Tindaisies

Tindaisies has moved

2007-07-28T10:46:00.000-04:00

I finally took the plunge and set up a blog on my own website, you can read it at tindaisies.com

Hope to see you there!

Gabrielle :o)

The Phrenologist

2007-02-05T11:42:00.000-05:00

Short Story

2006-11-25T17:05:00.000-05:00

Derec Jones of Skintwriter is holding a second short story competition, the deadline is November 30th.

You can read My entry here

Illustration Friday - SMOKE

2006-11-07T22:03:00.000-05:00

Why do cats appear out of nowhere when you light the barbecue? Our biggest, oldest cat (23 lbs when in his prime, nearly 18 years old now) without fail, wanders out onto the deck and lays upside down directly under foot and inhales the intoxicating fumes.

I think the cat in this drawing must have hopped over from a neighbouring balconey because laying upside down on someone else's deck or balconey is probably considered undignified.

BOO! Halloween Stories 2006

2006-10-31T14:35:00.000-05:00

And now for the rest of the story...

If you wish to find out what ultimately happened to Sebastian and Claire of the previous post, and how they got in their predicament in the first place, go to BOO! Halloween Stories 2006, a yearly anthology of Halloween stories, the brainchild of Jonathon Morris and Manning Krull. I promise you'll be treated to a host of some amazing comics submitted by a host of talented people.

You can read the story of Sebastian and Claire in my entry The Curse of the Parsimonious Great Aunt

Now go there and enjoy some great stories while I get dressed up as a dead nanny, dark falls in under 3 hours!

Illustration Friday - GHOST

2006-10-26T16:32:00.000-04:00

This must be the latest I have ever made an IF post!

These images are part of a gruesome little Halloween story I am just wrapping up. The children named Sebastian and Claire, after chopping off the head of their evil and nasty great aunt, try to deal with the ghost that now haunts them, dampening their enjoyment of all the halloween candy they have culled.

Sebastian grabbed the ghost as it napped on the chaise lounge and gave it to Claire

who quickly stuffed the ghost into the cadavre of their great aunt.

Then she sewed the head back onto the body to trap the ghost inside.

Sebastian then wheeled the body out to the backyard while it was still dark...

More TROUBLE!

2006-10-11T10:01:00.000-04:00

I haven't been able to play Illustration Friday regularly these days because I am taking a course on background painting for animation, working on Bliggamarole and my usual graphic design jobs, so never would I have thought I would be making 2 IF posts in the same week!I couldn't resist though, because the opportunity presented itself to me.

First, let me apologize for throwing Christmas into your faces before Halloween has even hit. The reason for the jump on the season is because I designed a poster for a theatre group to advertise their fall play which happens to be "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." If the angel looks a wee bit familiar, it is because I took the liberty to cast Wilma Wideman from the Widemans and the Narrowsmiths, as Gladys Herdman for my poster. In the play, the Herdman Children, "probably the most inventively awful kids in history" are cast in a Church Christmas Pageant. Wilma immediately came to mind when I thought about how to portray Gladys. The poster shows only Gladys, not the stage, I set her into the scene for this post.

Illustration Friday - TROUBLE

2006-10-07T22:12:00.000-04:00

I grew up in a small town and now I live just outside of one. It still holds true that feet in the pumpkin patch after dark, during this time of the year means trouble. And trouble usually means that the next morning the town residents will wake up to see someone has "painted" the town orange

Interview

2006-10-07T22:02:00.000-04:00

I was recently interviewed by Jeff Andrews of Design Inspiration

You can read my interview HERE

Illustration Friday - CHANGE

2006-09-19T22:47:00.000-04:00

Have you ever wondered if change room walls have eyes?

This is a drawing from Bliggamarole, my "surreal playground" blog, I realised that "Eyegle" works for this week's IF so it's posted on both blogs.

Illustration Friday - FARM and Sunday Scribblings

2006-09-10T10:53:00.000-04:00

This is a combined IF entry and first entry for Sunday Scribblings is #24 - I would never write...

I didn't think I would ever write a descriptive passage about an object that doesn't even exist. Gewl is a word that I made up and the accompanying drawing is what my mind told me it would look like.

I have written newspaper articles and short stories, so it's natural for me to want to tell a story and explain things in writing. For "Gewl" however, it was important to not fabricate with words and thoughts anything beyond the meaning of the image, but to merely complement the visual experience:

A forgotten fence line is punctuated by boundary markers, rusty skeletal implements and things you think you must have seen before. Recall the waft of dusty old from overstuffed horsehair sofas and pressed flowers. Hot dry parching winds burn on starched and carefully mended black linen; whitewashed, worn clapboard and ripening wheat.

