Tuesday 23 December 2014

The Bokeh Season

Peace - Christmas 2014 - NorthernShy

A favorite time of the year, no doubt; there is nothing like the lights from the Christmas tree to make you feel all snuggly and warm and hopeful. I may not be feeling the best this year, which means I won’t get to all the things that I normally would, but Christmas should also be a forgiving time and that should include forgiving yourself too.  These ‘rules’ we set for ourselves – that things need to be “just so” and done “just like the last time” – sometimes those rules need to be broken – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a good Christmas. It just might be a little different.  But there will still be love, happiness, and … bokeh.

Tuesday 25 November 2014

DayDreaming

Daydreaming - Summer 2014 - NorthernShy

Frozen Driveways, Frozen Olaf, Frozen Shoulder. Frozen everywhere I turn.  Painful. I’m not ready for the frozen freeze of winter.  Not ready to bundle up. Not sure I can with this frozen appendage.  Not ready.  So I’m daydreaming.  Daydreaming of warm evenings and late summer sun.  So I’m frozen after all. Frozen in time. Sigh.

Tuesday 28 October 2014

Everything New is Old Again

Sifton Bog - London, Ontario - NorthernShy 2014

Drove over to the Sifton Bog for a wee hike on the weekend since it was such a beautiful day.  Strikes me that I must drive, but thankful that there is a place, right in the city actually, where you can feel like you are away from the city.  Such a contrast to back home, where you could walk out the door and be steps from the wilderness. Remembering now, my Mom walking to work and coming face-to-face with a black bear that rose up on hind legs, perhaps just as startled as the woman in front of him, frozen in her tracks. I’ve edited my photos of that day in the Sifton Bog, making the bright, colourfull fall photos look aged, and that pleases me somehow.  A nod, perhaps, to those days gone by of wilderness & bears & memories & home.

Sunday 5 October 2014

Reflecting


Fanshawe Lake - London, Ontario - NorthernShy 2014

Reflecting today on the passage of time. Another Fall. Another season change. That old, broken tree trunk down by the lake is catching my attention today. The leaves are starting to change.  Screaming for attention. But that old, broken tree trunk, it speaks to me today. Quietly. And it is beautiful.

Sunday 14 September 2014

Living Cool

Living Cool - NorthernShy Digital Art 2014
Old Black & White Family Photo Layered with Photo of NorthernShy Painting

These Are the Good Old Days.  Black & white photographs of your parents, taken before you were born and while you were still a child.  Who are those people?  Back then, they were just ‘Mom & Dad’, but hey – Dad looks pretty cool in that old photo.  We are so fascinated today with ‘Throwback Thursday’, already looking back to our own yesteryears, anxious to show people ‘this is where I come from - this is how cool I used to be’.  It’s fun to remember when but important to remember now.  Now will be then one day too.  Show everyone your now; live your cool today.

Definition from Wikipedia - Cool - Coolness is an admired aesthetic of attitude, behaviour, comportment, appearance and style, influenced by and a product of the Zeitgeist (spirit of the age or spirit of the time).

Saturday 6 September 2014

Capturing Summer

Summer - Captured - NorthernShy 2014

Summer is over again; and again, much too fast. Can’t beat the cool, crisp air, crunch & colour & coziness to come.  But there is something about summer and the whole feel of it.  Younger, somehow, and more carefree is summer. Shooting out the doors of school into the long, warm days ahead full of promise & adventure & beaches & sand & seashells and not a care.  Oh to capture summer in a jar, to take it out during the long winter nights, breathe it in, and remember.  Remember youth and remember freedom.  Take your jar and smile & remember summer and then cap the jar & put it back on the shelf.  Because fall & winter are always behind summer and we can’t stop them.  But we can smile & we can remember.  And it will warm our old bones again.

Friday 15 August 2014

In the Blue Blush of Night

In the Blue Blush of Night - NorthernShy Digital Art 2014 - 4 of my own photos layered

Summer time.  Children’s voices can be heard outside, laughing and shouting in the distance.   Back when we were children of summer, that packed gravel road and the Mulberry Bush across the road was our playground.  There were paths in that bush that only we were privy too.  Every inch explored and discovered and re-discovered the next day.  I remember the excitement of being allowed to stay up late to play in the twilight blue of night, that first blush of the real night to come.  I remember one particular evening, playing ‘kick the can’ with all the kids on the street, when even the older children joined in, making it ever so special for the younger children.  While our parents visited in doorways under the soft glows of porch lights, we hid alone in the not so dark.  This was it.  This was what it was all about.  Playing with the older kids during the blue blush of night.  It doesn’t get any better than this.


Monday 4 August 2014

Thoughts of Home

Painted Rock - NorthernShy 2014

Sitting in the shade on a hot summer day, painting rocks.  Loving everything about the day - from choosing a rock from those lying under the birch cluster in the backyard - to the final 'photo op'.  Puttering about with these rocks reminds me of home where we had a 'front street' & a 'back lane'.  Both were just packed gravel. The crunch of a gravel road under my feet will always take me back there.  To quote the Rodney Atkins song "It Makes Me Wanna Take a Backroad", sitting painting these rocks is allowing me to "get lost and get right with my soul". Simple. Cool.

Tuesday 22 July 2014

Beginnings

Totem - NorthernShy Digital Art 2013
2 of my Photos Layered with one of my Art Journal Pages

Born & raised in Northwestern Ontario – the Canadian North is ‘home’ to me and will always hold a very special place in my heart.  It was a fantastic place to grow up.  I suppose many people feel that way about the place they grew up - but I can’t help feeling that the Northern experience was extra special.  I have cousins that grew up on the ocean shores of California and, yes, there are times I’m envious – very envious - and there are times I dream about 'what would have been' if I'd put a little rucksack over my shoulder and headed off to live with them.  But then I would have missed that extra special Northern Life.  And then I wouldn’t have been me.