Check out this Welsh sculptor, Sue Hiley Harris. It's fascinating how she uses fabric as installation materials. I've always loved installation art and want to wrap most buildings in bright colored material! Ms. Harris is coming to Vancouver in late February and will exhibit her work at Urbanity on Granville Street (north of Broadway).

Now you see it, now you don't

I was recently made aware of the oh so cool site, www.teefury.com/ You're probably thinking, "what's the big deal? Yet another t-shirt site" But no, it's not just another t-shirt site. It's brilliant in every way from creativity to the business/marketing side. 

Each t-shirt costs a mere $10. 

Each t-shirt has an image you know and love but somehow altered to be even cooler. 

Each t-shirt is for sale for only 24 hours. 

Get it now, or lose it forever!

Check out Valentine's Day t-shirt. Gustav Klimt meets George Lucas. What is there not to love?

The t-shirts are limited edition and their availability expires after 24 hours. Only a single t-shirt design is for sale at a time. It's brilliant! It keeps things unique, one of a kind, and TeeFury knows how many t-shirts to print.

It's one of those simple, yet great ideas that make me think, "Doh! Why didn't I think of that?"

'Tis the season to get craft

 

With Christmas is just around the corner, the house gnomes are out and about, lurking in the corners, stealing your snacks and drinking your beer!  Don't let their small size fool you, a "nisse" is extremely strong and if agitated or annoyed, he can become quite a nuisance around the house. In Denmark, it is the "Jule Nisse" that brings out the gifts, so you really want to stay on their good side. You can offer them porridge (with a spot of butter and cinnamon) or maybe leave them a home baked cookie or other nice treats. To me, it makes much more sense that the "Jule Nisse" delivers the presents, as how can one person (Santa) possibly deliver everything to the whole world in a single night? No, it makes much more sense that a team of 6 inch gnomes lug around our Nintendos, and Wii consoles, Steve Jobs bio, Justin Bieber's latest album and of course the latest iPhone 4S! 

So, with the 1st Advent coming up this Sunday, let the Christmas crafting begin!

Step aside Jamie Oliver!

Do you love to cook? Does your family have a recipe that’s been passed down from generation to generation?  Perhaps you cook together with your family? Do you think you've got what it takes to win a cooking competition? Food Network Canada is currently looking far and wide (well, far and wide within the borders of Canada) to get the best families that love to cook together.

"Family Cook Off" is Food Network Canada’s latest and greatest game show cooking competition like no other. Twenty-four families will go head to head to see who is the better and faster cook.  Think “Family Feud” meets “Iron Chef”. Teams are made up of four relatives (parents and children, siblings and grandparents, aunts and uncles, you get the picture). One team member prepares the appetizer, two members cook the main entrée and the remaining team member prepares the dessert all the while the audience is cheering and the clock is ticking. You have 20 minutes to complete each dish! Dishes are graded by a panel of judges, based on taste, presentation and creativity for a total of 10 points.

Shot on location in beautiful Vancouver, this show will have it all: emotion, fun-filled entertainment for all ages, charismatic host, celebrity judges and a live audience.

So, if you’re a hobby chef and you love to cook with your family, this could be your chance for those fifteen minutes of fame.  

Email cookoff@forcefour.com to let them know you’re interested and one of their lovely Story Producers will get back to you with a questionnaire.

Good luck!

Summer Sports

Summer is here and I'm training for my second Sprint Triathlon. It's the Subaru WesternTriathlon  to be exact. As a result, my mind has been a little more on the swimming and the biking and the running and not so much on the sketching and the printing and the sewing. And when I do sketch and print and sew, well, it seems I still am thinking of the swimming and the biking and the running. You get the point, I am sure. 

Although you can complete a triathlon without all the expensive gear, you do need a fair bit of stuff and lugging it around can be a hassle. My regular sports bag has recently been stretched to its limits with the addition of new swim fins and an extra water bottle, so I decided to make myself a quick and easy draw-string bag for all things swim-related. It holds my towel, my fins, goggles, swim cap, swim suit and all the gadgets and nicnacs I carry with me. Next version will have a separate pocket for my wallet and pool card.

Mama Olifant

Here's the elephant pillow I designed for Mother's Day. I was a wee bit late and only printed it the day before so it wasn't much use to my mom, or any other moms for that matter. Happily, it has been pointed out to me that it can also work quite well as a Baby Shower gift  (which can happen at all times of the year)! 

In short, the back is made up of an elephant stencil I cut out, while the front is screen printed using screen filler. I'm enjoying sewing pillow cases as they look very complete and finished at the end, and in reality it's just a bunch of straight lines! Print, print, zoom, zoom, cut here, cut there, and you're done! Voila!

Just for the fun of it, here are some of my other favorite elephants:

and to pull on the heart strings, here's a scene from Dumbo:

 Now, go call your mom and let her know how much you love her.

I heart Biking

I'm finding myself printing in all manners possible: screen printing, stenciling, printing with linoleum stamps and even potato printing! On top of that my newly acquired skill of sewing makes me sew anything and everything together: pillows, bags, pencil cases, and random pieces of fabric. I added a zipper to this cute little pencil case I created.

The bike design is from a linoleum block I carved out many months ago. I like the detail of the handbrake, the chain and the pedals. The ink worked quite differently on the fabric compared to the previously printed paper cards. Because the ink didn't take evenly in all places, it almost looks like a newsprint or somehow 3D.

When in doubt, put a Vespa on it

I made a pillow! I know, not the biggest accomplishment ever, but I'm a novice in the world of sewing, so I'm excited! The stitches are (more or less) straight, and the pillow fits inside. What more would you want from a pillow case? Oh yeah, a cool image. So, when in doubt, slap a Vespa on it. 

The large front Vespa was done by cutting a stencil from my stash of overhead projector plastic. I didn't want clean lines, so I cut in and around the marker lines, making the final print like a sketch. I opted for doing both sides of the pillow using a stencil. It wasn't for any artistic reason, I just didn't feel like getting all the screen printing paraphernalia out and having to clean the screen afterward. Talk about lazy! 

Well, maybe not lazy, so much as I'm finding myself with a new found attitude of "just do it" (for fear of getting dinged by Nike, I should say "just get it done!"). My "just get it done" attitude means also that I'm opting for good over perfect and it's leaving me with many more items produced and while I avoid  the endless tinkering and over-thinking I just plow ahead and learn along the way.

It's a pretty cool pillow, if I do say so myself!

Canvas Painting Time Lapse

Painting

I find screen printing to be very controlled and with the final outcome to be the result of much thinking, preparation and planning. To shake things up I enjoy painting. So far, my painting extravaganzas have been limited to throwing painting on a canvas. The bigger the better with some of the paintings being 6x3 feet. There's no plan. There's no initial idea. I don't sketch anything and definitely don't aim to create anything visibly recognizable, i.e. a person, a house, a tree. I just choose a color I like. I quite enjoy adding that first dash of color on a blank canvas. It's similar to when you first lift the silk screen after pulling the paint through the stencil. "Aah, look how it has changed, there's a mark now! How fun!" This little initial mark of paint creates an energy or perhaps more accurately, a stepping stone for the next mark. Should the next blob of paint be close or far away? Do they connect or is it all separate? It's like a dance. And soon enough the canvas is full and I have no more paint in the bucket, but plenty on my apron!