Olympics - Curling

Curling! I love curling!



This is a shot from the first of 3 curling games my family attended during the olympics... The 2nd page is Team Canada (Martin's rink) playing Team Sweden. (Norway is right beside them).
Later I will upload some video of the practice runs from this game.

Also congratulations to Team Martin and Team Bernard for excellent showings at the games (gold and silver respectivly).

Olympics - Vancouver

Two years ago tickets for the Vancouver olympics went on sale. My family was lucky enough to get a few and made plans to attend. It feels like I have been planning on this forever, and giving people the most advanced notice I have ever given.
Mary and I found a place to rent in the west end - close to downtown and arranged extra event tickets.
Vancouver was amazing. It was like April or May. Trees and flowers blooming and warm enough to just wear a light coat.



It really was magical to be there and to be there with my family.
In the next few days I plan on putting together my photos from the trip but for now here is some early spring.



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Taking advantage of Beaconsfieldville

I must admit, I love living where I live. My neighbourhood is full of cafes and bars and art galleries. On any given night there is a plethora of things to do. I don't often take advantage of this-even when I know my house is around the corner and if I'm bored I can easily go home. Thankful (luckily? covienently? serendipitously?) my good friend Connie now works across the street from my apartment, so we can attend events together.

Last Friday we attended Powerpoint Karaoke.





What is Powerpoint karaoke you ask... Well basically it's where people improv speaches to match a series of PowerPoint slides they have never seen.

Overall analysis: funtimes!
On closer inspection: these things are better when they are less self-aware... Too much irony and too many hipsters (of which I would probably have to count myself).
I would have enjoyed more random slides.. Though I really did love the talk on grammar.

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Freelancing, freelancing, freelancing

Lungs, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Man! I was busy at the end of last year. It was good, flexing the little drawing muscle I have but it was a bit much.. a lot of running around trying to meet deadlines.
All in all I'm pretty pleased with what I accomplished.
The above shot is a a surfactant secreting cell that I drew as part of an illustration of the inner workings of the lung during development. I was nervous about the comic style but I think it turned out quite well.

The action of Warfarin, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I also worked on a method of action illustration which was fun.. I kinda channeled the text books form my biochemistry days.

Ted Harrison Exhibit Kids guide, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Finally I got to do some work for Mary. These last two are kids guides for upcoming shows.
The one above is so cool - an exhibit of the original painting Ted Harrison did for the Cremation of Sam McGee and the Shooting of Dan McGrew... it's on in West Vancouver from Feb 9 to March 5th at the Ferry Building Gallery

this is from the front and back cover -- the dude is supposed to be Robert Service.

The one below is a paper doll illustrating some different outfits of the native people of the north...
This one accompanies an exhibit of Dolls for the Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver..


It was fun not having to be so strict with proportion and scale.. and the clothing is just so pretty...
also I am now skilled at drawing fur.. kinda

Paper Doll - Outfits from the North, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

CATS LET NOTHING DARKEN THEIR ROAR - January

January, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I have too many calendars. I do. But when I saw this one last year I had to have it. It's a Scandinavian typography calendar. Each month has a different phrase that spells out the month's name. I love it.

As a little challenge, to get me drawing more, I've decided to draw the phrase each month...

As you can see it's Jan 31st so this one took a while.. the idea and drawing didn't take too long to put together once I decided that the bunnies would not be pink. It is early for cherry blossoms, in fact it's snowing right now, but I am reminded of the Christmas card Mary got for me. She found some cards that brownies were selling at a Christmas bazaar... the outside said merry christmas and inside it said Spring is bound to come!.... so great!

Hikes...

Dune grass - Radar Beach, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

The best thing, besides seeing my family, about being back in BC is the access to the outdoors. The thing I miss about living in Vancouver is that you can hop on a city bus and be in the woods in 30 minutes. The green space in Toronto and the east is quite different from BC. I find myself missing the mountains and rain forest quite a bit when I am in Toronto.

Top of Radar.. looking towards Tofino, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Part of the time I was back for Christmas my good friend Karen was in town as well. Karen is like me, grew up in Tofino and moved away for school, she now lives in London and works for the World Health Organization (I am amazed sometimes at the talent and accomplishments of my friends). One of the days before Christmas we decided to hike down to Radar Beach. The hike is a bit different from normal ones as you drive up to the top of Radar and hike down( and then hike back up). Radar Hill is so named because it was a lookout for invading armies from Asia during the war. Most of the grand views of the Pacific have grown over with trees (Radar Hill is now part of Pacific Rim National Park) but the view towards Tofino is still lovely I think. It turned out to be the perfect day to hike down... It started raining boxing day.

Radar Beach, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Christmas, New Years and Resolutions

Incense burner, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I'm not a person who's big into making resolutions.. mostly because I have a hard time keeping them. But as always I thought I'd try. so here is it, my resolution for 2010... 52 blog entries.. that is one for every week in the year. Note that I did not say 1 every week... though that, ultimately will be the aim. so 23 days into the new year I am starting... sounds about right.

As a note this little dude is a German incense burner that my mom got on our family trip to the Maritimes. You put a little cone of incense in the body and he "smokes", though this picture it kinda looks like his souls is escaping! The first time we did this we let the whole cone burn down and the house stunk! the next time we restricted mom to a short time .. and cracked a window.