Victory Gardens

Lisa Giroday is the co-founder of Victory Gardens in Vancouver. With a background in environmental studies, product development and entrepreneurship, she started her enterprise with Sandra Lopuch and Sam Philips. Through the business, Lisa teaches classes and educates people on how to grow the food you eat and with her team, helps individuals and families build an edible garden. 

I love that her and her coworkers wear the same set of overalls as their uniform, love that she drives a motorbike and is married to a former pro snowboarder, and is making it in a male dominated field.

Time for Typography

While browsing Chapters, I strode over to the art section, as per usual. I picked up a book on Typography called "The Little Book of Lettering" and flipped through it. The subject has caught my interest lately as I have been helping my sister to design her wedding invitations. Each double page highlighted the work of a different artist.

Two artists stood out to me. I memorized their names in the store--Dana Tanamachi and Liam Stevens--so that I could look them up when I got home.


DANA TANAMACHI

Dana starts with a blank chalkboard and draws out the rough shape. She erases, draws, erases, draws, erases, draws, until she gets it looking just right. She does a final coat with permanent chalk. Her education is in graphic design and she lives in Brooklyn, New York. Watch her work here, here, and here.

It reminds me of the style of writing at Death Valleys Little Brother, which I posted about back in December.



LIAM STEVENS

Liam is a pencil and paper enthusiast. He is an image maker and designer in London, England.

Perfect Prints

Reading the Etsy blog, I found a Fresh Shop from August 2013 which I had to share. It is called Rachelignotofsky and the article may be found here.

The designer shares my name, love for science, and interest in teaching children!

She has made a whole set of body system prints including nervous, skeletal, respiratory, digestive and cardiovascular systems.

She has prints of the heart, cell contents (plant and animal), and layers of the earth. 

If I worked with the school board with kindergarten children (which is my dream) I would totally buy all of these to use with the children! The faces on each item are too cute!

Wood Carving Clubs

A couple of weeks ago, I set the wheels in motion for my magnifying glass wood carved handle project for Etsy. It will have cat ears and the handle will be the body of the cat.

Although the final product will look more like this (below), and made out of wood.

About two weeks ago, I visited the Grand Valley Woodcarvers Club in Kitchener to talk to some professionals about my project and get an idea of resources out there. When I arrived at the building, after getting a bit lost, I peeked through the windows instead of opening the door. I was suddenly feeling shy. Someone was talking at the front of the room. I later found out that he was giving a biology talk on the owl, which was the bird everyone was carving. Someone else who was late, and said hello to me. I explained to him what I was doing and he invited me in saying "everyone is friendly." I soon found that to be true and once inside was my boisterous self again, chatting with some people at the back.

I met a couple of people. First, Zenon, who was in charge of the club, then Larry, who later would help me with my project more directly, then Zenon's wife, who I chatted with a short time, then Nettie and her friend who both came from the Owls Nest Woodcarving Club which was a little closer to my house, in Waterloo.

I ended up talking to Nettie the longest. She told me that the club I went to that night mostly carved birds, while the other in Waterloo did all kinds of animals (despite their names). She told me of another club in Waterloo, she will introduce me to someone who knows more about that, where there are big tools for woodworking, such as band saws and lathes. That would require a membership fee, but not much. I have yet to go to either of these places.

Today I visited Baden's Woodcarving Club for seniors, because Larry is going to help me on my original design. It was pretty awesome. I arrived with my lunch and sat with three seniors, who shared with me their stories of going to the dentist. One got his tooth pulled 65 years ago for $1 and simultaneously a replacement gold tooth for $25. Another needed his tooth pulled and the tooth had such roots that the dentist had to prop his leg on the chair to pull it out of his mouth with pliers, his head bobbing everywhere and thinking it would come off at the shoulders. Another lady went to the dentist with her classmates once a year in elementary school while she lived in the Czech Republic, as it was different in communist country. 

Since I had mindlessly forgotten all my drawings, I had a tour of the place instead. I just about loved it, with all the big rooms and many many machines. I got to see some finished work, as well as work in progress. Some toys, an old fashion milk truck, refinished chairs, a rocking horse, some bowls. Larry showed me everything and all the while I kept thinking "my dad would love this place."