Things you think you must have seen before:
Lemonade and sweat,
sweet and sour,
peppermints and polished oak church pews,
beauty and pain,
life and death,
delicate and brutal.

Forgotten obsolescence, from the time before time remembered: Forgotten recipes for preserves.
Remnants of bone and hair (whose bone and hair?), forgotten stories and forgotten lives.
A shiny, threadbare and black, painstakingly embellished chandelier/ scarecrow is left to its beautiful decay. Obsolete.
Golden metallic stalks still rooted in the earth draw sharp lines that hint at the growth, the driven survival of the weeds. In contrast, the silvery eroded wood with raised grain, from the relic, has been severed from its foundation of earth and memory. Things you think you must have seen before.

New Blog!

2006-09-08T08:17:00.000-04:00

This image is from a new blog I created to explore images I associate with made up words. The blog is called "Bliggamarole" and you can find it HERE

Illustration Friday - SAFE

2006-09-05T22:04:00.000-04:00

The best thing about this little story is that it's true! I was sitting in an outdoor pub in a port town along Lake Erie a few Sunday afternoons ago, listening to some live music and a woman walked up to the bar with a tiny dog in her large pink handbag. Her bicycle was parked against the railing belonging to the pub.

Sometimes on Sunday afternoons, Bella would be called to come inside

Where she would be popped into her owner's big pink bag so she was all safe and cozy

Then they would ride down to the local pub

To enjoy a few hours of live blues.

Illustration Friday - MATCH

2006-08-21T14:56:00.000-04:00

Identical twins Dora and Nora O'Flora were disappointed after reading Thoreau's Walden: They had discovered first hand that sometimes perfect harmony is impossible to achieve when nature is involved.

********

Well I'm back from my own Walden and returned from the wild unscathed, except for a few mosquito bites. Thank you to everyone who wished me well :)

Back in a Few Days

2006-08-14T22:14:00.000-04:00

I'm off to play for a few days. Don't forget the give Merty his heart pill in a bit of canned food when he wakes up from his late, late afternoon nap. Could you please put one Corona and a lime in the fridge for me a few hours before I come back?

Thank you!

ta ta.

Gab :)

Illustration Friday - PLAY

2006-08-12T14:55:00.000-04:00

These panels are from a small series of drawings I work on from time to time, about what it's like to take my children shopping. Anyone who has kids, or remembers what it was like to have siblings, knows all too well the dynamics involved.

My daughter, who turned 10 this May is entering the golden age of embarassment. My son, who is 7, still resides somewhere within that magical blurry line between reality and pretend.

The Neighbourhood of M. Betterave

2006-08-09T16:29:00.000-04:00

This is where M. Betterave lives. The morning sun is glaring on the north side of the street. As you can see, the neighbourhood is very middle class to the point of being almost eerie.

Sugar Frosted Goodness Summer Challenge No.1!

2006-08-09T15:17:00.000-04:00

SFG Summer "Challenge" No. 1:
Design and illustrate, in your own style, a "pulp magazine" cover featuring one of the greatest pulp fiction characters of the past century, The Shadow.

I decided to resurrect "Gwennie" My IF entry for the topic "Monster"
Go over to Sugar Frosted Goodness to see the other entries.

Illustration Friday - CAPTURE

2006-08-07T13:05:00.000-04:00

I have been working on this study which is a graphite drawing for the past week, and was happy to see that for once something I am working on fits the week's topic perfectly! I am starting to develop this character - M. Betterave (Mr. Beet) - as the principal in a black comedy/tragedy series of miniature paintings. M. Betterave eats beetles and drinks red ink for dinner.

I am hoping this series will bridge the gap between the lighthearted silliness of the work I am posting on this blog, with the darker, more introspective work on my fine art blog which is here. Eventually, I suppose I will have to decide which blog to post this series of paintings on, but for the time being M. Betterave can reside here.

The series will eventually be shown as a body of work in a traditional gallery setting although a folio of prints or a small book would be a nice accompaniment.

Illustration Friday - CLEAN

2006-08-02T12:35:00.000-04:00

Emily Parker's new friend, Iris, was a strange little girl who seemed to notice everything. When Mrs Parker asked Emily where she came from, she just shrugged and said "I never asked".

Illustration Friday - OPPOSITES

2006-07-24T12:08:00.000-04:00

The Widemans lived in the narrowest house on the street. The Narrowsmiths lived in the widest house on the street.

It was a great inconvenience for both households.

