Category: Bow Valley, AB

 

 

It all started with the pumpkin.

I’d chosen it at the Farmer’s Market a few weeks back just for the ‘pretty’ of it. 

Now I wondered: How hard would it be to paint?
On a bright Saturday morning, the first of October, I sat at the kitchen table with my watercolors and found out!  

 

 

Ha! It turned out a little squashed, but it became the first in a series of daily images to capture all the days of October…

On the second of October I found a tiny goblet at the thrift store to use as a vase…

 

On the third, Jim’s birthday black forest cake was the feature.

 

It was challenging!

 

So Day 4 I scaled back, looking closely at just one stem of grass from the edge of the yard…

On the fifth of October we had our first dusting of snow making even the stump in the yard look picturesque and highlighting the rosy remains of wild rose leaves…

It’s getting COLD for riding tandem but lobster gloves with their two-fingered hands kept our fingers toasty warm on the sixth.

Melting snow on the tandem tarp just outside the window made for a great opportunity to try painting water drops on the seventh.

We  took in an art show in Banff the next evening. It was our first time to stroll the streets of Banff by street light.  Standing at one of Banff’s unique all-sides-cross-at-once crosswalks waiting for the light to turn, I snapped this view. It was a chance to work with perspective and architecture…Ironically the exhibit we’d come to see was named, “No Visible Horizon”.

The ninth was Canadian Thanksgiving Sunday.  We opted for A & W since the turkey was still frozen and we hadn’t anybody to eat it with anyway.

The burger was good and the bright cup was a keeper.

On the tenth I enjoyed a snowy stroll around the neighborhood and most especially the remaining brilliance of aspen color.

 

While I painted it from an image on my phone I listened to an excellently narrated and intriguing book–Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski.  I commend it to you if you enjoy fiction that reads like non-fiction, anthropology, missionary stories and just enough mystery to keep you reading.

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This book comes to mind now when I see this picture.  Funny how art works.

On the eleventh, short of any idea what to paint, I drew the base of my favorite pencil holder,

an expensive Alaska souvenir handcrafted from some sort of beautiful bark.

At last the turkey was thawed and we had our own turkey dinner complete with homemade buns on the 12th.

On the thirteenth I went out for a walk, a bit glum that there was nothing eye-catching, until I saw the bright orange lichen on this rock beside the path.

Chocolate cravings on the fourteenth provided subject matter.  I LOVE almond M&M’s!   

A bit of bling I’d worn that day was poorly rendered on the fifteenth.

A tiny charm from a favorite necklace was greatly enlarged for the next day’s sketch.

And my follow-through seems to have fallen through on the 17th. The dogged daily-ness of this project began to feel daunting…

But on the eighteenth I turned left-over pizza dough into garlic knots as per a recipe in the most amazing bread cookbook ever!

 

Alas, the page was nearly full when a road trip interrupted and my commitment faltered…19, 20,21,22,23…

But on the 24th we were home and there was a leaf from our travels that made the page.

We’ve resigned ourselves to winter’s approach and with it the inability to get out on the tandem, so this was the week for buying a gym pass and getting at the weights…

Once you’ve skipped one day, it’s easier to skip some more but on the 28th, determined to fill the page out and finish well, I tried my hand at hard-boiled eggs (which we’d had for breakfast).

On the 29th we went to a craft fair in Banff and bought some Red Hot Habanero sauce for a surprise for someone we love who loves it.  It had such a lovely color that it seemed just the thing to add to the collage.

I also bought myself a toy—a darling wooden helicopter with cute wooden balls for wheels.  It reminded me of my dad and his skill with wood back in the days before Alzheimer’s incapacitated him.

And on the last day of October, I brought home a bouquet of flowers leftover from the community dinner.  Tired, and loathe to attempt a rose so late in the evening, I traced instead the silhouette of a leafy sprig as its shadow fell on the page.

 

…And so the page was filled, making October’s chaotic collage! 

And now it’s time to move on to a new challenge for November!

Thanks for sharing my month’s highlights.  What made October memorable for you?

–LS

O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Ps.90:14