Maud Lewis- Part 1

   Hi everyone. Happy Sunday. I hope you are having a nice weekend.  Today I am joining Nicole for her Sunday in the Art Room (SITAR) and also Gillena for her Sunday Smiles. 

   I've been sharing a few photos here and there from The Nova Scotia Museum of Art in Halifax. Today I thought I would share a few photos from one of the permanent exhibits at the museum. This exhibit, although not large, was unique because the artist's entire home is in the museum. As I mentioned in the title, the artist is Maud Lewis. 

   This exhibit was the main reason I wanted to visit the museum. I had hoped to visit last year when we traveled in Nova Scotia, but there wasn't enough time. This year on our trip, I definitely made time to go. In fact, it was a rainy Sunday when we went, which made it a great day for a museum. 

(image from Canadian history)

  Maud (nee Dowley)  Lewis lived from 1903-1970, and for much of her life she had severe rheumatoid arthritis as well as a possible unnamed birthday defect. She was born in the Yarmouth, Nova Scotia area, and then later in life, moved to Digby. She married a fisherman/fish peddler named Edward Lewis. The two of them lived in a very tiny little house in poverty. That didn't stop Maud from painting however, and one of her biggest art projects was painting her home.

  After Maud died, Lewis continued to live in this home. In 1979, he was killed when a burglar attempted to break in. After that the house went into disrepair, but because of how beloved Maud's work was (and still is), eventually the house became the property of the Province of Nova Scotia. That led to the creation of the art museum in Halifax where you can see her home as well as many of her paintings. 

   When the museum acquired the house, it was in terrible disrepair and required a lot of restoration. I wish I had taken a photo of the photo of how this looked, but I didn't. 😟 But I can show the finished restored home that is in the museum. 

   I really love Maud's folk art style, and all the colors she used. She definitely made this small home (no bigger than sheds some people have) a cheerful and happy place.  There were also many other paintings in this exhibit area. I will share those photos another time, as well as some more information about Maud. 

   But if you can't wait, here's a great story about her that was broadcast in National Public Radio: The Unlikely Story of Maud Lewis.

   That's all for me today. Wishing everyone a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.  

                               

  

It Was a Beautiful Day to Go Walking

   Hi everyone. I hope you're having  a lovely week. 

   Today I am joining Nicole for Friday Face Off and also Gillena for Friday Lunch Break. 

  

    Today I'm sharing some more photos from my and my husband's travels to Prince Edward Island. I have some views from a lovely day out on the trails in one section of Prince Edward island National Park.

  The day we visited this area of PEI was an absolutely gorgeous autumn day. The sky was blue: there were no clouds, and there was no wind either. It was warm, but not hot. I think, even though we had lots of sunny days, this day had  the very best weather of them all. 

   Prince Edward Island National Park has 3 sections, and the only one we made it to was the most eastern one. This one is known as the Greenwich area where  the biggest sand dunes on the island are located. You can find it on the map  if you look below the red A and R in the Edward part of the title.

   There were 2  different trails we followed.  The first trail was shorter, and since we arrived at this one first, we took the dogs for a little stroll. They were not allowed on the beach, so I went down solo onto the beach while my husband waited with the dogs. (Beach walking, although he tags along, is not something he'd suggest doing.)

    Here's a handsome face for Friday Face Off. 

   If I hadn't had to leave the hubby behind with the dogs, I would have taken a longer walk on the sand. 😏 What a gorgeous beach.

  Even though I didn't get a big beach walk, we did hit another trail a bit further down the road. On the next trail we left the dogs behind in the car. (The car was parked in the shade, the windows were half open, and we had a towel over the windshield to block any rays that made it through the trees). Maddie was exhausted from our first walk,and although Pete would have made this walk, we left him behind to nap with Maddie.

  Our next trail started through this lovely old farmland with views of a bay.

   And there were lots of purple asters in bloom too, so I couldn't resist a photo. 😉

   Then at a trail intersection we turned right and after a short walk through the woods, we came to this floating boardwalk part of the trail. 

   Your can see the dunes off in the distance as you walked over the water.

Here's another face for Nicole's Face Off.

   At the end of the floating boardwalk, you climbed the dunes to get down onto the beach. From the top of the dunes, you could look back and see the boardwalk.  Here's a photo I took while up on top of the dunes. 

    The hardest part of the walk was climbing up onto the dunes, but  it wasn't a very long stretch.

    But the views were certainly worth it.

      You can see we arrived at another gorgeous stretch of beach.  We only took a short walk along the beach however because 1) we had the dogs in the car to think about and 2) we hadn't eaten since breakfast and we were hungry.

   When we got back to the car after both of our jaunts, I was curious how far I had walked. 

  Nice. And we still had one more walk ahead of us after we finally got something to eat. But all of that is for another post another time.

   Have a super Friday and start to your weekend. And just an FYI- I need to be out early today and will be out much of the day so I won't get to visit blogs until this evening.

Thursday Art

   Hi everyone. Happy Thursday to you.

 

   Today I am joining Mia for her Beautiful World challenge over at Art Journal Journey I'm also joining Brenda for her All Things Autumn over at Tag Along (and ATC's too).

   My journal page today makes me think of frosty autumn mornings, which luckily we haven't had yet. But we have had some very chilly temperatures, just a few degrees above freezing.  Saying that, it sounds like frost is on it's way this upcoming weekend though because it is supposed  to get very chilly.😰

   I started this page by painting the background green. Then I took some of this autumn looking tissue paper and glued down pieces onto the green background. After the matte medium (glue) dried, I rubbed some very wet blue ink here and there around the page.