Then one day, Wilma Wideman had an idea.

And from that day forward, everyone lived happily ever after.

Tiki Party

2006-07-20T22:42:00.000-04:00

Illustration Friday - SACRIFICE

2006-07-19T22:24:00.000-04:00

Sometimes a sacrifice isn't always what it seems. Sometimes it is. To read the poem, click the image to enlarge it.

Hidden Treasure

2006-07-16T21:37:00.000-04:00

The secrets an old house sometimes gives up
I was tearing out old carpet on the back staircase and then the upstairs hallway yesterday and today, even in the dreadful heat, but when the whim to do something big grabs me, I fly with it because who knows when the moment will happen again.

Today I tore a section up further along the hall and saw a square of pine roughly a square foot in size and realized I was looking at a small trap door. My kids, the peanut gallery... the spectators... gasped with delight, jumping up and down exclaiming "open it mum! open it!" The door came away easily and we were left looking at an assortment of odds and ends that obviously came from one of the bedrooms and were stashed in the hole. We wondered if we had stumbled upon an impromptu time capsule or if it was a rushed effort to clean up a bedroom, literally sweeping the mess under the carpet, or in this case, before the carpet was laid.

If we were characters in a story book, there would have been an object in there with magical powers that opened up doors to a new other world to escape in. Reality being as boring as it sometimes is, nothing of the sort happened. However, the kids spent the rest of the day going through the things and imagining what it would have been like here 30 years ago (a torn calendar sheet among the items was for July 1976) They cleaned the dust from the things and put them back in the hole, and added a few of their own, the secret stashing place is right outside both of their bedroom doors. It was most likely where the original stove pipe came up from the kitchen and when the house was "modernized" and the stove removed, the hole would have then been sealed off from the kitchen ceiling.

I decided I wanted to play this afternoon too, but I felt like creating something different. I've spent most of my time using Illustrator lately and Photoshop hasn't been opened in more weeks than I care to admit, so I had my daughter arrange the things on the scanner glass for me. I cut and pasted the items into the floor scene which I created in Photoshop. She included one of her own marbles to make it personal to her.

Jumping from Illustrator to Photoshop is like hopping side by side, across moving freight cars. Tomorrow, as more carpet is peeled back, we might find out if this house really is two houses joined together.

Illustration Friday - SKYLINE

2006-07-10T17:09:00.000-04:00

I was feeling poetic again ;)

Illustration Friday - STICKY

2006-07-05T00:25:00.000-04:00

Sticky Tiki
I was feeling a little retro this week, all the humid weather must be responsible for my Tiki on the brain. I even hauled out some Martin Denny.

The perils of having a Tiki Goddess for a mom...

Illustration Friday - RAIN

2006-06-29T17:11:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about "The Rain In Spain" and it inspired (or cursed) me into making a bit of verse.

Click the image if you wish to see the full sized version.

The Barnacle Chronicles 14

2006-06-26T13:46:00.000-04:00

The Barnacle Chronicles 13

2006-06-26T12:21:00.000-04:00

The Barnacle Chronicles 12

2006-06-22T15:54:00.000-04:00

Illustration Friday - DANCE

2006-06-19T22:39:00.000-04:00

Walking the Dog

2006-06-15T15:43:00.000-04:00

Illustration Friday - JUNGLE

2006-06-12T16:52:00.000-04:00

Illustration Friday - PORTRAIT

2006-06-05T16:54:00.000-04:00

TOODLES STRUNK

Out of 700 Hoboes, I chose Toodles Strunk as my own.

Wander over to 700 Hobos and look through the list of hobo names, find one that appeals to you and make a portrait of him/her. Then upload it your Flickr.com account and send it to the 700 Hoboes group.

From the 700 Hoboes website:

About the 700 hoboes project.

In the beginning, there were hoboes. Then, a notable non-historian wrote some lies about them in his wonderful and wholly inaccurate almanac. That man was John Hodgman. The book was The Areas of My Expertise. Amongst the lies was a comprehensive list of notable historical hobo names, numbering 700. After Hodgman read the list into a music flattening device, one Mr. Mark Frauenfelder of the Boing Boing teletyped a suggestion that 700 cartoonists volunteer to draw one hobo each as a public service or for no particular reason. And so it was, more or less, and here they are.

Three Cats and One Pom

2006-06-01T15:06:00.000-04:00

Our household includes 3 elderly cats: two daughters and a father, they are 16 and 17 years of age, stuck in their ways and quite spoiled. Six weeks ago, when I brought into the house a little dustmop of a Pomeranian dog that needed a home, the cats were outraged and not the least because the dog had been around cats in the past and didn't give them the time of day. This made it even worse for the cats because they realized the dog was oblivious to their total disgust.

