ah the sea

Thursday, June 30, 2011


ah the sea ... & a 2 minute walk from 29 Black Street - the view from the end of Water St.

psssst ....

wanna know a secret ??

I have a job interview today at on of my most favourite places ... the post office ! uh huh !!
it's for a very casual, part time, (foot in the door) post office clerk position here in our little village and I'm so psyched ... my interview's in the nearby bigger town at 2pm today.

crossed fingers & paws please ;-)

what's up ...

Wednesday, June 29, 2011










hey ! what's up buttercup ? - marsh crowfoot - a meadow member of the Rannuculus family

moon child

Tuesday, June 28, 2011











just a little bit of poppy love .... sighing -love, love, L-O-V-E

keep your love of nature
for that is the true way

to understand art more and more

Vincent van Gogh

Hey Missy Bohemian Path Tarotscope gal ! you've been peering into my mind again ... merci !!
I feel so lost even with my fistful of maps but I'll take a breath or two & keep waitin' on the Sun

the tarot card pulled for Cancer's this week beginning June 27th - the Moon

This card signals a period of Not Knowing. It’s just a phase, but for now, things aren’t what they seem. It’s hard to find your bearings in the dark, so slow down. Take a breath – or three. Let go of any expectations for the moment, let go of a need to control or master this changeable situation. Don’t fight the current, flow with it. This is a Yin time, your intuition is a better guide then your senses will be. Know that even common, everyday things appear strange (even scary!) when distorted as they are by shadow. Things will return to their normal shape under the light of the sun…and do trust that the sun will rise again.

It's just a phase ?? are ya sure ??
You have no idea how comforting it is to read this ... over & over & over again.

oh my ! watch out ... and my other favourite 'scope says ...

paint, draw, paint, draw ...

Monday, June 27, 2011


Get Your Paint On - Summer - Week 2 - Lilacs- assignment (cropped detail) - Susan Black

Mixed media - 10.5 x 17 on water colour paper -
Please check out the many stages of "can this painting be saved" ugly here

& some of the, far too many to mention, creative works inspiring me now
Bonjour Ira !! I do believe I've got the good taste thing pretty well sewn up ;-)

now it's just ... practice, practice, practice
paint, draw, paint, draw, paint, draw, paint, draw



the fish truck

Saturday, June 25, 2011




dinner - seared fresh scallops, sauteed asparagus, zucchini on a bed of spinach & arugula -sigh

Last night's Chez Susan's restaurant fare - simple, easy + delicious. Lightly dressed with a simple lemon (juice & zest), fresh garlic, olive oil, pinch of sugar & grainy Dijon mustard dressing. Yum.

It's a sad and ironic thing that local food is often food that's difficult to come by. Certainly if you shop mostly at the big grocery stores, the conglomerateness of them means individual stores and managers often have no say in where the food they're selling actually comes from. Thanks to a resurgence in a buy locally/eat locally philosophy & the demand for food grown or harvested in our own backyard small producers & farmers are finding new ways to bypass the big stores - farmers markets, road side stands and here in our village - trucks in parking lots. Hooray for trucks in parking lots announcing on hand painted signs leaning on tires "Valley Corn!" - "Local Strawberries" - "Beans, Carrots, Beet Greens" Our little village now has a Saturday bustling farmer's market and for the last few summers we've a weekend "fish truck". Crazy as it is, we live by the sea but good, regular fresh seafood was formerly very hard to come by. Formerly. A new tradition begun last week here at 29 Black Street is for the Prince to stop by the fish truck Friday morning and in discussion with the fish monger he chooses some fresh seafood goodness to surprise the cook with. I'm lovin' the surprise factor and I've suggested that variety is indeed the spice of life. Last week's dinner was Sole Almondine and last night's pre- Deliverance movie night dinner was seared fresh sea scallops with a heap of veggies. So good ... + so good for us.

A special shout out to Pam way down, down under who asked just yesterday - so what's cookin'?

lobelia love & more books

Friday, June 24, 2011







and I do mean love ... oh my the deepest blue

another of the flowering favourites from the terracotta gardens at 29 Black Street

Just finished reading the novel Deliverance - it was fantastic, I couldn't put it down and tonight I'll be watching the movie for the first time I know how'd that happen ? taped from an excellent commercial free movie station that we get as part of our cable package. The book was amazing & beautifully written one of the best book I've read in a long time. 5 shiny stars & 2 thumbs up ;-)

Next up on la reading list a novel - Curiosity by Joan Thomas and a non fiction book by Tim Flannery titled Here on Earth - gettin' a little summer science/natural world reading in. yah !!

