just life...

this story makes me so sad. the family must be so proud of him.

i have tonsilitis and lots of work to do so not much in the way of posting or doodlin'.

there's snow place like home

it's snowing. it's wet snow. great for snowmen and snowball fights, not good for roads and electricial lines and trees. a lot of trees in the neighbourhood have lost many branches, some have even lost more than half, all from the weight of the snow.

all the schools are closed in the gva... well, all private schools- public schools are all open. the picture is taken from the bathroom (it's too cold to go out onto the deck and take one there) looking north out onto the park and the school.

yesterday we had lots of fun making a snowman in the front yard and a hill to slide down in the back. the cat, mr. tibbs, didn't much care for being tossed out into a snowbank.



not much else is new really, we're still on that boil water restriction, i think it's day 10 or 11- the longest in canadian history aparently. i haven't been drawing much so i don't really have anything to show. i know, slacker. i have no excuses.


i'm just glad it's stopped raining.

happy birthday to me

yeah, it's my birthday, and thanksgiving (in the states but because my mom is american we celebrate that one too). i was born on thanksgiving... 5 pm toronto time.

my mom is at the house right now with the kids, hopefully they're not running a muck. ella wasn't feeling too good this morning and her face was as white as paper making the circles under her eyes even darker, so she's home from school today. our caregiver, meagan, is off to vegas for the weekend for her birthday, which is sunday. monday is my MILs birthday... the list goes on. lots of bdays this month.

on the work front, i love studio B and i have a pretty nice view of the mountains... you know, when it's not raining which it hasn't really stopped doing almost all month. o, look there's a seabus coming in now! hehe...

cake creation

i am a genius.

this is seth's cake for his 3rd birthday party with all his neighbourhood buddies:

happy birthday seth!

happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday dear seth
happy birthday to you!

blah blah blah

i'm at my new post in studio B, loving the misty mountian view out the windows. all the new people i've met are really nice and welcoming. our old second year classmate, norman kritsch, is here, along with many other bardel/joseph animators. this is great, only thing is... i have no work at this moment. my supervisor has taken today off along with much of canada. so i wait until tomorrow.

on a side note, i actually do like my hair shorter. but, sorry andre, no pics yet :P

i've been lazy about posting the pics from hallowe'en and now i've got a couple more to post from last night's dinner at my parent's with derek's dad, partner, and my sister for seth's birthday. seth will be 3 on wednesday. my l'il gaffer is growing up. *sigh* time flies way too fast for my liking. grandad gave him a 2 wheeler bike, tony gave him some clothes and home depot tools, my sister and husband gave him some clothes and diego undies, and my parents searched and searched and found a rescue pack! yeah! "rescue pack! comin' to the rescue!"

buyer's remorse?

last march i got my hair cut. john, my "stylist" cut about 6" and that was, well, just a trim really after what i asked him for this past friday. i now have a bob. he ended up cutting almost a foot off. i asked for it, too, which is wierd. not that i'm worried too too much though... if i'm not really happy with it it's only hair and mine grows insanely fast, so in about 7 months it'll be back to the length it was thursday. i'm not sure i like it though, but i do at the same time. does that make sense or am i just blabbering...?

i'll post a pic when i'm brave enough to get out from behind the camera.

woo hoo!

wow, i can't believe it's been two weeks since i've posted. things are slowing down a little at work, wubbzy is wrapping up and i'm moving onto another project at another studio. first time at studio B! i'm very excited especially since i'll be on george of the jungle.

i'm also excited since i've asked for an accoustic/electric guitar for my birthday. the first one i picked out was a gibson j160 peace guitar. it's a replica of john lennon's after he stripped all the psycadellic paint off it. yeah, i think 3k is a little too out of the price range, but be-ooooo-ti-ful! only 750 made aparently. so after scouring many guitar websites and asking the opinions of jenn and edgar i picked out this:

it's still a replica of his guitar, but not made under the gibson brand, although epiphone is made by gibson, and a fraction of the price on eBay.