Happily, after taking a few swipes at him, the cats have settled back down to their routine of sleeping 23.5 hours a day. "Bear", "Foo-Foo", "Puppy" or "The Porkster" now follows me everywhere because he has adopted me as his mama and food lady. He also sleeps in a basket beside the bed and growls at anyone who comes in when I am sleeping.

The Barnacle Chronicles 11

2006-06-01T10:27:00.000-04:00

The Yoga Class

2006-05-31T18:17:00.000-04:00

Ruth and Betty - The Yoga Class

Anyone who has tried yoga knows tree pose is nearly impossible if you don't concentrate, stare straight ahead and empty your mind. You almost need to deny that you are doing it because if you think about what you are doing you'll fall out of it.

The Barnacle Chronicles 10

2006-05-31T04:26:00.000-04:00

The Barnacle Chronicles 9

2006-05-31T03:54:00.000-04:00

Illustration Friday - CAKE

2006-05-26T22:58:00.000-04:00

Ruth and Betty - Two Forks and a Cake

Some of the most priceless moments in a friendship can be shared over two forks and a cake.

The Barnacle Chronicles 8

2006-05-25T13:17:00.000-04:00

The Barnacle Chronicles 7

2006-05-24T16:15:00.000-04:00

The Barnacle Chronicles 6

2006-05-22T11:00:00.000-04:00

The Barnacle Chronicles 5

2006-05-19T10:08:00.000-04:00

It's been almost 2 weeks since a Barnacle update. Here's number 5.

Illustration Friday - ANGELS AND DEVILS

2006-05-17T23:19:00.000-04:00

Hmm, sometimes you have to wonder if being good is worth it...

Illustration Friday - FAT

2006-05-08T20:06:00.000-04:00

Whenever we went to Aunt Lucille's house for dinner, she made baked spaghetti casserole. After dinner everyone had orange around their lips and got bloated with indigestion. Once, Mom asked for the recipe out of politeness. The worst time was when we had to stay the whole weekend because the cholesterol squiggles in front of Dad's eyes were so bad he couldn't see to drive us home.

The Barnacle Chronicles 4

2006-05-06T11:53:00.000-04:00

The Barnacle Chronicles 3

2006-05-04T14:16:00.000-04:00

The Barnacle Chronicles 2

2006-05-01T15:14:00.000-04:00

Marge continues to pine for her shark and Henry continues to pine for Marge.

Illustration Friday - UNDER THE SEA

2006-04-30T10:56:00.000-04:00

The Barnacle Chronicles 1

Poor Henry thinks Marge is the most beautiful fish in the sea. Unfortunately, Marge is attracted to excitement and danger. The barnacles have stuck around these parts long enough to have seen it all before (and the starfish is right, there is no such thing as a good pun ;o) ).

Illustration Friday - ROBOT

2006-04-24T13:31:00.000-04:00

This week's subject was a good reason to try out the 3D extrude and bevel effect in Illustrator.

Illustration Friday - SPOTTED

2006-04-17T12:54:00.000-04:00

I missed last week's topic but I made it this week! Coming in at number 409. Check Illustration Friday for hundreds of other images inspired by the word "spotted."

Blast from the Past II

2006-04-13T09:23:00.000-04:00

Drawn on Thursday April 13, 2006:

A Greatest Journal Entry from March 16, 2004
Geocaching

When I was in grade 4 or so, my sister and I decided that fall, to bury a bag of jellybeans as hidden treasure to see if we could find them in the spring after all the snow had melted. Lo and behold, springtime eventually came and we went looking for those jellybeans.We had buried them in the vegetable garden on the west side of our the house. Eventually we did find them, not too much worse for the wear, since we had double wrapped them in plastic. They were a bit crystallized and grainy, but they still tasted great.

The idea of that subterranean easter egg hunt still holds some appeal for me. I discovered geo caching and the concept immediately got the better of my imagination. Geo caching is hunting for "treasure." People hide a cache in a weather proof container in a spot outdoors, for example along a trail, in a park or bush. Sometimes the container only holds a notebook and a pencil in it for you to sign, other times it may have various trinkets of which you can take one if you leave a replacement.

And so I took my two kids on a treasure hunt yesterday morning. It was in a conservation area not too far away from us, we were to look for an ammunition box 4 ft up a spruce tree. So we walked the trail looking in all the spruce trees we saw until we finally came across the box.

