One of the best photography days in BC – Long beach is a white sand beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island, near Tofino. A heavy fog had rolled in that evening and the beach was deserted. The landscape is eerie; beautiful and desolate.
The fog didn’t stop the surfers though, I snapped this pic of a couple heading out for the waves before we left :)
I’ve got resin on the brain ;) This time I experimented with making small medallions of Japanese Washi (和紙) and antique copper. I then used them to create a few rings, earrings and a bracelet – I love how it turned out, I’ve already got plans for making another one out of flower petals…
And not when it’s convenient. So it goes that the day my urge to make jewellery returns happens to be two weeks before a major exam. Ah well.
There’s no turning away once an Idea has taken hold though – so I present my latest foray into jeweller’s grade resin. I did this last year with leaves – and got mixed results. This year I’ve changed my approach and I think I’ve really hit upon something beautiful.
I picked up these closed back bezels from Beadfx a few weeks ago.
I also prepared the petals of a tiger lily. No flowers were hurt in the making of this piece – we found one that had fallen to the ground. The flower petals need to be prepared just right in order to maintain their colour but not retain any moisture that could cause trouble later – this was a problem with some of my leaves.
I use jeweller’s grade resin – it won’t yellow over time and is water resistant.
Voila :)
I will definitely be trying my new approach with this years autumn leaves.
Extra points if anyone can tell me what book this is – it’s my all-time favourite.
I love the results. I’m going to give them a few weeks to cure – to make sure the colours don’t change. As soon as I’m sure it works I’ll be making a lot more; I had a bazillion ideas on how to take this further for the next round!
Part of the submission for an exam I’m taking in Karate includes photos of myself – not an easy task since I hate being on the ‘wrong’ side of the camera, I’m picky as hell and very uncomfortable with being photographed. To combat this we went to the Leslie Street Spit – one of my favourite places in the world and took a few goofy shots to loosen up. The spit is where construction from Toronto gets dumped, with the happy accident that it became not only an important stopover for migratory birds, but also a landscape of beautiful urban decay. One of my favourite spots is a graveyard for old telephone poles, and that’s where we took these.
Special thanks to Tito, for taking the photos and being very patient with me.
The ‘telephone pole’ graveyard.
From one of my weapon forms.
From a brown belt kata.
This one was my least favourite, but I needed 3 ;)
Though the sky in my shot is pretty plain if you looked the other way you’d have seen very dramatic skies. I probably ended up with more shots of sunbeams than I did of Karate.
The Leslie Street Spit is packed with cormorants – we saw hundreds of them as we shot. I was lucky enough to capture a few in formation in front of those beautiful sunbeams.
I’m less than 2 weeks away from my exam – in fact, why am I blogging? I need to be working on my essay…..
Here are some pics from our time at the Esquimalt Bird Sanctuary just outside Victoria, BC.
I love this high speed shot of a great blue heron fishing – the light was just right and I caught the droplets from his plunge.
Another high speed fishing shot.
Check these cuties out – these are sandpipers hunting for small invertebrates to munch on by the shoreline.
Belly shot of the flock looking for a new spot.
…And another. I spent more time (and memory) than I’d like to admit following these guys around.
So much that by the time I gave up on them is was evening :) So I’ll leave you with some evening silhouettes of Great Blue Herons fishing.
This was one of the most magical parts of our trip to BC – a visit to a sanctuary for birds of prey on Vancouver Island, near the town of Duncan.
I apologize for the image-heavy post, but these birds were so magnificent I couldn’t pare down the photos.
To quote the website on where the birds come from:
“The birds at Pacific Northwest Raptors are mostly captive bred, hatched here or at similar facilities in Canada. There are a handful of raptors here that were not born in captivity but, due to an accident in the wild, are considered non-releasable because they cannot fly/hunt for themselves. We provide medical attention, permanent housing, food and shelter for these birds.”
I thought this part was important too:
“Unless breeding, retired, injured or molting our birds fly free daily. Individually, we let them fly down in the flying area. They tend to do whatever they feel like. We encourage them to fly as much as possible and try to facilitate natural flying and hunting behavior. They come back every day because we care for them, feed them, and respect them. We work with each bird to build a bond of trust and we strive to make each bird happy, comfortable and as healthy as possible.”
This gorgeous snowy owl is a girl – I learned that girls have brown markings on their chest and boys are perfectly white. So even though “Hedwig” is supposed to be a girl – the owl used in the movies was a boy.