   Several years ago I went on a sticker buying binge, and I had a bunch of these white leaves left. I decided to use them up on my page because I liked the contrast of the white against the background. Then to finish my page I added another  sticker, this time a small postage looking one. I stamped a cancellation rubber stamp a few times around that sticker. Finally I stamped a a quote from a Hero Arts set onto a scrap of a paper bag. Then I cut it out and glued it down on my page.

   And here's my tag for Brenda's challenge at Tag Along (and ATCs too) .

   I really like my tag except the underlying  words on the right stand out in the photo more than when  you just look with your eyes at the tag. I started with some yellow ink and a very old set of Technique Tuesday/ Allie Edwards autumn quotes. I inked and stamped the leaf color quote down the right side of the tag. I was going for a bit of a subtle background design with the words that you get with your eyes, but not here in this photo.

    Then I stamped most of an old Penny Black stamp. It was wider than my tag, so I stamped the right handed tree and the blowing leaves. I used ink pads to color the tag in, and then I used a red, an orange and a gold paint pen to add the dots (leaves). I then used another old Technique Tuesday autumn stamp set and black ink to stamp the other words and phrases. 

   There was still a bit too much empty tag at the top, so I finished it off by adding a gold metallic paper sun.

   There you have it. Today is my and my husband's 38th wedding anniversary. I  was hoping we might take a drive out and enjoy the foliage colors, but my husband is trying to finish some steps to our front door. We've never had steps there in the 37 years we've lived in our house, but our insurance company is now requiring them for us to keep coverage. I guess that means we'll put off our drive for another day. 😉😞

   

It's Time for a New Challenge

    Hi everyone. It's Tuesday which means it's time for a new challenge over at Try It on Tuesday.

    Thank you everyone who joined our autumn theme. I guess I'm not the only person who loves making autumn inspired art. There were so many wonderful link ups. ❤

    For our new challenge, we're going with the seasonal holiday coming up. Most of you probably know I'm talking about HALLOWEEN.

    I couldn't help myself, and I picked up this new ghost clear stamps set from Pink Ink.  I decided to make my page full of ghosts out enjoying themselves. And probably scaring  anyone they came across either. 😉

    I'm using a blank board book to make a small Halloween journal.  I started my page by putting down some grey paper and then an assortment of washi tapes. After the matte medium dried, I took some black acrylic paint and splattered it on my page. Then I stamped 3 of the ghosts from my new stamp set. I stamped them on white paper and sort of fussy cut them, and then I stamped some of a clear acetate scrap and sort of fussy cut those too.

   For the words I used some stickers from an older sheet from 49 and Market (left side) and on the other side I stamped a quote using an older Impression Obsession rubber stamp. 

    Here's a couple of close ups so you can see the details and read the words better if you'd like to.

 

  Don't forget to check out the other design teams Halloween pieces. And as always, you can link up and challenge related art in the next 2 weeks. 

   I'm also linking  up my journal spread to Mia's Beautiful World challenge at Art Journal Journey. Of course, it might be a beautiful world for ghosts, but I'm not certain I'd want to meet any of these ghouls. 😉 Please remember at AJJ we only accept art journaling.

   I hope you enjoy some Halloween fun and that we'll be seeing your Halloween inspired art at Try It On Tuesday. 
 

T Stands for Random Autumn Views

   Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. I hope everyone who had a holiday weekend enjoyed theirs. And if you are stopping by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog for T day this week, happy T day to you.

  So what's new with me?  Last week was busy. I went for a couple of beautiful autumn day outings,  continued with a bit of easy garden clean up, had a lovely celebration of life for my Mother-in-law, had a killer massage at PT which really made a huge improvement in my arm/ shoulder pain, and this morning (Monday) had an MRI. I  think after that killer massage that maybe all my issues are knots in my muscles  that are just irritating a bad muscle sprain. But I will know more once the MRI results come in. 

  There are definitely lots of signs of autumn in my area now. We're  in peak autumn color too.   

 Today I am going to share some random autumn photos I've recently snapped. These are from a  recent visit to an apple orchard  and my recent walks. This first one was taken out in my garden the other day.

   We had hoped to get some of the orchard's fresh cider when we visited, but sadly the people directly in front of us in line took the last jug. 😕

   At the orchard they had some Mums out. The colors were just gorgeous.

    And here's the view from my yard this past Saturday morning. 

   And finally, for my drink this week. I'm sticking with my outside beautiful autumn day photos.

   My bird bath is really a big honeybee (and other wild bees too) water bowl. I added stones to the bottom so the bees can stand on them to drink, but lately we've had a lot of rain so the bowl is quite full.

    The yellow you see in this second photo is a floating bee that is made so bees can land on it and drink from it. The bees like that a lot too. Occasionally when the bees sit on the edge like this they slide into the water, and sometimes their wings get too wet to provide them any lift out.  If I see this I use a dried lily leaf and scoop them out. But amazingly I've also seen other bees pick up the struggling bees and fly them out. It goes to show you how smart this species is. It also reminds me that if bees can be smart enough to  save one of their own, how many other species of living things do the similar thing and we just don't know or take the time to recognize it. 

   That's it for me today. Wishing everyone a happy T Day and week ahead.