Snowstorm Bonanza

Snowstorm Bonanza One 2013 Copyright 2013 Lorelei Walsh Park

 

Snowstorm Bonanza Two 2013 Copyright 2013 Lorelei Walsh Park

 

Snowstorm Bonanza Three 2013 Copyright 2013 Lorelei Walsh Park

St. John’s, Newfoundland and the Avalon Peninsula were hit by a major winter storm that brought 52 centimetres of snow and winds up to 121 kilometres per hour (that is hurricane force for the interested reader!).  These pics show what greeted me, my husband and two kids when we opened the front door at about 8 am January 11.   It actually was another foot higher by noon when we ventured outside to start shovelling and snow blowing the snow from our driveway.  After three and a half hours of grueling work ( and play for the kids), we came in looking forward to a hot meal and were faced with a power outage.  We were equipped with a good emergency kit though and were still able to make a great meal and had hot chocolate and tea to finish it off.  As we have electric heat, our house started to get pretty cold by about 830pm and we were all in bed by 930pm to stay warm.  We slept like logs!  Hope you enjoy the pictures and keep warm out there!

 

 

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Giving Thanks With Gratitude

Giving Thanks Detail 1 Copyright 2012 Lorelei Walsh Park

 

Giving Thanks Detail 2 Copyright 2012 Lorelei Walsh Park

 

Giving Thanks Detail 3 Copyright 2012 Lorelei Walsh Park

 

Giving Thanks Copyright 2012 Lorelei Walsh Park

 

 

St. John’s City Has Been Sold

This work has found a new home in Toronto, Ontario!! Woohooo!!!!

I am over the moon!!  The work has arrived safely and has found a new home in Upper Canada.  The owner is thrilled with the work and I am very happy to know that it now is making another family who is far from home feel just a little closer to the land they love.  Enjoy and keep making art!!

Moving Day

We are getting ready to move from the house we’ve lived in for almost 9 years to a new place (rented for now) in Newfoundland.  Our house is still unsold, ergo the rented house, and we are hopeful it sells soon, but alas, we had to go.  Farewell to Fredericton and hello to St. John’s, Newfoundland!  Starting a new job on September 10…lots of new things but it is where I was born and raised and as so many of us often do…it is time to go home.  Enjoy your day and keep making art!!!

Me and Paul Klee

Me and Paul Klee Copyright 2011 Lorelei Walsh Park

As I prepare to depart on my moving adventure, the statistics I have kept over the last nine years have become important for my next job post.  This work started as a Venn diagram so I thought I’d show this one today in the spirit of adventure and stats.  I bet you that has never been said before.  Enjoy, think about your stats every now and then and keep making art!

Watercolourist Wears Tibetan Shoes

can you tell I’m having fun! Copyright 2012 Lorelei Walsh Park

Well then, this one has a long story.  The shoe itself was drawn in pencil on a summer evening in 2011.  Then, I covered it in gold acrylic paint and began to drop watercolour drops all over it!  I was in my fun zone for sure.  Then….it sat for a long time…months really, and since I always keep most of my unfinished works “in view” and ” on my mind” I was in my studio one night and it just called out to me.  I grabbed my Tibetan Art book by Lokesh Chandra and began flipping through looking for something to inspire an adornment of the shoe.  I found this fabulous colour and “painted frame” around some of the works in this book.  The interesting pattern on the shoe was discovered on a painting of a rather disturbing looking “minister” who is ruthless to his enemies.  I wonder how he would feel about me using this pattern on a shoe!  Regardless, the work you see here was born.  Hope you enjoy it, rifle through your art books to see what you stumble across and keep making art!