This is Elton, and I fell head over heels in love with him. Elton is a spectacled owl and when you try to photograph him he turns his head away from you and closes his eyes. But if you pretend you’re not interested anymore and walk away he chirrups pleadingly until you come back, only to turn away from you again! This owl acts like a real diva, but is a total softie. I’m told he likes to cuddle with his keepers too. Figures.
Here’s the magic part. This is Chloe. Chloe is gorgeous beyond words, a hauntingly beautiful barn owl with a politely curious expression. Tina, who works with the birds every day, took us on a special ‘owl prowl’ through the woods where we got to watch her fly around, returning to our gloves for treats (eg. dead mouse bits).
Chloe weighs less than a pound. Her wings have serrated edges which make for totally silent flight. She is very gentle and friendly.
Getting to hold her was such a treat for us. I don’t think we can thank Tina enough for the experience.
Apparently barn owls are quite common though sadly, not around Toronto.
I got a shot of her wings open as she landed on Tina’s arm.
It was one of the highlights of our trip; Thank you Tina!
Whew! It’s a whopping 49 degrees with humidex here in Toronto. I confess, I love it. It hits your right in the face when you walk outside and despite knowing that I’ve got an hour and a half of Karate in this oven tonight I still love it. I will remember days like this when I’m complaining about snow in April.
I just cast off 2 adorable Berry Baby Hats for my friend Joe, who is expecting his first grandchildren very soon! They’re having twins; a boy and a girl and I thought these hats would be the perfect cute gift.
The pattern was written by Michele Sabatier who generously shares this lovely pattern for free on her blog.
I used 3 balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (lots of each ball is left over) in colours 017 for the purple, 018 for the blue and 502 for the green.
Though it’s not exactly knitted hat weather it’s what I’ve got on the brain as I attempt – finally, this year, to actually give myself enough time to knit everyone’s Christmas gifts (crossing fingers).
My Ravelry project page is here.
Finally we’ve gotten around to processing some images from our trip to BC. These images are from Goldstream National Park. The park contains stunning, giant, ancient trees, a beautiful waterfall and a scary high railroad trestle.
Oh, and enormous maple leaves!
This image of the waterfall is a 3 photo stitch. You can get an idea of the size of the waterfall if you look to the upper right; there is a person in a red T-shirt just visible there getting ready to climb over the edge.
Another view of the waterfall.
If you circumvent the waterfall and start climbing to the top you can reach the old railroad trestle, which I thought was out of use. It’s a short, but intense climb during which you cover approximately 150 metres of height to get to the trestle.
The trestle was scary but I reckoned I’d try to climb out to the little balcony just visible on the right, halfway across the bridge.
I’m not scared of heights, but this bit made me nervous.
When I finally made it to the bridge I could look down into the gorge over the tops of the trees. If you look along the shadow you can see the silhouette of me waving. After this pic I made my way back. Out of curiosity I googled the park afterwards and my heart just about stopped when I read these words:
“Make sure you check the train schedule before crossing the trestle!”
This beauty came out of the kiln earlier this summer, but I haven’t been to the studio in a while to get it. I took the summer off but will be getting back in this September.
**Post Update** – I finally decided to try selling these babies on Etsy – click the Etsy link on the right to see what’s available!
For those of you who haven’t seen one yet – the bell holds a ball of yarn and keeps it turning smoothly as you work. They are being sold at the Purple Purl here in Toronto and knitters/crocheters love them :) This bell uses the same technique as my swirly mugs from last spring, which is how I achieve the relief in the design.
I also finished up what will be, for now, my last of the froggie bowls. I’d like to start exploring new avenues of design so I will only produce these on request.
The froggie was a good companion to folks needing to ‘rip it’ back, but we’re definitely due for some fresh design :) Anyone looking to purchase a yarn bell or bowl can visit the Purple Purl or email me hello@thebluebrick.ca
I wanted to share a few quick snaps of the jewellery that Shanali was wearing in the Luminouscity post – I literally assembled it at the studio, but I liked the effect :)
The intent was to use photo luminescent beads on black wire to create a cloud of floating dots of light. It was inspired by a photo I saw in a book of optical illusions when I was a kid.
I followed the basic technique for making a beaded tiara, except that I used a silver collar instead of a tiara. I learned the technique from a book called the Beaders Bible but the link to Spoilt Rotten Beads is good as well.
Testing it out in the UV strobes to make sure it worked ;)
I used three different sizes of UV Reactive beads to vary it up, and the hack was using electrical tape over the base at the end – to disguise the silver in the choker and also to keep the wire ends from hurting the model.
It was a very simple piece but it added something fun to the shots.
The Blue Brick 