now there's just the waiting for it to arrive! yay!!!

busy

as usual, it's been mayhem around here. i'm on a crazy deadline at work and the folders seem to be on a never-ending pile that replenishes itself on an hourly basis.

enough complaining.

this is a painting i did right after ella was born. 16x20 acrylic on stretched canvas. lovely.

pizza night!

friday night is traditionally our pizza night, has been for quite some time, and we (i) usually make it from scrach. here's how it's done:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp yeast (dry active)
1 cup warmish water
dash of sugar

1. pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. dissolve yeast in water, add sugar. a foamy surface will soon appear- this is called proof. if it doesn't start after about a minute or two, add a wee bit more sugar.
2. meanwhile, combine flour and salt (whisking is good for this) in the bowl of an electric mixer (or a large bowl if making by hand) and stir in olive oil.
3. once yeast has proofed, add it to the dry mixture. using your mixer with the dough hook (instert pirate growl) on low mix until all combined. sometimes you may need to add more water or flour (tbsp at a time) depending on the weather and your altitude.
4. continue to kneed the dough until it is nice and smooooooth in texture and soft to the touch- that's when you know it's ready. remove from mixer and divide in half.
5. smush each half on greased pizza sheets from the centre out, as shown below my one of my lovely assistants, seth.

6. now's the fun part: topping! as you like it... me? tomato sauce (hot n' spicy) mozzarella, and basil pesto (classico makes the best- but don't forget to tab the excess oil once finished baking)

7. bake in pre-heated oven for 13-15 minutes on middle rack. slice and enjoy!

the result:

past pieces

i was just looking at some images of some of my old paintings and i think i'll post some of my favourites. this one is actually four, each one about 11x14" watercolour on really thick medium cold press paper. named spring, summer, autumn, and winter (duh). i did these probably about *gasp* 8/9 years ago and they've held up pretty well, moving across the country twice and being stuck in the basement for a couple years now. right now they're still in the basement, in one of my portfolios waiting for some nice frames so they can maybe go up on the walls, but who knows that may never happen. i'm not sure if i want every piece on display at our house to be mine. i do have a great painting of a cow jenn brission (who totally rocks, btw) did for me in the hallway by the kids rooms, and a very large norman kritsch indian peace pipe painting in our living room. we've also got a klimt print in the living room as well, along with my yellow submarine macfarlane toys. be careful not to touch sgt. pepper, his head might fall off :(

i don't know why i feel like telling all this to the universe, but hey why not...

woops!

we've got this wind chime hanging off one of the rafter tails by the back deck. not too loud, not too annoying. today while beating the rug (one of two we own) out on the line i swung a wee bit too far and completely knocked the weight off! woops!

(okay this was a really stupid post but it was either this or potty training which i'm sure most of you are just dying to hear about... so i'll post that maybe tomorrow ;) )

busy bees

the first week of school came and went. ella is full day in grade one, and seth is going to preschool 2 afternoons a week. *deep breath in... hold... exhale*

i've been pretty busy the past couple of weeks, working at home and in studio- trying desperately to get up to speed so i can actually make money, school volunteering, driving ella to her dance class (ballet), trying to help derek with work on the house. last night we re-arranged all the junk in the basement to make room for insulation, vapour barrier, drywall and a powder room. hopefully there'll be enough room for me for doing stained glass. (i should really write that on our houseblog... maybe later...) got a new camera because our old digital sucked. i don't really have much to write about and i'm in studio right now so i don't have any scans of my sketchbook to post... maybe i'll do that later too, but for now i must work...

so, what's new?

while chatting with andre today on messenger, i got to thinking... how many of us from sheridan's class of '95 are out there? what have you been up to in the last decade? are you still animating, or have you found something else interesting? have you moved around a lot, or have you firmly planted roots? who have you worked with since leaving school? any interesting stories to tell like the time when i...?

c'mon i know you're out there- leave a comment or add me to your messenger list!

i leave you with this pic:

well whaddya know

i always thought i was a mediocre animator. i mean, i was never the best at school, nor was i the worst. just... average. the same thing when i first started working out of school.

