Big News!!

So...alot of exciting things have been happening in my life lately-amazing opportunities have been cropping up all over the place. Here's one I want to share with you:

I am teaching a journal making workshop 

at Delish General Store  on Granville Island! 

Ex Libris Journal Workshop Sample

Yes indeed, owner Tamara Komuniecki will be hosting my Ex-Libris Journal workshop on Saturday, May 2nd at her beautiful store. I am really excited to be partnering with her and spending the day at one of my favourite places in Vancouver! We will spend a full day together and I will be sharing how to transform an old book into an amazing and unique journal to capture your thoughts and art. It's a wonderful way to make some time and space just for you and to meet others who love journals as much as you do-it's always wonderful to meet kindred spirits!

For more information click here and to register, click here.
Hurry as space is limited!

You can also get a peek at another of my journals made using the techniques you will be learning in class here. The book I used to create my 2015 journal is 101 years old! It's a really wonderful way to give an old book a new and wonderful life and it saves it from going into the landfill!

I hope to see YOU there!

Exciting News: October Workshops!

Hi Everyone! I am super excited to share with you that I will be teaching 2 workshops in October at the beautiful and fabulous 100 Braid St. Studios! I am really looking forward to getting back into the classroom. I hope to see YOU there! 

Spark Your Creativity Inspiration Deck

Date: Friday October 17th & Friday November 7th, 2014

Location: 100 Braid St. Studios, New Westminster
Time: 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm   

Workshop Fee: $85

 Let’s face it: as creatives, we all have times when we’re starving for inspiration! A few years ago, artist I hosted a project with friends to create a deck of cards with all sorts of creative tips and tricks to help reignite the spark of creativity during times when it feels like it's gone out. I'm delighted to now share this with new friends.  This two part class will offer you the opportunity to tap into the collective wisdom of your fellow classmates to create a unique deck of cards that you can shuffle through any time you need an inspiration pick-me-up. 

 The first class will cover collage and composition techniques and I will give specific instructions on creating and copying the cards you create. This class will also have some creative time together to begin working on your cards. Between sessions you will have time to create additional cards.  In the second class, you will bring your copied cards and assemble them, create a pretty bag for your deck and have a trading session with fellow students. 

 Supply List will be sent to you via email after registration. 

Limited to 12 people so I can give you personal attention.

Register for Spark Your Creativity Inspiration Deck Workshop

*****

Ex-Libris Journal Workshop 

Date: Saturday, October 25th, 2014 

Location: 100 Braid St. Studios, New Westminster

Time: 12:00 pm-4:00 pm   

Workshop Fee: $80 

 Do you love books? Love paper? Love to journal? Then this workshop is for you! Learn how to take an old cast-off book and turn it into a cool and unique handmade journal using a basic book binding technique and a variety of recycled papers from your stash. This is a chance to finally use some of the “good stuff” you’ve been saving for just the right project. 

 Warning: This method of journal making is highly addictive! Betcha can’t make just one! 

 Supply List will be sent to you via email after registration. 

Limited to 8 people so I can give you personal attention. 

Age 18+

Register for Ex-Libris Workshop


*NOTE: I have added a workshop page up top just under my blog banner, so when this post is archived, you will still be able to access workshop information quickly and easily.

Buried Treasure 2014

My friend Seth Apter's annual Buried Treasure blog event is today, so I dug back into the archives (no mean feat when your blog is almost 10 years old!) to come up with this post that tells of a unique adventure I had while teaching mixed media, back in September of 2007. Without further ado, here's Adventures in Teaching!

Be sure to check out the other links on Seth's blog today-you'll discover a whole host of new blogs to love!

Currently

Creating: 

My creative time is taken up with designing workshops right now. Yes, you read correctly-after a long hiatus, I am excited to announce that I'm about to return to teaching mixed media workshops! An opportunity came along that works perfectly for me, so I decided to go for it. I've missed teaching-I really love seeing the joy my students experience when they embrace their own creativity. I'll be sharing more about where and when I'll be teaching once I have all the details ironed out. Stay tuned!

Reading: 

Right now I am working my way through James Patterson's Murder Club Series. I caught up on his Alex Cross series over the winter and this one is equally as good. I've been reading it as e-books, which I love because it means less running back and forth to the library.

