New Spirit Horses!

New ceramic tiles depict horses amid a swirling universe!

Several of my Spirit Horses are still on exhibition at my first solo show, Year of the Horse, at The Mud Oven, in Ottawa (1065 Bank Street just north of Sunnyside).

However, during my May 12 vernissage, all my ceramic work sold... 

Now I have two new works to show. I created my design, then after firing transformed two 6 x 6 inch tiles into trivets, complete with “simply ornate” trivet frames. 

See my next two posts, to view my work in transition!

Note: Year of the Horse show is on until July 4, 2014. Drop in to view my artwork!

Workshop with Jelly Massee

Learning pen and ink techniques at a terrific workshop

I adore horses, as anyone who knows me or who has browsed this blogsite understands.

So I was keen to take a class with Chapeau, Quebec-based artist Jelly Massee, who taught class participants various techniques of using pen and ink to create art from photographs we had taken. Techniques included stippling and crosshatching, among other styles of shading and definition. The class took place in 2012.

Armed with a photograph of my husband Eric’s Friesian-cross-Standardbred gelding, Trooper, I created a pen-and-ink study, using all the techniques being taught during the class.

First, I studied the image I had taken of Trooper. I took this image the day we purchased him, and Eric had just taken him out for a drive in his previous owner’s buggy, on the roads. What a handsome lad he is (I mean Trooper...!)...

Then, I traced my photograph, and started work on Trooper’s face. 

Below right: the image is near completion. Notice how I still have Trooper’s chest to fill in, and there is more detailing to be executed on his neck and  harness.

NEW!

Special note re exhibitions (this note is added later, in 2014): I will first exhibit this pen and ink work, “Trooper” during my first solo show (May 12-July 4, 2014) at The Mud Oven, in Ottawa.

Fire it up! Charger with Spirit Horses

First Nations inspiration!

Compare this image with my former post of March 21, 2014, where I displayed my unfired Spirit Horse charger (large display platter).

After the kiln firing, the colours really pop!

The inspiration for the designs on all of my “Indian ponies” derives from Blackfoot First Nations. The Blackfoot are renowned horse people. The ziz-zag design was used on their war horses, as one symbol indicating a “thunderbolt,” to my recollection. This symbol gave the horse dramatic, frightening presence on the field of battle, and denoted the horse’s ability to stop, “turn on a dime” and “zig-zag” or dart about the enemy, with its rider.

First kestrel of year

Hunched silhouette a giveaway

So many migrants returning... 

This afternoon around 17:20h I spied an American kestrel on an overhead wire alongside Highway 148 Ouest, gazing at the open ground, looking for a meal.

No image... just a sighting!

A deer kind of morning

White-tailed deer at Church Falls, Gatineau Park

The deer are eager to come to the increasingly exposed edges of roads to feast on last year’s leaves and grasses.

This photo, taken with my iPhone, hand-held while I was inside my car, was a quick snap. I thought these four (yes, four... can you spy one in the background?) would dash away into the forest, so shot four quick images.

These deer look healthy. Some which I have spotted, however, are extremely thin and I think that the thinnest look as though they are yearlings. If they can make it through a frigid, extended winter like this one, I think their chances for survival may be excellent...

... if they can outmanoeuvre the predators, that is...

One deer wasn’t so lucky. A hind leg of a deer, partially chewed, was lying on the Steele Line when I drove into Wakefield yesterday. Upon my return, it was gone... Good fortune for whatever critter was hungry that day!

Ungainly looking black blob in tree...

... Is a grazing wild turkey!

So there I am, minding my own business, driving along the back roads of Pontiac, where I live in the Outaouais. Suddenly, I spy it: a large ungainly black “blob” up in the wild apple tree.

Wild turkey!

There it was, gorging on last season’s now-frozen apples on the tree.

Stopped the car, tried to get a shot -- but as many of you will understand, these wily wild birds are shy and so I missed getting any photographs. It’s one of those special memories I will treasure.

Deciphering stories in the snow

Who goes there?

The fresh snowfall of yesterday offers a perfect opportunity to head outside on snowshoes and try to decipher the stories in the snow. 

Who’s been by? What’s gone on?

The first image shows tracks of a red squirrel which had scampered up and down a tree, then across the snow, only to disappear in to its sub-nivean (below-snow) tunnel.

The second image (with my wedding ring to indicate scale) shows what I think is likely a coyote track. It could be a wolf, because our home is adjacent to Gatineau Park’s “wilderness” sector.

What do you think? Wolf or coyote?

I hedge my bets with the latter, because Eric and I have seen six coyotes on and around our farm this winter. One, I believe, was shot (scroll down to see an earlier post on February 23 this year).