori Ashton posted it on LesBePure - an amazing online community for Christian lesbians. Click here to see it.
 

Happily ever after indeed :)

Best eavestrougher in the West. Or--central.

My dad owns his own eavestroughing bi'ness back in Winnipeg called "Quality Eavestroughing" - and it surely is! He is a major perfectionist, and is amazing at all he does. So after over 35 years of doing amazing work, he finally got voted best eavestroughing business for 2011! I decided to caricature him and his award for the occasion.

When I showed this to my dad, he laughed for over 5 minutes. His safari hat and signature yellow suspenders made this look just like him! If you knew him, you'd see it :)

Go dad!

At Christmas, love is all around.

"Across the years, I will walk with you in deep green forests and shores of sand, and when our time on earth is through, in heaven too, I will hold your hand. xoxo"



About a week ago, I found this amazing quote whilst on my searches through the neverending net. It immediately made me think of the amazing woman in my life that I will marry in five short months, and how much she truly means to me.

So, of course, I thought of designing a painting around this quote and surprising her for Christmas. I could only work on it while she was at work, and made sure to clean up all my painting jazz every day before she got home, so she would be none the wiser! I designed it around our bedroom colours, so it could hang above our bed. All the text took me quite a while to paint, but I was very happy to finish in time!! I think it was a success...see pics for proof. :)

The final painting; 12" x 36", acrylic on canvas.

I am in awe at the blessings in my life.
Merry Christmas to one and all!

I'm a-BC Boundin'!

So... life changes, and mine will be a lot in a few short weeks! We have decided to make the leap and move to Vancouver as of November 1st. As I always say, life is too short, and ya gotta take risks! I will miss my family and close friends of course the most, but Tams and I are ready for a new adventure!

Stay tuned..... :)

Life changes :)

So much happens in life, you can never plan it! Mine has been really busy the last few weeks, I'm working on some paintings and story ideas and all that jazz...but click on the pic above to see what has been taking up most of my time..... :)

Evolution of a painting....a la Moulin Rouge.

I went away to Winnipeg Beach this past week to take on the [ad]venture of doing a large-esque painting for my cousin Brandi. We were chatting in her hot tub a few weeks ago, and she mentioned that they are looking for a big piece of art for their big blank wall, and me being the ever-eager gal with a paintbrush, I volunteered myself to take on the task! Good thing she trusted me :)

Here's how it all came together. Painting is good for the soul!

After I designed the painting on my computer, from pieces of photos and vintage French paintings, I printed out a life-size template in letter-sized panels, to transfer onto the canvas. [Which is 5 foot x 3 foot.] This is me outwardly saying ACK! I am going to paint this! :) I love a good challenge.

This is in Wpg Beach now, getting it all set up to start the painting process!

Smiling with a blank canvas! [Before the work began :) ]

Gettin' all the paints and pallettes and brushes and jazz ready to rock!

I mixed the background colour, and began to give it a good thick coat! I love painting with a big brush, it's so liberating! [I am a painting geek, aren't I?]

Lookit the speed of my brush, it's like SuperBrush!

After the bg colour dried, I began the arduous process of measuring and uber-carefully transferring the template onto the canvas. Since it was in pieces, and had so much detail, I had to make SURE it was completely accurate. I didn't breathe much through these few hours!

Yay, finally beginning the painting, near the end of Day 1!

It's tough to paint it in portions, mixing and fixing as I go... just because I know how I want it to look at the end of it all, and it's tough to push through the ugly unfinished stages!

Finished the gal in the corner, now moving onto the big letters!

Big brush on the big letters.

It's starting to come together, yahoo!

Now the tower is getting close to done, minus the windmill....

Phew! The windmill is done, WHAT a seige of little straight lines! No breathing there either :)

I took a little lying down break to stretch my back, it's tough to hover over a big canvas, as I found out!

Done the dancing silhouettes...moving onto the last big corner with the 2 ladies on horses.

Startin' on the horses now....stay in the lines, stay in the lines....




Gettin' closer....

Finishing off the wrap-around edges!

Done!! A view from the one side....

....and the other.

Yay! No longer a blank canvas! 4 days & a lot of paint later :)

Yahooooo! Done-o! I learned a lot, and it definitely encouraged me to paint more! I am super pumped it turned out, since I have never painted anything this big before.

Onto the next creative [ad]venture...

Palm leaves-ish.

Here are three little paintings I did for my cousin-in-law, Brandi, who moved into her new abode a while ago. She loves palm leaves, so these are created just for her!

Acrylic on canvas.

"I daresay it's a french mouse..."

My eloquent cousin Hope, [I say eloquent, because before this project, I never knew the word "fripperies" existed.. and I am a word girl!], recently got married to a fine young chap, Jonathan. As their wedding present, I told Hope I would create some art for their new place whence they were settled. In the meantime, Hope set up a little online business via etsy.com, and asked if I would design her character/logo for it as their wedding gift. Me? Draw a character?? You said the magic words :)

Her shop is called "The French Mouse", coined from a line in the original Alice in Wonderland. I love it. Above is the final character, whom we aptly named "Frenchie". Here's the rough sketch beside the final linework.


Check out Hope's etsy shop here!
And check out her words on welcoming Frenchie on her blog here :)

Here are some earlier concepts of Frenchie before she was finally realized. Yay for drawing mice in fancy dresses!

Memories for Christmas :)

This was the first year in a few years that my life wasn't consumed with school, so I was able to think ahead a bit more for Christmas gifts for my fam :) I made a few photo books of some of the greatest trips I have spent with my family, click on the books to view them online!

Memories are the best gifts, I think. No need to return or exchange them!

My Grandpa :)

I was going through some of my old sketches and I came across this quick one I did of my Grandpa a couple of years ago at the Lake - in his usual position of reading :) He is one of my heroes - he was a Skipper in WW2 and flew Lancaster planes when he was only 21, WOW. We have so much to learn from that generation!

Grandpa and his motorbike during the war in London, England.

Grandpa experimenting with his camera when he was really young, I love this photo! He is still experimenting with technology :)

Paintin' on Wood

This past week I spent enjoyed the gorgeous September weather [strange for Winnipeg!] out in Winnipeg Beach with some family. I got the opportunity to do a couple paintings for an Aunt who had a few pieces of wood she had found and really wanted them painted.

Me, being always up for a challenge involving paint, volunteered to give it a go. [And she may or not have persuaded me with a glass or two of great red wine!] I had a lotta fun painting them, and most of all, she was SUPER happy with them!

It made me want to experiment more with painting on various wood grains, it gives a nice effect to the paint....hmmm....the creative process is ever-ongoing. Perhaps that's what I love most about being an artist, you never stop growing and learning. :)

The first piece was an old oar - here's the sketch I did followed by the final painting:

Close-up:

The second piece was a weather piece of wood about two feet across - here's the sketch followed by the final painting:

Close-ups:

The third piece was one she wanted turned into a sign for her place. We were all brainstorming on names, but eventually decided on "Barb's Beachouse".

Close-ups:

I thought I would also post this painting that I did on her headboard a couple summers back. She loves all things lighthouses, so that's what I painted on her headboard. Chalk that up to items I never thought I would paint on!