Watching: 

In between books, I am watching Game of Thrones, (which is deliciously good!) Nurse Jackie, Deadliest Catch and I just started watching Orphan Black. I tend to do more reading than TV watching in the summer-I find the summer is a TV wasteland. 

I have also been watching lots of documentaries. The best one I've seen lately is called Mile...Mile & a Half. It's about hiking the John Muir Trail and the scenery is spectacular. If you are an artist, a journaler, a photographer, a hiker, a musician or an adventurer, this documentary is for you. You can find it on Netflix.
Here's a peek at the trailer:

Listening: 

New on my iTunes play list rotation:

A House is a Home-Ben Harper & Ellen Harper

Details in the Fabric-Jason Mraz

Hearts on Fire-Passenger

Maybe-Ingrid Michaelson

Dreaming:

We're planning a trip to Whistler in the fall. A few months ago, I won a weekend stay at our favourite hotel, Summit Lodge & Spa. We're celebrating our 24th wedding anniversary at the end of October, so this is going to be an early anniversary trip. We're going in the early fall because we're working around weather-we want to be there while it's still warm enough to sit out on restaurant patios to eat and to have good hiking weather, since we're taking Indy with us. I am going to look into what adventures we might do while we're up there. We've already ruled out zipline and Peak to Peak, since my husband is not a fan of heights. I am sure we'll be able to agree on something exciting to do. I adore Whistler-I love being right in the heart of the mountains. It feeds my soul.

Time Well Spent

I spent the day yesterday working on Gelli plate prints with Penn. The first day of Autumn was a windy and wet one, so it was the perfect day to be holed up in the studio with a good friend, creating.

As you can see in the photo on the left, I created quite the stack. There were thirty one 8 1/2 x 11 sheets and then about a dozen book pages that I used to clean my brayer off on in between prints. Nothing goes to waste! The print on the right was my most favourite of the day.

I also really love the one on the right. 

These ones are more subtle. They kind of remind me of Basic Grey, which is my favourite paper arts company.

I have also been working on Roben Marie Smith's You've Got Mail Art class. I haven't been doing the projects so much as working on technique right now. Don't get me wrong-the projects are great-I just want to focus on developing a looser style right now. I've been using what Roben Marie teaches to experiment in doing that.

These are four pieces where I just used card stock as my substraight:

I will probably take them to colour copy when I make copies of my gelli prints. I like to colour copy my originals so I can use them endlessly in future art projects.

I find these two particular ways of making art very relaxing. I just lay paint down and there's really no wrong way to do it. If I don't like something I've done, I simply paint over it. It's quite freeing.

Penn and I also spent some time looking at some zines from each other's collection. She just did a zine swap with her art group recently and I realized I really need to finish the zine I've been working on for some time now. I love making them, but they are a considerable amount of work. I tend to work on them in stages, so it takes months to put one together. I have the art created, I just need to decide what the content is going to be. (No mean feat!) My goal is to have Manual Dexterity 4 completed before I have hand surgery. I see the hand surgeon on Thursday and then I'll have a better idea if that's even possible. Here's hopin'!

Good Things

Copyright Lelainia Lloyd 2013

1. Friends who recommend good iPhone photo apps. After admiring Roben Marie's Instagram pics, I finally had to ask her what apps she's been using. AremaC does pretty things like I did to this simple photo I took at the PNE a few weeks ago. Love it!

2. Online art classes. After finding an unexpected windfall in my email yesterday morning, I decided to treat myself to Roben Marie's You've Got Mail Art class. I've been wanting to take it and decided now was as good a time as any, especially with the prospect of hand surgery looming. I doubt I'm going to be able to do much once that happens, so I'd better get my art fix NOW. I'm diving in today!

3. This video, by a local artist Bodhi Jones, shot at the corner of Granville and Broadway in Vancouver as one single, continuous shot.  If I remember correctly, he said in a recent interview he stood out there for 14 hours straight. It's amazing- see for yourself. (Be forewarned there's the occasional f-bomb in this song if you're easily offended.)

