house for sale

Yes, it's true. My house is for sale! It is 6 years ago that I first saw it and fell instantly in love with the brick exterior and white verandas and the huge green barn (now weathered down). What a history this house has! It tickles me to know that my parents, who immigrated to this village from Holland in 1949 and only stayed a few months, must have walked past my house on their way to the store and waterfront.

We have renovated the house completely, leaving all the original historical (1905) elements, such as hardwood floors, 12" baseboards, plaster columns and ceiling moldings. The doors were stripped of 4 layers of paint to the original solid British Columbia fir. It is not a big house by modern standards. At one time though, in the 1960s when the Carillon dam was being built, 4 families from the Canary Islands lived here.

Why we are leaving? Our mission here is fulfilled: to polish this gem till it shines. Now we are ready for a life of zen simplicity and mobility. Our lives have followed an 11-year cycle and 2011 is the beginning of a new phase.

Welcome to a virtual tour of our "home for now".

April ATCs

My Artist Trading Cards for this month were inspired by a tutorial on the site of lynne hoppe. I read the instructions and then, in my own way, adapted the technique.

I started with a square piece of regular cheesecloth
and applied lots of different colors of water-soluble acrylic paint.

This I let dry and then cut it into slightly larger than ATC size pieces.

I gave each piece a light spray of water to soften it and then
spread it onto a blank ATC card
already prepared with a layer of liquid matt medium,
allowing the cheesecloth to make irregular patterns by bunching and stretching it.

When the cards are dry, I apply a layer of cream colored acrylic paint.
Depending on your choice of paint, a second layer might be good: dab away at the paint where it seems too opaque.

The acrylic paint colors will seep through the cream-colored layers for that dreamy effect.

When the cards are dry again, I trim away the stray threads.

For this series I felt like "framing" each card with a line of India ink.

These cards were titled "Indra's Net". They remind me that all beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Beginning Monday, May 3rd, my ATC collection will be on exhibit all month at the Pointe Fortune, Quebec post office! There will be one binder of originals kept from every collection I made since November 2002. Also, one binder of scans of whole collections made since June 2007 and a binder of cards that I collected through trades. Of course, there will also be a poster explaining the Artist Trading Card phenomena in English and French!