This is a quick 5 X 7″ watercolour based on a tiny black Maneki Neko (Japanese lucky beckoning cat) figurine I’ve had for over 20 years. The black lucky cat is for safety and wards off evil spirits; the original figurine is about 3/4″ in size. (A basic guide to the Maneki Neko symbolism can be found here. This painting was exhibited at Timmins Museum: National Exhibition Centre in December of 2017 as part of the Porcupine Art Club‘s themed show “Dark in the Light”.
Northern Lights Near Home opens formally at Black Spruce Gallery & Framing on September 19, 2017 at 7:00 p.m. I will be giving an artist’s talk on the science of the Aurora Borealis and will examine at the relation between solar activity and the Northern Lights. Information on viewing and photographing the Northern Lights will also be included. This presentation is also a part of Science Literacy Week 2017 (http://scienceliteracy.ca/), an annual week-long celebration of science in Canada.
The show opening is free, and for all ages. The Artist’s Talk will start at approximately 7:30 p.m. Coffee/tea and light refreshments will be served. You may want to bring a small folding chair or stool.
Address: 42 Pine Street South, Timmins, Ontario.
I will be holding an exhibit of some of my Aurora Borealis photographs from around the Timmins area during the month of September at Black Spruce Gallery & Framing, 42 Pine Street South, Timmins. The exhibit will be running from the afternoon of September 05th, 2017 through to the end of the month.
The show opening will take place from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 pm. on Tuesday September 19, 2017 and will feature an informative artist’s talk on the Northern Lights. More details on the opening will appear in a future post.
I took my husband down on a 1700-kilometre trek to Hopkinsville, Kentucky last week to see the total solar eclipse, which lasted for 2 minutes and 40.5 seconds at the site. I photographed the entire sequence (99% of the time through a solar filter), which will then be put compiled into a time lapse sequence. In the meantime, here a is a photograph showing the Sun’s Corona during totality.
I will be running my second solo show this fall, which will feature photographs of local scenes with the Aurora Borealis. The show will take place at Black Spruce Gallery & Framing, 42 Pine Street South, Timmins. More details will be posted over the next few months.
The detailing work on the miniature headframe was completed on April 16th, 2017 and then it glued on to its display stand in a display case meant for a baseball. Here are couple of close-up shots before it goes off to the gallery for review.
Here is the beautiful thing about living in a smaller community like Timmins. You get to meet really neat people like photographer and gallery owner Katelyn Malo. Katelyn will hosting the Tiny Art Exhibit in Timmins at the Black Spruce Art Gallery 40 Pine St. S. from May 2 to June 30th. All entries cannot […]
Once the Plaster of Paris had dried overnight, I painted a base coat using crafters’ grade white a acrylic paint. The interior of the eggshell was painted with the same white paint, but tinted with just a hint of artist-grade Phthalocyanine Blue – Green Shade. For the exterior of the shell, I used a fine paint brush to dab on gold flakes, held in place with Liquitex Gloss Medium and Varnish. The gold flakes came from a souvenir novelty bottle purchased a few years ago at the Royal Ontario Museum. (Souvenir gold flecks – if you happen to live near a museum with a gift shop – can range from $5.00 to $10.00 a bottle and are good if you want to experiment with tiny bits of gold – just drain the glycerine out of the bottle and rinse the flecks with water.) The egg is sitting on a different wine cap, because the first one was being primed in matte black. 
After painting my 3D printed model of the McIntyre Headframe, I picked a suitable eggshell that had been chipped out on the front and back. To patch up the holes leftover from draining the contents, I used a couple small pieces of paper bandage tape. The egg was then set down on a wine bottle cap for working with – the cap will eventually be the model’s stand.
A (way too large) small quantity of Plaster of Paris was mixed up in an old pudding cup and then scooped into the egg using a steel potter’s tool. The picture below also shows a scrap 3D printing raft, which I was considering laying in with the plaster, but later I decided the plaster alone was sufficient.
This is a close-up of the empty egg and model headframe.
Next, I started scooping in the mixed plaster with the pottery tool. (One end is like a very small spoon, the other end is like small painter’s knife.) I am using the plaster as snow for this scene – the plaster looks lumpy, because I had mixed in a glittery acrylic medium (the acrylic was getting old and coagulated), but most of it was covered by the opacity of the plaster.
A close-up view of the headframe mounted into the wet plaster in the egg. I put a squash seed beside it for comparison. The background is the controls of the washing machine doubling as another workbench.
A shot of the egg model with the materials used. The object that looks like a large hypodermic minus its needle is a novelty shot glass (hence the 1/2 and 1 oz measurements) that makes an excellent slip trailing tool and paint applicator among other things. I was going to use it for the plaster, but it was too thick and easier to just scoop into the egg.
Some 3D printed trial miniatures, which I designed using Tinkercad.Although each model printed in less than a half-hour, designing each one took three to four hours. The pencil sharpeners in the picture give an idea of scale. Each model has also bee hand-painted.
The McIntyre Headframe, two (not to scale) Hollinger Housesm and two different scale replicas of the Hollinger Mine train engine found in Porcupine. The “bubble” in the background s an inverted 4-inch diameter glass Christmas ball.
The McIntyre Headframe, painted Hollinger locomotive and nickel-sized underground mine train.
The Gaelic Nisei 