3. The gift of blue plums. We have friends who have a tree and last night my husband came home with a bag full of them. They are one of my most favourite things. YUM!

4. Volunteering. I decided to volunteer for the annual Terry Fox which is being held at Blue Mountain Park at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 15th. (This Sunday.) For those of you who don't know who Terry Fox is, the short story is he's a beloved Canadian hero. The long story is here. My husband knew Terry and his siblings-they went to school together. I am volunteering in my husband's honour. He was diagnosed with kidney cancer a year ago on September long weekend. My husband will be walking as a survivor on Sunday. If you are local please come join us-you can run, walk or wheel or just come to honour Terry's memory and legacy. Terry's sister Judith will be speaking. Need more details? You can find them here.

Good {Artsy} Things

Project 365 (January 10th, 2013)

I have so many good things to share with you!

The wonderful and quirky Mary Ann Moss is offering her Remains of the Day class at a winter sale price of $40! (Reg. $60) I took this online class a few years ago and the things I learned I still use on a regular basis today. It's hands down THE BEST journal/mixed media class I have ever taken and worth every penny. Click the Youtube link on the sidebar and you can see some of the journals I've made after taking this class. Mary Ann is also offering Full Tilt Boogie, another journal making class for $48. (Reg. $70)

My friend Tina and a couple of her friends, Celeste and Gwen have launched a new creative community, Tending the Fire. They are working on a new art zine, which will be available soon. Yay! If you want to stay in the loop, visit their website and sign up to subscribe to their blog posts. (It's free.)

My pal Seth is about to launch the latest edition of The Pulse. If you're an artist, this is your chance to weigh in on all sorts of art-related things. The questions are always interesting and revealing. Seth has also booked a ton of workshops around the US, so check the list-he may be coming to a city near you!

Photography genius, Vivienne McMaster has a new self-portrait e-course, Be Your Own Beloved which begins on Feb. 1st. In a recent post, she talked about her own evolution as a self-portrait photographer. One of her strengths as a teacher is that she is so encouraging and supportive about allowing you to begin where you are. You can be a rank beginner and still over the course of her classes turn out beautiful work. This is perfect gentle introduction into the world of self-portraits.

Meanwhile, back in my little corner of the world, my husband and I spent part of yesterday at the Gastown Old Spaghetti Factory being official taste testers for some new menu items they are working on. The food was crazy good and it was fun giving our feedback on each dish. I've never done something like that before, but thanks to watching a couple of seasons of Master Chef, I felt like I had some idea of the type of comments they would be interested in. We got to meet Chris, the manager, who is a super nice guy. If you're out and about in Vancouver, you should pop in for a bite. They're going to have some great new additions to their menu soon!

I am working on the presentation I am giving my UBC medical students next week. During our last session, the topic was my health journey and this time, it's about my life, outside of my diagnosis. This session will help them form a picture of me as not just a patient, but also as a person. I think this is a pretty important distinction. It's always important to me that my health care professionals recognize that I'm not just a set of symptoms, a problem to fix or a disease, but a living, breathing multi-faceted human being with feelings, dreams and a whole life I'm living outside of dealing with chronic illness and disability. I'm looking forward to presenting this side of things. I think it's going to generate some really interesting discussions.

I am also attending a Health Mentors' meeting next week, where I will get to give feedback on how the program is going so far. We're also going to talk about the symposium that my students and I will participating in in the spring and getting more information on what that will entail. I know that we'll be presenting and having the opportunity to hear the presentations of the other teams, but it will be good to get the specifics. We'll have some work to do!

In two weeks, I will be presented with the Queen's medal! I'm very excited and more than a little nervous-I really have no idea what to expect and no idea who will be there. It's all a bit mysterious. The one thing I do know is that I'll definitely have Kleenex in my pocket!

Diamond In The Rough

Diamond in the Rough

Just a quick post this morning to share this image I've created from a photo I shot on the Artful City walk on Saturday. Basically, it was a bunch of posters remnants on a wall. Layers had been created from things that had been hung, ripped down and posted over several times.

Some people see a mess. 

I see possibility. 

A photo, some time spent finessing, doing that voodoo I do and this is the result. I think this is one of my most favourite images yet.

