Wordless Wednesday (Etsy Canada)

The Eye

Tippy Toes Knits

Potato Bird Studio

Always Inspire

It was a Handmade Halloween

It's been a week now since the ghosts and goblins went searching for candy but I had to share with you some of the photos I took that day.

Near where I live we attended a trick-or-treating event that all the local businesses put on. The kids get dressed up and visit all the participating shops for candy. Even though the forecast called for rain, the sun shone beautifully and made Steveston the place to be Halloween day.

What struck me this year compared to others was how many costumes were handmade. These costumes weren't the usual homemade outfits like "business man" or "hippy" that you usually see. There were so many costumes made with a lot of time, care and creativity that I'm proud to say that it looks like the "Handmade Movement" is alive and well in this part of the world. Below are some photos of the handmade Halloween I saw.

Hand-carved pumpkin

"Dorthy" at Splash Toys

Where the Wild Things Are and Tree with Owl

Piece of sushi with chopsticks

Zombie Cake by Chocolate Lover Cakes

Wordless Wednesday

Carambatack

A Second Time

Bohemian Cats

Solana Graphic Studio

Print Zero Exchange

Well, it finally came. My Print Zero Exchange finally made it into my hands. I had done the above print for this international exchange based in Seattle back in May of this year. As this was my first international exchange, I was very excited to see what I would get in return. Well I waited, and waited, and waited and waited some more. I had almost lost all hope after hearing that some printmakers had received theirs. It looks as one thing after another delayed the mail-outs which was coupled with the fact that they had almost double the amount of entries as they did last year. Nearly 400 editions! I can imagine organizing that many entries was quite an undertaking.

As this exchange was an open call and not juried, all levels of printmaking expertise were present. Each printmaker was asked to complete and edition of 15 to exchange. In the edition that I received there were quite a few prints that looked as though they were beginner editions. Below are a couple of prints that found to be the best in the selection. I can't accredit the artists because most of the prints just have signatures without names or contact info on them. This is something I'll be sure to include in my next exchange because I would have loved to be able to see more of these artists' work. A complete list of artists will be set up on print Zero's Flickr page.

Although I found this exchange to be rather frustrating, I have faith that Print Zero Studio will be able to redeem themselves with future projects and exchanges. I would love another opportunity to visually connect with other printmakers from around the world. Next planned exchange: Year of the Tiger 2010.

Wordless Wednesday (Halloween Edition)

Benconservato

Twisted Sister Arts

Bebito

Jill Penney

Mushrooms

Here on the west coast, the rainy season has started. As I live in a rainforest, you can imagine how I get to see the rain and clouds almost everyday. The upside to all of those drizzly days is that they produce a wonderful variety of mushrooms. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know which mushroom is edible or poisonous but I do know that those people who do, keep their mushroom finds to themselves to ensure the fungi are not over-picked. These foragers make sure they hold their mushroom harvest in open net bags so that the spores can be knocked off and onto the forest floor to hopefully be spread for harvesting in following years. Perhaps one day I will take a mushroom foraging course and then I will know which fresh mushroom would go great in a risotto when I see it. Yum.

On a recent excursion with the kids, I came across a whole bunch of different mushrooms. As they have been a source of visual inspiration for me lately, I had to take a few pictures. Perhaps there are a few of you out there that know the names of these.

Wordless Wednesday

Jennifer Gibbs

Hisss

Stepping Stones

Two Seaside Babies