& listen to Ira

Thursday, June 23, 2011

I'm gonna draw ! paint !
& listen to Ira every day



Ira's simple rules for beginners

1. Have good taste.
2. it’s OK to suck. You will get better over time.
3. Set project deadlines to practice and get better!
4. Be patient and don’t quit. It takes a while.

merci !! dear Ira

paint + draw

Wednesday, June 22, 2011









1. lulu dk 2. 3. united thread 4. 7. olaf hajek 5. vladimir savitsch 6. little robot 8. lisa congdon

I shall become a master in this art
only after a great deal of practice.

Erich Fromm

I've realized, I'm just gonna have to paint + draw my way out.

The only way I'm going to discover my creative self, to uncover, to recover the artist in me is to paint & draw. Not to think & to plan & to analyze the shit out of everything - a very relieved sigh

I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to arrive at this new & sparkling revelation. An idea so simple, so straightforward, so gentle & easy that I guess it defied scrutiny - for scrutiny was madly searching for something far more complex ... as usual. So lest I waste too much valuable time not getting to the act of painting and drawing my way out I'll try to be brief this morning.

there is no right or wrong
for now, there is only make and do

Hooray !


This week's Get Your Paint On summer assignment is to

Find a painting by another artist that you love. Take an aspect of that painting (imagery, color palette, paint application) and incorporate it into a painting of your own. Take this assignment as literally or figuratively as you wish.

What I love, what inspires me is growing & developing with a speed that makes my head spin and with a humming intensity which makes my heart soar - these 8 images are just some of the things that inspire me NOW. & speaking of inspiration & L-O-V-E - oh Pinterest I do love you - an online inspiration board, scrapbook ... I'm crazy, obsessed with pinning & repinning + Flickr archiving is such a good thing.

body double

Tuesday, June 21, 2011







bonjour opera pink !! hello lover! cheery cosmos an all time summer favourite

bonjour opera pink + bonjour summer !

Lately I've been feeling like two completely different people sharing the same head. Two people who not only don't get along ... at all, but who don't even really like each other. Sighing.

A fantastic Madonna song heard while working at the TTD last evening and listening to Tapestry on CBC radio1 - a show about forgiveness. Oliver applied to be a back up dancer in this video but sadly they were not hiring any dancing cats at that time ... sure makes me want to dance ;-)

zooming

Monday, June 20, 2011


goodness - you'd think a really happy person painted this, shit Sherlock looks like the jigs up ;-)

thinking is so very overrated ... (big sigh)

Susan Black

paralytic - or a tale of extreme stage fright & self doubt* ... last week's never ending story

I've begun my summer session of Get Your Paint On and once again the first assignment was to be inspired by the quilts of Gee's Bend. I took this inspiration pretty loosely with the use of a gridded block drawing underneath my only real shout out to those amazing quilts - that and an acceptance of crooked, wavy lines & an over all lack of intended perfection. Now these are just studies, practice, playing - I still do feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, what look or style I'm going for, what am I trying accomplish ?? No goals, no objectives - freedom. Ahhhhh feels good !

only as high as I can reach can I grow,
only as far as I seek can I go,
only as deep as I look can I see,
only as much as I dream can I be

Karen Ravn

Shut ! Up ! Karen !

I feel like I'm going so fast at the moment & though I'm stumbling & tumbling along at every turn, the important thing that I try to remind myself of daily (hourly, momently) is ... I do always get back up on my feet eventually & off I go again - zooming all the way. Have a little faith.

* I'm out of time this morning so my tale of stage fright will have to wait for another day





8 x 10 masonite mixed media - dream, love, beautiful - Susan Black

if you have ...

Saturday, June 18, 2011


a perfect art print from Shelli @ Studio Mela's etsy shop - surround yourself in positivity

if you have ...

a garden
a library
a dog ... or 2
a cat ... or 2 or 3
a very best friend
a cozy bed
an ocean nearby
a coffee in bed to start the day
a blank sketchbook page
a brand new day ....
feelings of safety
hope, courage & grace
+ lots of good ol' kindness

you have every thing you need
play along if you like ...