Creativity Challenge - Week 26

Blog 26

The past week was dedicated to spending time with my extended family who visited us for my daughter’s graduation events. Nevertheless, I managed to squeeze in some creative time.

On June 22, I went to a Glass Fusion Workshop at Da Artisti Studio & Gallery that was organized by Arteast for its members. It was a lot of fun to learn something new and to work with a new material. Wendy Canci, the gallery owner and a very talented glass artist, guided us through the process of creating a dish and a pendant by layering glass. I can hardly wait to see the finished products after they have been heated in a kiln to fuse the glass pieces together.

As my family already knows that I have a hard time sitting still without giving my hands something to do, they already expect me to pick up my latest project. As my two year old niece came for her first visit, I had moved all my felting equipment away. As it is easy for an adult to prick themselves with the felting needle in a moment of inattentiveness, I did not want to take any chances with my niece. Instead, I worked on catching up with my temperature shawl that I had neglected for weeks. I am still 2.5 weeks behind, but you can finally see more of the spring/summer colours. It is hard to believe that I am almost halfway done with my shawl. If you look carefully, you will see that I had to improvise again with some of the colours where my original ball of wool was not sufficient, which is okay because you can find a lot of colour variations in nature. 

On the day of my daughter’s garden party and prom, I managed some sketches at the hairdresser’s and during a visit to a restaurant. The one of my father-in-law was especially challenging as my father-in-law wears glasses and moved a lot. I worked on this sketch again at home. I also spent a couple of minutes sketching a couple of small Begonias from a flower bed in front of the movie theatres while waiting for my friend. The sketch was just a little exercise to fill the waiting time. However, every little sketch helps to sharpen your observational skills.

 Finally, I found some time to finish my 9” x 12” acrylic painting “Three Poppies” from my plein air outing two weeks ago. I added some extra paint on the petals of the flowers to make them stand out.

I also spent some time writing my latest newsletter. If you like my blogs and would like to receive some more information about upcoming workshops and exhibitions as well as news about my activities, I invite you to subscribe to my monthly newsletter that is published on the last Wednesday of the month. You can subscribe on the bottom of every page on my website www.KerstinPeters.ca.

Next week, you will finally be able to read the blog about my discussion with fiber artist Anne Warburton about “Creating Art with Groups”. The blog is accompanied by a couple of video clips.

For now, I wish all of you a Happy Canada Day! Enjoy the wonderful summer weather and spend some Me-time, either exploring some of the many activities that are offered or relaxing in your favourite spot.