A Bird in the Hand

  

Yesterday I went back to Gather for a second day, to take the workshop I won in their giveaway, Sublime Stitching with Leanne Prain. (Leanne is the one in the center of the photo, standing.) 

I've began my artistic life with quilting and needlework, but I haven't picked up a needle in over 5 years, since I lost all the feeling in my hands because of the damage to my spinal cord from MS. It's really difficult to perform fine motor skills, but I really wanted to meet Leanne and I really had nothing to lose.

Leanne is an accomplished author. She's just released Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery. I've read her first book, Yarn Bombing: The Art of Knit & Crochet Graffiti. It's a great book. Leanne is responsible for the yarn bombing movement here in Vancouver. I love yarn bombing-like traditional graffiti, it brings so much fun and texture to our city. I've even got an entire Pinterest board dedicated to it!

Penn joined me for an afternoon of stitching. She chose a couple patterns that reminded us both of Teesha Moore. As we were stitching and chatting, I was reminded how relaxing it is. (This is something you forget when you get busy doing other things.) Time was I never sat down to watch TV without having some handwork at the ready. I think I need to get back to that-I really do hate wasting time!

I chose this bird pattern to work on. Penn immediately commented on all the tiny lines I'd have to stitch, but I don't mind doing the nickety-pickety bits. Everyone was having so much fun, no one wanted to leave and they actually had to kick us out when it was time to set up for the next class! I think people really feel an affinity for the gentle arts-it's a chance to slow down and relax a bit.

I finished my bird last night while watching the Olympics. Not bad considering I cannot feel the needle in my hands! (Imagine trying to do something like this wearing a pair of oven mitts and you'll have some idea of the degree of difficulty.) I still need to press it and then decide how I'm going to finish it. In the meantime, I'm going to start another piece. I have days of Olympics viewing left yet and I might as well get something done while I watch!

All the patterns provided came from Sublime Stitching Embroidery, which has delightful and unexpected designs. They also have some great embroidery tutorials on their blog.

Thanks Leanne for a lovely afternoon! 

I think it's safe to say a good time was had by all!

Gather!

 A few weeks ago, when I volunteered to help with This is East Van's book launch and gallery open, I crossed paths with Cariann who invited me to an event she was putting on called Gather Pop Up Shop. It's an event that boasts some really wonderful art and unique handmade goods for sale, some great creative workshops plus a daily happy hour. It began on Friday, runs through the end of Sunday and then it's gone!

The venue is at the corner of Carrall and Cordova in Vancouver, on the edge of Gastown.

There are a bunch of brightly altered bikes parked out front, so the place is hard to miss.

Pretty windows!

Love this giant lantern!

These are the pop up girls-they rode around Vancouver on those crazy coloured bikes handing out free gourmet popsicles.

This is a really cool art installation inside the venue.

I signed up for an artful city walk workshop with Gabriel Carbrera. We poked around the nooks and crannies of the neighbourhood, taking photos. Most people were using their iPhones and Instagram. Gabriel shared lots of tips and tricks about using Instagram and a variety of apps.I don't own an iPhone (sadly) so I shot with my Rebel. (Which was fine with me!)

Part way though our walk, we popped into a local restaurant, Nelson the Seagull for a bite to eat.

There were expecting us and prepared most delicious bread I've ever tasted, along with homemade preserves and lemonade served in 1/2 pint Mason jars. I was so charmed by the prairie feel of this place. It felt like home to me. I'll most certainly be stopping by again.

I took a ton of photos, but it's going to be a day or so before I have time to work with them. I'll post some when I get a chance.

Yesterday, I also won a Gather goodie bag and a free workshop for a friend and I so tomorrow I'll be taking a stitchery class. I'll tell you all about it in my next post.

Catching Up

Boardwalk

In the interest of freshening thing up a bit, I give you my new blog header. Happily, there is a new, easier way to create them, so I may be inclined to do this a bit more often.

Things have been kind of quiet in the studio. I've mainly been writing material for a presentation I am making in about a week on crisis intervention and suicide prevention. Serious stuff! There's alot of information to relay in a short period of time, but I always love the opportunity to help empower others, especially when they are doing important work like this.

