Blog-free Week

More than ten weeks have passed since my fall. I have started to walk with a cane, and I am thankful for the increase in mobility. I continue with my daily physio exercises to regain my strength and flexibility. Since the fall, my overall endurance has decreased. I still have a way to go, but I am optimistic that I can walk and paint outside by April.


In the meantime, I have worked on some interesting new projects. The first project is the full-day virtual Frucht, Fun & Fizz Retreat on March 26, 2022. I want to invite you to join me and my friend Helena Guzmán to relax, play and learn.


Get your art supplies and kitchen apron ready, and join us as we immerse ourselves in a day of Food • Culture • Art • Creative Wellness activities, self-care and meal planning strategies in the comfort of your own home.

We are pleased to share with you activities for Meditation, Learning German Through Art, prep for four delicious Featured Recipes, Needle Felted Painting & Component Meal Planning Strategies.

Reasons to attend the full-day retreat are:

• You enjoy creativity and need or want to express how you are feeling.
• You want to relax with like-minded supportive people and have fun.
• You want to explore new ways to feel better and make daily life easier and more fun.

The early bird price of CAN $87 expires on February 28, 2022, at midnight ET, and I want you to have a chance to take advantage of it if you are interested in joining us.


For more information, click here.

Creativity Challenge - Week 19

my lotus flower from the retreat

Blog 19

It is time for my new blog. I had a very busy week, but still was able to carve out many moments of creativity.

It all started with my “Painting with a Palette Knife” workshop on Friday. The two participants had a great time and were quite successful in using the knife to create texture.

all three images are unfinished, mine is the one on the left

In the evening, I went to the Ottawa Little Theatre, where I saw “Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily”. As most of the times I am at the theatre, I enjoy sketching while watching the performance. Since I started sketching at the theatre, it helps me to remember the plays we have seen. It is almost like creating cue cards.

On Saturday, I went to a fabulous Mayan Bola Workshop at Hikano Yoga Studio in Cumberland. Not only did I learn a lot about angels, but we also made our own spiritual necklace with a pendant that produces a soft calming sound to remind us of our angels.

The “Yoga & Art Retreat” that Jackie Leduc and I hosted at Hikano Yoga Studio was a big success. After Jackie created a calming mood during a morning of yoga and meditation, the participants went for a short walk, enjoyed Jackie’s delicious and healthy lunch, and were very excited to create their lotus painting. The lotus is a flower full of symbolism; it is associated with eternity, purity and peace, self-awareness, love and compassion, the overcoming of suffering and spiritual development. It also symbolizes beauty, fertility, prosperity, and eternity, and it is perfect subject for a spring retreat when nature awakens in an explosive way that surprises me every year. After a long-lasting dormancy suddenly everything is full of colour: a painter’s dream. I hope I will have time to paint outside soon.

At the beginning of the week, I created the three drawings for my three “Cartooning and Comics” classes. While Tomato Head from the video came Fortnite was fun, and Darth Vader interesting to draw, I had a hard time with Wither from Minecraft. I was dreading the drawing as I do not like the square shapes and difficult perspective of the character. This was definitely out of my comfort zone. Needless to say that I had a lot of trouble with the drawing. It is so much easier to draw something that you enjoy, but on the other hand it was a good challenge.

For a nice relaxing finish, I will spend some time working on my temperature shawl. I had put it aside for the last couple of weeks, and I am excited to see how nature’s design will look.

If you are still looking for a Mother’s Day gift, some of my still life paintings that are on sale until Sunday are also some nice flower paintings that will provide joy for a long time.

I wish all of you who have two- or four-legged kids a Happy Mother’s Day! If the weather is nice, head out and enjoy nature. If you live in the Ottawa area, the Tulip Festival that starts today will surely thrill you and might inspire you to create art or update a flower bed in your garden.

Creativity Challenge - Week 17

4th Chute, Eganville, Ontario

Blog 17

I have been on vacation this week. It was a week of re-energizing and re-focusing. Usually I use our spring week at the cottage to spend time with some of my painting buddies to paint outside catching the first signs of spring. However, this year a friend of mine from Germany is here to spend some time with me. For this reason, my blog will be quite short. We enjoyed the sunny spring weather, went for long walks, and relaxed while reading, playing games, and watching some of my favourite DVDs.

Unfortunately, the landscape looked rather dull. In the wooded areas, the paths were still covered in snow, the lakes mostly frozen, and the fields had the colour of washed out green-yellow. If I had planned to paint, I would have found some scenic spots nonetheless, even though many areas would not have been accessible with my painting equipment. However, I had hoped to show a brighter countryside to my friend. In the spring this area usually looks amazing. We still made the best of our time. We enjoyed the sun and saw lots of wildlife: turkeys, a fox, a beaver, hundreds of Canada geese, chipmunks, a groundhog, and even some beautiful butterflies. Lots of inspiration for new animal paintings!

While on an outing to Lake Clear in Eganville, Ontario, I sketched the ice-covered lake with the mountain in the back.

On the rainy Wednesday, I also prepared the drawings for my three Cartooning & Comics classes: the Dark Voyager, Luke Skywalker, and the Pokémon characters Evee and Pikachu.

