Continuing your garden theme

O I love bees, what a gorgeous picture!
I love the parallel of creeping and observing like Toby the cat.
On the 15th of August I finished a print residency at Atelier Circulaire, a gorgeous print shop in Montreal's Mile end.
During the last bit, another visiting printmaker, Celia, and I had a monoprint day where we set up some inks and plates and experimented with monoprinting. This is one of my prints, where I discovered monoprinting is like painting on glass, you apply colour from foreground to background.
This one is supposed to be a flowering cactus.
This plate changed so much you wouldn't even believe it. It started off as an all black plate!
I have just finished painting the second third of my studio.
The wall I will wake up to is a metallic shimmering blue, to remind me of the ocean. I will put the African sun you gave me up there as well.

Tuesday, August 26th, 12:10-12:50 p.m.

David and I had lunch in Grange Park. He sketched houses on Beverley and I sketched two AGO staff having lunch - a curatorial assistant and a 2D designer- they had papers and were very intent. David says he will try to sketch people so I will try houses. The light was gorgeous - dappled and bright. The woman in the background was doing Tai Chi. When I came home I tried to save my drawing with colour.

Sunday, August 24th at about 4:30 p.m.

Hello Anna,

How wonderfully reality and fiction mix - I'm referring to your encounter and your dream book. I often think I would have experienced life very differently if I hadn't read certain books. I tried to draw the red cabbage but I somehow couldn't do it justice. While I was sitting there I noticed that there are a huge number of flying insects, especially in the herbs which are all flowering. I got my camera instead and prowled around like Toby observing. I recognized bees and butterflies but there were many other magnificent flying things I have no clue about. My blog is very gardenish because it is the weekend.

St. Catherine street...

Hi Mum, that sounds gorgeous!
Here is my small tale of making my way home to my new apartment.
It was evening
I stopped at a coffee shop on the way home from school to have a tea, sit outside and absorb an unfamiliar part of Montreal downtown.
Behind me two men spoke quickly in Arabic and smoked cigarettes.
I was reading a book of dreams by Naguib Mahfouz.
A man came up to me and asked me where I got my red adidas jacket. He said he'd been looking for one just like it for 5 years. Did I want to sell it to him?, he asked.
After he left I went back to reading the book of dreams.
This is dream number 5.

Saturday, August 23rd 2008

Jean came out on the train today to spend the afternoon. She brought Keith's Nobs' banner for Edinburgh. We drank tea and contemplated the vegetable garden then played Scrabble in the gazebo. We were perfectly happy - the view through each window is gorgeous and different - the summer sounds - cicadas, lawn mowers, birds - and Beatrix Potteryness are all so familiar. Then we came in and cooked turbot with red cabbage from the garden - we sauteed it with apples, red onions, mustard, Balsamic and brown sugar. We used lots of herbs from the garden too - fennel, thyme, parsley, basil - red and green- Jean sorted and chopped. We cooked together gently with a bottle of Rose. So very relaxed, normal and happy-making.