A Love Affair With Trees?

as seen looking up from the lanai on the rear of the house

While on vacation this year, I really developed a love for the trees.  They are so very different form the ones here  and , maybe this was an added bonus, I didn’t have my usual allergic reactions to the trees there like I have here.  So you may wonder if that means I’m moving.  No, not anytime soon anyway and I don’t think it will be to Florida.  The trees there were fabulous, my favourite was a tree with a greyish sort of truck and it was covered in pink blossoms, similar to an apple tree but much more delicate and with a lily of the valley sort of shape.  Oddly enough, I was usually driving when I saw them so couldn’t photograph or draw one.  I did paint the palm above which, a few moments later  was accosted by my husband with a long stick and a machete in an attempt to remove a coconut.  Poor thing.  Quite hilarious though.  I hope you enjoy the watercolour (again completed in less than or close to 15 minutes..tried hard to stick to that).  I have also included some photographs of other interesting trees….one of which was extremely interesting!  Enjoy, thank you to the trees and my fellow blogger vinyleraser for this tree inspiration.  As always…..keep making art!

the tree I painted!

yes, I have evidence of the entire coconut removal attempt

this one had a really leathery red trunk..see below

here is that red leathery trunk

I believe this is a Royal Palm

Watercolourist Sketches While Discussing Archetypes

Another conference inspired watercolour journal work and drawings!  Yes, I like to draw/sketch too!  Not near as beautiful as some of the drawings I have seen by people who post daily drawings or doodles but my sketching attempts nonetheless from power points shown for a minute or two!  The images are mine based on the quotes being discussed with the exception of my Plato sketch attempt (it was almost complete when the speaker took down the slide:().   Coincidentally, a frined of mine just today said something very similar to the Buddha quote below.  I thought this was timely…he discussed the river, sometimes riding the raft and sometimes watching it pass you by, but thought that if you were riding the raft, you might as well enjoy it!  He had no idea of my post tonight nor what it included.  Funny how those things happen sometimes.   We’re all interconnected.

The words on the watercolour page are those of James Hillman, the troubadour of ” a psychology of archetypes”  Here they all are, enjoy and keep making art!

narrative, thera, layers, tending, anime mundi, psyche, soul, sufi, gods, serve

The soul must help the souless..Plato

Once you reach the shore, leave the raft behind..Buddha

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Watercolourist Prepares for Two Weeks Away

Well folks, I’ll be away for the next two weeks or so and have been frantically trying to get all my posts scheduled whilst I am away. I am going to a beautiful place called Marco Island in Southwest Florida.  It is a lovely place and we go there yearly!  I also get a chance to visit with my mother as well and am very much looking forward to seeing her.  You will notice that I am still posting but will only be able to respond to comments when I manage to find a wireless hotspot, likely their local Starbucks.  I will post previously completed works (paintings and drawings) completed over the last few years and upon my return I hope to have a new crop of work and great photographs to blog about.  My work tonight includes photos of my completed watercolour journal and a photograph taken from one beach of another beach in Marco Island, that juts out further into the Gulf of Mexico.  Just another day and I’ll be there.  Enjoy, wish me luck, keep visiting me virtually and, of course, keep making art!

just the beginning

 

just the ending

 

I always start reading from the back!

 

open the cover and the learning begins!

 

not my first bound book of work but I am just as proud of it as I am of the others!

 

my first but not my last

 

 

 

beautiful Blue Gulf of Mexico!

Watercolourist Finds Poetry

Today’s journal page was started a few days ago at my watercolour journal class.  The technique is called Found Poetry and comes from Quinn McDonald’s book of Raw Art Journaling.  The how to:  find an old book at a discount store, tear out a page (my apologies to my fellow book lovers, this also was difficult for me at first), and then paint over , blot out, or otherwise cover in some creative manner all words except those words and/or phrases that call to you in some way.  You then create an interesting background on the page and there you have it, your Found Poetry journal page.  My page was most giddily torn from  a book entitled Cleopatra, apologies but I didn’t take note of the author, perhaps this gave me some sense of atonement for tearing up the book.

My found poetry reads like this:

Illicit Affairs: for talk is evil, difficult to bear,  once many people talk it up: It too is some god. 

Cleopatra turned thirty-five accumulating good fortune, most auspicious of her reign, ingeniously solved

To her friendship tamed a surge of popularity. the revenues flowed in, 

Damascus

Beirut

Tripoli

She had made good, simultaneously safeguarding and supplementing monarchs in wealth

The abundance..his sumptuous palace.

Enjoy, go find some poetry and keep making art!

Found Poetry Copyright 2012 Lorelei Walsh Park