The best Valentine's weekend

 

Me and Steven 

Happiest of Valentine's weekends

We're home again after a weekend in Ottawa at one of our favourite hotels.
What did we do? Yes there was a lot going on in Ottawa, and no we didn't 
do much.  In fact that was our holiday. Doing as little as possible, eating
delicious food, and visiting family in Quebec. The best.

Hope you had a great love weekend with whoever matters in your life.

Now back to work for me.

Have a loving your life day!

Happy Valentine's weekend

Me and Steven in Paris
Photo
Barbara Muir ©

This is one of the happiest photos of Steven and me in one
of our favourite cities -- Paris. Yes it is one of our dream
destinations, and I'm sure we'll get there again soon --

maybe this year.  In the meantime it's been a wonderful

love weekend.  Now we're heading out for dinner with
family, (tomorrow is Family Day in Ontario), so the fun
continues.

Wishing everyone who gets the holiday a great long weekend,

and Happy Month of Love.

Have a loving your life day!

Happy Valentine's Day

 

Wishing you a very Happy Love weekend. We are having a sweet time,

talking to family and friends. It was a lots of love day.

Here's what I said in a former post about the day.  I
like it for today:

"In our house Valentine's Day is huge.  We decorate, we
talk about our favorite foods, we eat more chocolate
than is at all wise, and in recent years I've done paintings
for my own cards.  I love the idea of celebrating love.
That force for good is an incredible power, and I
can't thank my family and friends who love me enough
for the kindness, encouragement and wonder they've
brought into my life. And I thank them for giving me
the pleasure of loving them."

Thank you for your kindness, your inspiration, and your 

sweet support.  You all mean the world to me.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Galentine's Day

Galentine's Day banner
Acrylic on canvas images
joined together
Barbara Muir ©

Having a lot of computer issues today.  Happy Galentine's Day to all of
my wonderful women friends. I don't call women gals, but I do
like how it works for this celebration.

It's been a busy day, including a sweet drive in the country.  Wishing
everyone a Happy Valentine's Day weekend.

Have a loving your life day!

Happy surprises

 

Spring Table

Acrylic on canvas

12 x 36 inches
Barbara Muir © Revised 2025
(This is a painting of mine --
that I changed last year and
is suitably happy!)

There is very deep snow in Toronto. I know environmentally that's good, 

but it means that many side roads are single lane instead of two way.

After patiently driving behind a garbage truck on a side street for
3/4 of an hour, on what would have normally been a four minute
drive at best,  I thanked the garbage men, and marvelled at how
much we throw out.

And! I arrived home to an absolutely spectacular present from an
artist friend -- a calendar of my friend's art, which is beyond
awesome.  Steven and I were so delighted.   

Friends matter.

Have a loving your life day!

Flowers really make winter better

 

August market flowers
Acrylic on canvas
12 x 12 inches
Barbara Muir © 

It is a cold, grey winter day.  The scenery out of my back door is still
beautiful because the snow is deep and contrasts perfectly with
the houses and trees.  It makes the house roofs look like cake with
icing.  But even so we need some flowers.  So I'm glad we have
roses -- purchased before the Valentine's price spike, and in the
kitchen the Amaryllis is about to bloom again -- its radiant red
flowers so magnificent.

It is Wednesday but I'm thinking about our normal late Saturday
morning tradition -- visiting the Brickworks Market in Toronto and
our favourite farmer, a former European chef.  We count on buying eggs,
quiche, baked goods, the most delicious pies I've ever eaten in my whole
life and flowers (in season) from Jens Eller. He takes our order online,
and then gives it to us, and we have a great conversation when we go
to the market.

He is away now probably at least until June because of back surgery, 
so we miss him.  But I am working on a painting inspired by a 
magnificent bouquet we bought from him last summer -- (not the
one in the photo above.)

So in The Month of Love I want to honour everyone who makes our lives

happy.  Jens and Ayse from Marvellous Edibles Farm are wonderful, and 
we look forward so much to seeing Jens again at the market this summer.

As I've said before flowers are one of my addictions. (The other three are
coffee, art and love.)

Have a loving your life day.

Grateful to the teachers who've taught me to love my life

 

Reading with Heart
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 
(The model for this

was a former student of mine

who kept in touch with me
after our classes together 

were over.)

This has been a great day.  I went to the morning coffee
meeting in my neighbourhood, and gave everyone my Valentine's
cards.  Plus I'm working on some pieces for my next show
in April.  

I lost my part time teaching job a couple of years
 ago (10,000 part time college teachers in Ontario
lost their jobs because of restrictions on foreign students).

I loved teaching, and I know that teachers have had a powerfully
positive impact in my life.  I hope that one day I'll
get to teach again.  I wrote a happy tribute to teachers
in a former post.  Here it is:

"Thank you to my teachers, and I send love out to all the
 inspiring teachers in my life.  When I started drawing in
school, I was like all the people who tell me I can't even
draw a stick figure.  Why do people think a stick figure is so
simple? But within months I was drawing very competent life
drawings.  

I reeled in shock as a 17 year old girl when the first
male life model came out  to pose for us at art college
-- a huge, naked, middle aged man with a cloth bag over his 

privates.

It took great teachers to bring young innocents who grew up
in the dull suburbs, like me, into the exciting, confusing,
wild, world of art, and they did it. I learned a lot from life
drawing classes.

My teachers in university got me excited about the world of literature,
opening doors to what would be a life long love of reading
and writing.

And more recently the workshops I've taken in person and
online have taught me so much about art, that I am sometimes
so dazzled I don't even know where to begin.  But isn't that
a good thing?   My brother's current philosophy is to ask,
"Is it true?"  Constant learning sets us up in front of that
question every day, and for sure makes life just as exciting
as it was when I took my first art lessons."

I love reading your Instagram posts, blogs and articles 
because you are all teaching me about every aspect of art
and life.  Thank you.

Have a loving your life day!