No wonder we love summer

It's Friday night -- the official night for complete relaxation at our house. My Siamese
kitten Fiona caught a fly, and ate it, but luckily she's on antibiotics post spaying surgery so although she looked dazed because she lost her toy, (the fly) we're not worried she'll catch anything terrible from
her choice of snack food. I couldn't resist and sang Burl Ive's There was an old
lady who swallowed a fly to Steven after our fly free supper (of pesto chicken pasta,
salad and cherry pie). Steven laughed when I got to the final line "There was an old lady who swallowed a horse -- she's dead of course!" I really do promise to feature
some art tomorrow.

The photo captures much of what I love about summer, flowers,
abundance and light.

I may paint it one day -- but aha -- I do have a painting to show you,
it isn't quite as serene as the photo, but it was inspired by our kitchen table
jam packed with flowers and fruit, and the things we love. It's called
Autumn Table -- don't worry Autumn is a long way off. This is one of
a series of 1 ft. x 3 ft. paintings I've done of our kitchen table.

Oh I almost forgot -- Happy July 4th to my family and friends
in the U.S., and Happy Birthday Marilyn in Nova Scotia.

Have a joy packed day.

The pleasures of summer

May is disappearing at an alarming clip. There's so much to do and so much to plan. Each year at this time
we need to plan both our garden and
our vacation. For the past few years
we've just planted what passes for a garden in furious night plantings two
or three days before we leave for
vacation, and the person who assumes
the care of the garden takes over.

We've been lucky to know a series
of wonderful girls in the neighbourhood who water the garden
faithfully, stake up the tall cleome,
pinch off the dried blooms, and keep the garden thriving.

When we return to Toronto after
weeks on the ocean, our now lush
garden is what soothes us back
into city life. So we are more than grateful.

This little 12" square painting is of tomatoes
grown at our local children's garden in Cedarvale park.
Towards the end of the summer the children sell their
vegetables every week in the early evening, and last
summer they grew a wonderful variety of small tomatoes.
The weekly sale was managed by an efficient seven-year-old
with assistance from both the adult teacher, parents and
very small boys and girls of two and three who ran back and
forth looking like cartoons by Earnest H. Shepard,
http://www.just-pooh.com/shepard.html
carrying one carrot, or one large leafed vegetable,
seriously entranced with the high level importance of
the job. I can still see one tiny curly headed boy running in massive
rubber boots breathless when he arrived with a brown paper bag
for the zucchini.

My joyous memories of buying vegetables from these urban
agribabies shows in the painting. I set the tomatoes in an antique
cut glass bowl, sitting on a 40s French looking cotton table cloth
-- and I like the results.

Sold to the lady with the red hair.

Have a bounteous day.

The pull of the sea

It's Sunday and I head back to school tomorrow. My mother warns of freezing rain and I hope she's wrong.
Let the weather gods give us a nice clear day with dry roads all the way to King City.
It's a Pieter Brueghel kind of winter day, grey skies, but brilliant light. Here's a little image from my shoreline series. I notice I still need to work on the face. This is the beach in Nova Scotia I spend as much time as possible roaming looking for shells and blue starfish. It's always a pleasure to think of those warm, late afternoons with the tide rolling out, and tide pools emptying into the great, navy blue ocean. We watch hermit crabs scurrying along like creatures out of a fantasy video game, and crows happily squabbling over what variety of seafood to have for dinner. Part of my heart is always there on that strip of red sand, splashing through the warm waves, and throwing shells for the dog to pretend to fetch.

Have a dreamy day.