there was a point just a few weeks ago, before starting on "wubbzy", that i was offered two positions- animating, and background painting. i chose animating. while out to dinner with "the girls" the other night, one of them told me that it was really good to have me back animating at the studio, and that she knew i would choose animating and then she went on about how much i always loved really good timing and every aspect of character animation. huh. i didn't know i liked it that much. i mean, i've always, always loved animation and now that i'm really back it's hit me... i guess i'm not so average after all.

one thing though- i miss the sound of a nicely sharpened pencil on paper flipping, flipping, flipping...

the time traveller's wife

i'm re-reading the time traveller's wife, by audrey niffenegger. i frist read it about a year ago and it immediately went on my top ten list. i've got less than a hundred pages to go and i can't stand it anymore, even though i know the payoff in the end is huge and totally worth it. i adore the protagonist(s) and i'm finding myself hoping that the second time around, things happen differently. but as it goes it the book, if it happened once it'll happen again no matter how much i want it to be changed. then again, if it were to have a different ending, would i love this book so much? i leant it to my mom and she didn't like it, i think maybe the theory behind the time travelling is a little too far-fetched for her. i also tried to get my neighbour to read it but she couldn't get into it. generally speaking i'm not normally a huge fan of american authors- i tend to like the way the british unfold their stories better. for some reason this book draws me in and i can't put it down, or stop thinking of what's about to happen...

wandering

i find my mind wanders a lot when i'm doodlin'

my house

i love my house

o, you so funny!

some kid thought it would be super funny to put one of those sticky bar code thingies on the inside of the courtesy mall stroller. and you know, i do think it's funny. it was just annoying.

peables

i used to love playing with peables when i was little

lantern festival

okay, i think this was the 4th lantern festival, or illuminaries, in a row for us. the turn out this year was as usual fantastic. lots of new lanterns, lots of different stilt-walkers, faeries, a troll (on a bridge, too!), the wishing well, lanterns floating on the lake, and the fireworks finale. i love the lantern fest, especially now that i've got kids. this was ella's 5th fest, and seth's second- he sort of understood what was going on, or as much as an almost 3 year old can. one faerie tried to cuddle him for a picture and he just gave her a look. can't wait for next year!

steady as she goes

i've been working as much as i can on these first scenes, and i've figured out a lot on my own. it's taking much longer to get it done than i thought. well, it's been 6 years since last i animated- so, no wonder! still, i can't help thinking that way. the kids drive me a little bit nuts when i'm trying to work while they're at home. this morning one of my wonderful neighbours took both the kids for about 2 hours and in that time i figured out not only what i was doing wrong, but also how to do it right. i can't help but be proud of myself- it's not easy going back to work when technology changes your profession. classical animation is a dying art. here's a strange drawing from the other night while watching the tele.

tomorrow night is the lantern festival at trout lake and ella is talking non-stop about it. what costume should i wear? i need good shoes to dance in, what ones should i wear? i love my lantern, i made it last year.... here's a pic from last year's "festible"

blog rolling

i guess it's time to stop fiddling around with stuff and just get this blog rolling.

i finally got the call i was waiting for today- i'll be picking up my first scenes pretty much since ella was born. she's now 6 1/2 years old and o, my how technology has changed in that time! i love technology, but not as much as you, you see. but still i love technology, always and for-ever. in that 6 years i learned how to do a lot of things, including how to make quiche, animate in flash, and how to change a little boy's diaper.

why am i going back to work now? well, lately i'd been feeling that something was a bit off and when one of the mom's at school asked me what i did... well, that's when it hit me. it was time. i'm starting to feel like my old self once more, you know the one without kids screaming to be taken to the park or for something to eat (they're like little hoovers at times). now, if only i can get a few minutes to actually draw in my sketchbook by myself that would be great, but who am i kidding?!? i don't think any sketchbook would be complete anymore without ella practising her ABC's or seth scribbling circles on any random page. that's half the fun of it.

changes are coming