I also continued felting my table runner which has lots of new blooms. The spring weather is inspiring me to create all these beautiful flowers.

If you are in need of a mini-vacation, I would like to invite you to the Yoga & Art Retreat at Hikano Yoga Studio in Cumberland, Ontario, on Sunday May 6th from 9:30am to 4:30pm. For more information and to register please go to https://www.hikano.com/retreat/.

While Jackie Leduc will lead you through a mindful morning filled with yoga, meditation and breathe work, I will guide you in the afternoon, when we will be painting the beautiful lotus flower shown on the left.

Creativity Challenge - Week 15

Practicing Sword Online Characters

Blog 15

Wow, it’s time for my blog again. Where did the week go? I am in full packing mode. This week, before I started decluttering my studio, I continued the tulip painting. As I have not painted a lot during the last couple of weeks, I felt a little rusty and was not able to finish it in time for the blog, but I hope that I will have the painting ready for next week’s blog.

While going through my art materials, I had so many ideas, but they have to wait. For now, I am packing everything but one basic set of acrylic and oil paints each, some sketching materials including a watercolour travel set, and my wool for felting.

As for my other creations of the week, I continued with my flower covered table runner. I added some smaller flowers as well as a big sunflower.

For one group of my students, I prepared sketches of Sword Art Online characters. Sword Art Online is is a Japanese light novel series that was the source material for an anime television series and movie. My other group of students concentrated on characters from Gravity Falls, an animated television series. Both series were unknown to me until my students brought them to my attention. There is always something new to learn!

With my 5 - 7 year old students, I drew Batman, a character that is also known by the adult population.

I can hardly wait until I am done packing the first round of our possessions. I miss painting. Even though I really enjoy felting, I still miss sitting in front of the easel. Part of the reason is probably that when I withdraw to my studio to paint, I get totally immersed in my art, while I often felt while watching TV or chatting with family and friends. It might be that I feel this way, because l had to squeeze in some creative time lately instead of having the luxury of having longer stretches of time at my disposal. I have to admit that the current chaos of boxes and things that still need to be packed to get the house staged is not really creating a mood of calmness and inspiration. At least I am off for a week of vacation with a friend of mine starting next Friday. I can certainly need some rest and relaxation.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you are looking for a day of relaxation, inspiration, and creativity, I would like to invite you to the Yoga & Art Retreat at Hikano Yoga Studio in Cumberland, Ontario, on Sunday May 6th from 9:30am to 4:30pm. For more information and to register please go to https://www.hikano.com/retreat/. While Jackie Leduc will lead you through a mindful morning filled with yoga, meditation and breathe work, I will guide you after a delicious lunch, when we will be painting the beautiful lotus flower shown on the left.

Creativity Challenge - Week 13

Blog 13

Can you believe it is the end of March already? I am looking forward to some relaxing days with my family over the holidays. Due to the lovely Easter workshop I taught last Friday, I have some unique decorations for the table. The two participants of the workshop both wanted to learn how to felt a bunny, so I also created another bunny.

Later on, my daughter and I felted another Easter egg. Mine took a little longer as I covered the whole egg in little flowers. These unique decorations will look great on the Easter table.

As I was asked to replace another teacher this week, I did not have a lot of time to work on projects. I did quite a bit of sketching on the bus as well as during shows at the Ottawa Little Theatre.

Despite the fact that I have a seat in the first row at the Ottawa Little Theatre, it was still too dark during the performance to see what I was drawing. I am not sure you would be able to recognize the actors, but my sketches give me enough information to remember them. Sketching is a little bit like shorthand; I love that the sketches help me remember the plays much more than just passively watching them. The sketching also helps me to stay awake. As I am not used to sitting still, the sudden immobility makes me quite tired, even if I enjoy the play. However, when I sketch what I see, I have no time to doze off.

Aside from the fun stuff that I am able to create, I also have to look after the administrative tasks of my business that are not very exciting. I am just in the process of finishing my bookkeeping which I always seem to leave to the last minute.

Then, there is the very time-consuming task of marketing. At the beginning of the week, I faced a very uncomfortable situation as Jackie Leduc from Hikano Yoga Studio and I wanted to shoot a promo video for our upcoming Yoga & Art Retreat on May 6, 2018 from 9:30am to 4:30pm. While I had taken short videos of me being at a painting location, I had never been in front of the camera. It was scary, but Jackie helped me through it and did a great job editing. You can see the video which gives you more information about the retreat at https://www.facebook.com/HikanoWellness/videos/2031170460230897/.

I also have a new promotion going on right now. Despite the fact that many of my paintings are scheduled for exhibitions, I still have a big inventory of paintings. As we want to move to a smaller house this year, I would like to find some new homes for some of my paintings. I have decided to sell all my still lifes (except for the couple of painting that are scheduled for exhibitions) at a 25% discount off the price listed on my website www.KerstinPeters.ca until Mother’s Day. If you are interested in a painting please contact me at kpeters@domingoinformatics.ca. Payment can be made in cash or by e-transfer.

To conclude this blog, I would like to wish all of you a Happy Easter! Enjoy your time with family and friends.