bird love

So,  this post is kind of a mish-mash of things.  But the theme that draws them all together is the fact that I love birds.  And I don't mean that I love having pet birds, because I don't believe I've ever had any, but I am kind of obsessed with watching birds in flight, and the delicateness of their forms.  It puts me in a trance when I see all the starlings swooping up and down in sync with one another, and I love watching geese fly south for the winter.  For a long time I had planned to do a massive installation piece of a few hundred paper cranes, wired to the ceiling to look like a flock of little birds.  It never happened because life happens and people get too busy to make hundreds of paper cranes for an installation that might never have a gallery spot anyway.  I still love the idea though.  So while I might not be slaving over origami birds so much anymore, I still love to paint them, and find pieces of jewelry that feature them.  Also, strangely enough, this post has nothing to do with my love of owls, which is a whole other obsession.  

The necklace (perched so nicely in Edwina, by semp plant) is from Glory Jewelry Designs. I love it, even though I am sadly allergic to the back of it.  I had to cover it in a few layers of clear nail polish.  The watercolours are by me, and are ACEO sized, and then I experimented with origami sparrows, and painted them to look like real sparrows...sort of.

The first and last images are from the ROM.  In case you're wondering they are not living birds, unfortunately.  The lace birds are a brooch that I picked up from an adorable little antique shop in Stratford, Ontario.  According to the woman working there, the brooch is made from Belgian lace, which is no longer being made.  I don't know if that's actual fact, but even if it's not, it's one of my new favourite pieces to wear.

the rockton world's fair

So, last Sunday on the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, Luke took me to the Rockton World's Fair.  I'd never been, although I've been to other smaller fairs, as well as the CNE (which is more commercial fair than country fair though).  I'm not really an outdoorsy sort of person, but Luke used to go all the time, and he wanted to take me, and who was I to say no?  It turned out to be pretty fun, although the light was fading fast, so some of my shots didn't turn out exactly the way I had hoped they would.  Also, I found the cutest dress at a thrift store the day before, which just screamed "WEAR ME TO THE FAIR!", but we forgot to take pictures of it.  Ah well.  I'm sure it'll show up on the blog sooner or later.

I'd have to say that the animals were my favourite part of the whole day.  This is only a glimpse of them, but there were sheep, different types of cows, horses, miniature horses, llamas, alpacas, all types of farm birds, and rabbits (including hilarious angora rabbits).  The goats were awesome though, because they were super friendly, and just wanted to be scratched.  So did the cow in the last picture -- and oh my gosh, I couldn't help but snap a picture of that gentleman, because he seemed to genuinely care about that cow.  And it looked like the cow was enjoying it too, because she was wagging her tail and getting into that scratch behind the ears!

A little known fact about me is that I used to take horse back riding lessons, and I was actually not terrible at it.  I had to stop though, right about the time I would have started competing (in English riding, not Western like you see above), because my grandma decided to stop paying for lessons.  Nevertheless, I still love horses, and I literally took upwards of three hundred pictures of the course of about three hours of all the horse competitions at the fair.  I was pretty impressed with the quality of images, considering I was just using my 18-55mm kit lens.  Isn't that miniature horse the cutest though?  Everyone in the stands was 'awww'ing over it.

Fairs seem to just come alive at night, don't they?  Everything looks more exciting when the lights are flashing.  I just love how retro everything looks.  I hope fairs never change (except for the prices...twenty bucks for two people to ride a ferris wheel?  Puh-lease).

And as promised, here's a couple wallpapers!

This last one is of a relative of Luke's.  He was competing in the figure eight race, and I just love how this shot turned out.

autumn colours: aka the cop out post

This past weekend was the Canadian Thanksgiving (if anyone didn't know), so as you can imagine, I wasn't really able to sit down and write some posts (although I did plan a couple...in my head).  Although I technically have one more post for the ROM series, I'll be combining it with another post, because I'd like to share my shots of the Rockton World's Fair, as well as my day trip with Luke to the university I went to.  For now, I leave you with a picture of some pretty autumn colours (quite possibly my favourite colour pallet of all time).


Cheers all!


P.S. I know I missed TWO Wallpaper Wednesdays.  I'll make it up to you, I promise.  I'll include a couple wallpapers with my next few posts -- including this one!  Click on the picture above if it appeals to you as a desktop background. :)

The ROM: China and Japan

First of all, I'd like to apologize for my minor absence.  Things have been hectic over here (rehearsals for the show I'm stage managing, doctor's appointments, popping about town to see friends -- you know how it is).  But I promised you a post on the Chinese and Japanese exhibit from the ROM, so here it is!  Although this is the third post in the series, it was actually the first exhibit we saw, and it's always one of my favourites (I have a lot of favourites though).  The statues are so expressive, and I also love the stylization.  It was too bad that the prints didn't photograph nicely, because Japanese art is really stunning.  I realized as I was putting together the post that I left out pretty much all of the pottery, but I'm more of a figural sculpture kind of gal anyway.

Doesn't it look like those two are having a good conversation?

wallpaper wednesday

I'm afraid this week's Wallpaper Wednesday isn't really up to par.  I didn't want to miss another one though, so I sifted through my photos over the past month or so to find something at least partially worthwhile.  But look forward to the Asia part of my ROM series coming up this week!

(I threw in the picture of the grinning dino because I just think he's adorable.)

The ROM: Dinos

Luke and I had never actually been through the dinosaur exhibit, and really I had no excuse because I've been to the ROM close to a dozen times.  But it really is amazing and awe inspiring to look at these skeletons, some of which are so massive that it's impossible to fit it into your shot (with an 18-55mm kit lens anyway).  I was also one of those kids that watched the original Land Before Time until the VHS tape pretty much wore out, so I couldn't help but think, "Oh it's Littlefoot!  Ducky!  Cera!  Petrie!  Spike!"  I also loved how most of the fossils seemed to be smiling, and I don't know if that was on purpose on the part of the museum or not, but I loved it either way.

wallpaper wednesday returns

I may have almost forgotten about Wallpaper Wednesday this week, so I had to scramble to look through my photos to find some that are suitable.  I am pretty much in love with old paper textures.

Note:  With the new layout, click on the image, and then click on the link written in white underneath it.  That'll take you to the full size version.  Also, if anyone is wondering, that is not a real key (unfortunately).  I bought it at the Black Creek Pioneer Village to hang on my wall (there are two others on the ring).