Seeing a metal box wedged in the branches of a tree, even expecting it was a strange experience. It was concrete proof to me, I suppose that other people had been there. It seemed a bit spooky in a way although my children were jumping up and down telling me "take it down take it down"

Tomorrow's Date - Once in a Millenium thing

2006-04-04T18:34:00.000-04:00

Spring Forward

2006-04-01T19:20:00.000-05:00

For those of us who change our clocks tonight.
Well, we lose an hour of sleep tonight but we gain an hour of daylight to enjoy the outdoors every evening! Spring is here!

Illustration Friday - MONSTER

2006-03-28T10:09:00.000-05:00

Because every girl should get the chance to go to her high school prom if she wishes to.

I'm sure Gwennie's mom thinks her daughter is the prettiest girl in her graduating class.

I had Janis Ian's song "At Seventeen" running through my head as I photoshopped this collage together.

Deadlines

2006-03-25T20:30:00.000-05:00

No fun for a few days til I get a deadline out of the way, then I'll be back with my Illustration Friday post. This week's topic is monsters.

Baked Spaghetti Casserole au Gratin

2006-03-22T18:17:00.000-05:00

I was thinking some more about that man I wrote about, sitting in his kitchen and eating baked spaghetti casserole in Sunday's Blast from the Past I entry. I began to think about the weight, mass and density of baked spaghetti casserole, which is laden with sauce. Each strand of pasta is coated with an orangey, fatty emulsion that sticks to everything. You can usually tell which people had baked spaghetti casserole for dinner because the area around their lips are orange.

Apparently, the occasional lost soul who Googles "baked spaghetti casserole" in search of a recipe ends up here, my apologies, I may actually post a recipe for it one day, only because I feel so bad that people would come here and be disappointed...

...and thinking

2006-03-21T15:41:00.000-05:00

I came back from Home Depot armed with a pile of paint chips:

Can you tell that I have narrowed it down? Although I think black is great for ambience, it shows every mark and every speck of dust, so I may settle for cashew.

Thinking...and thinking.

2006-03-20T21:31:00.000-05:00

It's time to do a bit of work on the old house and I am wondering what colour to paint my walls. I'm also thinking this drawing might make a good avatar.

Blast from the Past I

2006-03-19T11:52:00.000-05:00

A Greatest Journal Entry from February 23, 2004 and I reminder to myself to take more walks:

I went out for a walk in the field this evening. It was a very flat, grey cardboard evening. No stars, it was maybe –3 C with a bit of damp breeze. There was nothing going for it at all except the air was fresh and it was quiet.

Looking to the south, I saw a greyish black bank of thick cloud that would be over the lake. My mind took a trip across the grey cardboard, crossing dimensions of distance and time until I found a small square hole cut into the surface. It was vaguely a room, a kitchen from the 1940's. A bright incandescent light shone from the ceiling, encased in a frosted glass and chrome art deco influenced square shade. There was a man sitting at a small, chrome legged kitchen table. He was bulky in shape, wearing a white vest and a pair of dark green workpants. In front of him was an enormous plate of spaghetti, baked casserole style with a crumb topping (streusel topping, or au gratin, as Betty Crocker would say, to give it a continental feel) each strand was bathed in shiny orange sauce that somehow always happens with baked spaghetti casserole.

I discovered that the kitchen was part of my life. I wasn't sure who the man was, maybe I am a border in the house and he is the landlord. I have come in from a day at work. I am a secretary for an insurance firm. Eight hours a day I sit at a gunmetal grey desk. I am at the beck and call of Underwood Typewriters, Gestetners, Rolodexes, Dictaphones, ledgers of ruled paper and my black, Bakelite telephone at my desk. Colours are deep, murky, sea foam green, chocolate milk, and black, heavily grained yellow oak, and grey, lots of bluish grey. Strips of shiny chrome accents sparkle enticingly here and there like distant galaxies in the dark skies; shiny chrome car grills that imply a relationship with the new space age, triggered by rocket propulsion.

Illustration Friday - FEET

2006-03-19T10:37:00.000-05:00

I discovered the bestest and funnest website a couple of weeks ago, called Illustration Friday

Every Friday a new topic is posted and you are invited to make an image relating to it and post your link on the website. This week's topic is feet. I drew this in Illustrator with just the pencil tool, to preserve a hand drawn quality. I love my Wacom :)

Hello!

2006-03-19T10:34:00.000-05:00

And welcome to my blog. Yes, yet another blog has been born. I have one at GeatestJournal and may move my posts from there over to here at some point. This blog will reflect my musings, ponderings and any artwork I may want t0 share.

**Tindaisies**