Tomorrow I am returning with my to scale drawings and will have a piece cut out to test carve my first one. I am excited!

Writing Workshop

This evening I went to a beginner writers workshop. Susan Fish, author of Seeker of Stars, presented the information lively. Here are the notes I took.

Suggestions:

It takes 10 000 hours to be really good at something. Practice writing using writing prompts. Make a list of your favourite adjectives and then put them in a jar. Each day, pull one or two out and write something with them. Sometimes you need to paint cornfields over and over. Write a side passage from a book of fiction (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies type thing). Find a subject you care about. Don't get too comfortable. Don't play it safe. Its good to make a writing date and time. Keep that appointment just like you would any other. Find how you work the best (Computer, Graph paper, Blank paper, lined paper, Notebooks, etc.). Use a soundtrack. Take a trip one weekend. Write in the bathtub. Write while standing up. Write while laying down. Anything that makes it easier to start and continue! Read, read, read and cross-pollinate. Go to lectures. Lead a rich life. Creativity is having great ideas, figuring out how to do it, and then doing it. Learning new words. Use dictionaries. Work on the craft. Use verbs well. Choose your details. Follow your energy. Reward yourself for finishing. Find a community of support. Follow an agent on Twitter.


Quotes:

"If I had to say what writing is, we would define it essentially as an act of courage." Cynthia Ozick

"Start writing. No Matter what.
The water doesn't flow until the tap is turned on." Louis L-Amour

"Be willing to write a shitty first draft" Anne Lamott

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader." Robert Frost



Recommended Reading:

The Joy of Writing by Pierre Burton

Our Town by Thornton Wilder (Play)

Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Three Types of Thinking

Over the last few weeks I have been developing and expanding ideas for my Etsy shop! I have decided to make childrens science toys.

I have been reading Inquiry into Math, Science, and Technology for Teaching Young Children by Arleen Pratt Prairie. It talks about three different types of thinking that children engage in with their day to day explorations and activities. These three types of thinking are physical knowledge, logicomathematical knowledge, and social knowledge.

Physical knowledge depends on the "cognitive processes experienced as children act on objects." For example, if a child has a group of shells, he will do various things to the shells to gain knowledge about it. He feels the shape and smoothness, clinks them together, drops them on the table, maybe drops them in water. He is learning the shape, texture, and sounds that the object makes.

Logicomathematical knowledge is created when the child "makes relationships between and among objects." The child compares shells to each other. She classifies them into groups that look alike, examining their groves in comparison to each other, and manipulating and considering relationships in her mind.

Social knowledge is "knowledge shared by people." Those around him call the item concha in Spanish or shell in English. Counting the shells is something socially communicated as well as the names of the numbers themselves. "The decision that we should turn sea creatures back to the sea is also social knowledge. The distinction of social knowledge is that it comes from people, not from the objects themselves."

Painting Partisan

For the last week, I have been mulling over ideas for an Etsy shop and think I have found the perfect one. Now, one of the items I would like to make involves a series of paintings. Today I decided what medium to use: watercolours.

The reason watercolour above the others is that, I recently discovered that oil paint is actually toxic and so is not very good to breath all the time. Since I am so health conscious, it was not a good choice for me. I also felt that my oil brushes just didn't get small enough.. I think there would be other tools I could try, though it led me onto another type of paint consistency.

Watercolour is what my Granny Pam used for almost all of her life. She sold her paintings and entered many competitions, in which she often got top place. My house growing up had one of her paintings of a sunflower and the months of the year. My mother wrote family and close friends birthdays on it before laminating the whole thing. It was a central part of the kitchen.

One of my fondest memories of my Granny Pam was when she taught me how to knit in the backyard of our house. I must have been about 5 or 6.My mother used to tell me that she thought watercolour showed the most skill in painting because unlike oil and acrylics, a mistake could not be coloured over.

Another reason watercolour appeals to me is that two of my favourite painters use it: John James Audubon and Walton Ford. I admire both of their subject and skill immensely and would like to paint animals as well.

That is why I attempt to study their techniques.

 Walton Ford