Meanwhile, the excitement is building for London 2012. As you can imagine, I am counting the days! It seems like just yesterday we were gearing up for the Games here in Vancouver. I watched the Americans' gymnastics trials last weekend. It was pretty intense-when people make mistakes, it's pretty spectacular. (And scary!) The balance beam always freaks me out-fall on that and you're going to clobber yourself!  I am very much looking forward to watching the Games obsessively.

 Vivienne has encouraged me to take my camera in for it's servicing. I am loathing the idea of letting it out of my sight, but I suppose I should do it sooner, rather than later, so it's all spiffy and ready to go for Whistler. I am so used to just grabbing it and shooting when the spirits move me that to not have it available for a few days seems like torture! I suppose I should just get it over with.

In other news, I had a lovely surprise arrive in the mail the other day. It was an honorarium for participating in the gallery show Dispelling the Myths: Disability & Art  at the Leigh Square Community Arts Village in May. It was completely unexpected. I'll probably treat myself to some new art supplies next week. Good karma is always welcome!

Double the Fun!

Yesterday I spent the day with these two lovely ladies, Carol & Vivienne, as well as another gal, Diana, downtown at Opus. Vivienne was teaching a free class on double exposures and brought a great assortment of vintage and toy cameras for us to play with.

I liked the vintage Polaroid best. There's a way to trick it into creating double exposure, fairly easily and I had fun testing it out. The photo above was my favourite photo of the bunch.

More experimenting...

Vivienne had thoughtfully put together a printed PDF for us to take home, so we'll have all the info for future reference.

This is an image I shot, using my own camera which is a DSLR. Viv explained how to set it to allow more light in and I shot several photos of her vintage cameras to see how best to capture them. I printed this out at home, using my beloved Pogo Printer, which is also made by Polaroid. The Pogo prints images business card size, with a sticky peel off backing, so you can print something and then slap it down in your journal. I LOVE how this image of the cameras came out all ghosty.

After we left, Carol and I did a super quick shoot of the neighbourhood. I just had to shoot this neon sign. I love old neon.

There's a new benchmark in my world for what a real friend is. A real friend is someone who when you say "Hey, want to go shoot photos in a filthy alley?" They say "YES!" with no hesitation. Carol is just such a friend and I love her for it! I took a ton of graffiti photos, which I look forward to working on this week. I adore graffiti. Funnily enough, when we were leaving Opus, a young guy was at the till buying $239 (on sale!) worth of premium spray paint. I was dying to know where he was going to use it, but I didn't ask.

Another cool thing about the Pogo, is that you can create double exposure really easily, simply by reinserting the print and reprinting on it. I layered an image of trees over the "Why" image, so you can see how effectively the Pogo reprints double exposures.

I also learned how to capture "faux" double exposures, by shooting windows and their reflections. This flower was painted on the window at Opus. The trees were the reflection.

A Pogo triple exposure. I was just playing around and wanted to see if it would develop three times in a row. It did! Not everything can or will turn out fabulous.  It's okay to experiment. Experimenting=learning!

Carol's posted her double exposures on her blog, if you'd like to take a peek.

THANK YOU Vivienne for a great class! Those two hours just flew by and I learned alot. Now I just have to find myself an old Polaroid to play with. I've already put some feelers out to a couple family members I think might have one collecting dust. *fingers crossed*

Light Hunters & Photography

 I've been busy the last few days viewing the world through the lense of my Rebel. Light Hunters began on Canada Day, which was great because I was out and about the entire day with no shortage of things to shoot.

The image above was one of the first I shared with our class. It's simple, but I like the way the light plays off the clouds.

I shot this one on Canada Day as well, but couldn't resist playing with it.



I'm still enjoying shooting self-portraits ala Wading In. This is from yesterday, after I had my hair cut. I keep shooting photos of myself because I find it engaging to keep exploring what I am capable of and to see what else I can learn about who I am. It seems like an odd paradox that in focusing on what's on the outside, I am afforded glimpses of what's on the inside.

I'm printing the self-portraits I have created as I go along with the idea that by the end of the year, I will have a really wonderful documentation not only of a year in my life, but also of the journey that I've taken in exploring a new medium. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of creating a body of work that is uniquely me.

"There is only one you for all time. Fearlessly be yourself."

~Anthony Rapp

Thinking About Creativity

Goodness! Is it February already?! Hard to believe we're already into the second month of the year. It's a busy time here in my studio. February, has traditionally been a popular month for workshops for me and I am teaching three in the next two weeks.

I've been making art, but a good chunk of it has been for publication so I can't share it just now. I've also been busy writing, which I love to do. Speaking of writing, it's come to my attention that before too long, I will reach my 1000th post! Can you believe it? When I started this blog, blogging wasn't as mainstream as it is now. Incredibly, that was just 4 years ago! How quickly things change. I'll have to think up something special for my 1000th post when the time comes.

A few weeks ago, a friend pointed me towards an online video of a talk given by Rice Freeman Zachary on Google Authors. It's here and you might want to check it out. Essentially she talks about her experiences with interviewing other artists about creativity for her book, Living the Creative Life . I was interested in what she had to say so I ran the video while I was working in my studio and listened.

One thing she talked about was how one artist said he felt that everyone was creative and that he feels creativity gets expressed through whatever each person's gift happens to be. I started thinking about it, turning that idea over and over in my mind like a small pebble and the more I thought about it, the more I agreed. I thought about it like this:

One of my favourite movies of all time is Apollo 13. The reason I love the movie so much is that when the space ship gets in trouble, the NASA engineers have to use their deductive reasoning and problem solving skills to figure out how to get the astronauts back safely. Every time I watch that movie, I am awed that men who have never been in space can figure out exactly what to do. It's fancy mathematics that I couldn't even begin to understand-I'm an artist after all, not a rocket scientist, but those guys worked the problem and somehow managed to solve it. It boggles my mind.

When I think about that movie, I see the creativity of science and I have to agree that this is creativity being expressed in the way that these men were gifted. We always think of science as such a left brain thing. Science and math are not traditionally what we would think of as creative-they don't involve paint or prose, music or stage lights, but it's creativity just the same.

I love architecture and I have often wondered why that is. Now I realize that it's because it's the genius of both the mathematical and artistic world coming together to create something of both beauty and integrity. One of my own personal heroes is Leonardo Da Vinci and there is no more perfect example of both the left and right brain thinking. That man was creative with every fibre of his being. He was fuel by an insatiable curiosity about the world and he never stopped wondering "What if...".

I haven't read Rice's book yet-I have to track down a copy, but I thought I would mention her video because you might enjoy it as much as I did. Happy viewing!

Juicy Layers

Hello! I'm back. It's been a busy week of preparing a workshop for the kids at Banting Middle School which I taught yesterday. 52 kids over two classes! It was loud, crazy, messy and FUN!

Here is some of the work they did-some are completed, some will be finishing up on Monday.

Look at the juicy layers in this one-gorgeous!

I love the colour combination in this one. Very aquatic.



COOL!!

The light wasn't great, but this one is metallic copper.

Paintings in the window to dry.

Great colours-I love to see other people's use of colour. I always learn something.


This one reminds me of an old wall with layers of paint peeling off.

I thought this was cool.

This one was one I didn't see in progress-someone cut their canvass down and did their hand print but I adore this one. I think it belongs in a frame. The layers are fantastic and the colours are amazing!!

The kids were absolutely fearless in just laying the layers down. Glue and paint were flying everywhere! (No lie!) Amazingly, at the end, the art room was spotless.

At the end of the day, I stopped at Starbuck's on the way home-I was dying of thirst. I tried verbalising my order, but my brain and my mouth were not communicating properly. Eventually I managed to get my order out. I explained to the guy who was serving me that I had just spent the whole day working with 52 kids, making art and my brain was tired. When he rang up my order, he told me my drink was on him! Isn't that sweet? I thought that was just the nicest thing ever!

And of special note today, two of my most favourite people on the planet are celebrating their birthdays today. My son is celebrating his 17th birthday and it is also my sweet friend Anna's birthday as well! Happy birthday dear ones and thank you for blessing my life!

Happy birthday also to the Dalai Lama. June 6th is an auspicious day to be born on!