many of you know that i work full-time, as well as own lazar studiowerx with my hubby and create mixed media artwork [yeah… i don’t sleep much lol!].

well, i would say that 90% of the time i really like my job - some days i damn well love it. it’s a creative, exciting, important and fun job working for the municipality i live in… this week however [and most of last week] fell into that 10% hate area.

it’s been a horrible 10 days with massive, crushing deadlines, working days-off, etc… then, you bust your ass and meet the deadline, only to find out that one person your project STILL needed input from has finally looked at the project and realized that THEY still needed to give you their 2 cents. so now, instead of gratefully acknowledging a job well done, my manager pushing the project through on time [regardless of one individual’s lack of commitment to the task], i am now told that the deadline has been moved to the following month. 4 weeks later! all this just after i’ve killed myself to get it done and 2 hours BEFORE it’s previous ‘drop dead deadline’  that had ‘no flexibility’.  wtf ?!?! ridiculous! grrrr…  and because of all the stress, i have had a migraine for 4 days. 4 days of non-stop pain and fuzziness. i worked through each of those 4 days, committed to meet my hard deadline and now i’m so exhausted i can hardly see straight.

today i’m mad, tired and thoroughly frustrated. this is one of those ‘hate’ periods in my ‘regular’ job that makes me want to quit and just do art. all art - all day. everyday. <sigh…>

too bad we live in beautiful vancouver with it’s high cost of living. maybe one day i’ll be a full-time artiste, but for now, c’est la vie… i have to suck it up, bite my tongue and carry on.

rant over. thank you for listening.
artwork to resume this evening after i scan a few new pieces from last week and take a nap.

finshing the studio:

yay! we’re heading off to IKEA to pick up the workstation/studio table and cabinets that will hopefully get me closer to finishing off my artstudio! i’ll take pics once the workstation is complete. so looking forward to finishing off the space. there is still a bunch of purging and work to do, but i’m up to the challenge =)

let there be light:

last weekend, black eye and all, we went to a local lantern festival. it was a quick tour with our friends and their girls, only about a 45 minute walk around. it was interesting enough, but i confess that i was disappointed that the organizers did not spend more time prepping and sprucing up the site. admission of $20-25 per person is pretty steep for what you are getting - thank goodness our admission was free and we had 6 passes for me, t and our friends. i certainly wouldn’t have paid $20 for that… maybe $10, but definitely not $20.

the grass lawns and boulevards needed MAJOR maintenance and trimming. shrubs were outta control and the morning glory in the garden area is taking over in a big way… that said, thank goodness the best way to see the festival is in the dark lol! if you’re not a ‘parks’ person like me, you probably didn’t notice as much in the way of ‘oopses’ as i did… but some of areas were in pretty sad shape. at least the lanterns were interesting enough.

the other thing that killed me about the richmond lantern festival was that the signage in many areas were fraught with ‘engrish’ and major typos! the one that made us laugh out loud was the description of the ‘cartoon’ characters being referred to as ‘catoons’ lol! at first we were confused, then we realized that the spelling was messed up. ah well, that’s what happens when you rush an installation of an outdoor display.

i did manage to take a bunch of photos in the dark and let the glow of the lanterns, some of them [the lanterns that is] were HUGE. so instead of using a flattening and deadening flahs in the shots, i lit the pics with the ambient lantern light. they turned out really great… here are a few for you to enjoy.

to check out all the lanterns from the 2008 richmond lantern festival, click here and you will be magically transported to my flickr account. enjoy!

just packing up the truck for portobello west.

don’t forget my local bloggy peeps that today, if you attend portobello west and pay the $2 admission fee, show me your stamped hand and i’ll refund you the price of admission! just mention that you read it on my blog and the twoonie is yours.

if you attended our warehouse sale earlier this month then you hopefully received a free admission coupon. please remember to bring that with you to enter the show at no charge!

portobello west is on today from 12-6pm… it is located on the south foot of Cottrell Street just off Terminal Blvd between Main St. and Clark Dr. in Vancouver. hope to see you there!

i’m heading into the hospital for a minor ‘procedure’ to deal with the on-going saga of my freaking right eyelid. they are removing the cyst in the lid today and i’ll be off the computer for a few days over the long weekend to allow recovery time. too bad a few days won’t take care of the massive bruising i’ll have for the next 2-3 weeks. <sigh> it really has been a year for me…

BUT before i forget, i wanted to remind my local peeps that i will be attending portobello west this sunday, august 31 with a whole bunch of new artwork including a few new originals and BIG giclees, buttons and the most adorable button magnets.

the portobello west fashion+art show runs from 12-6pm this sunday… so if you have a little time this sunday before the reality of fall and back to school smack you in the face, please come on by and check out the amazing artists, fashion and jewelry.

admission is $2 and if you tell me that you read about portobello on my blog, i’ll refund you the price of admission. think of it like validating your parking ticket, except your parking is free and now you’ll be able to shop the coolest vancouver fashion+art scene in town.

oh! before i forget… i wanted to mention that a number of my artworks are also now available in the great little shop called ‘the velvet room boutique’. the boutique, a lovely shop full of great fashion, jewelry and art, is located on 41st ave in the kerrisdale neighbourhood of vancouver. if you are in the area, please do visit their store… they have lovely things.  here is their website

one more piece of biz before i sign off…

i will be reopening registration for a fall session of the art of transference online workshop series, so please watch the blog for notification by mid-september announcing registration. let your art friends know about the workshop series if they are interested in image transfer - it’s a really in-depth class and i’ve gotten great feedback on the course content.

registration will be running from mid-september to september 30, with classes commencing on october 1.

have a great long weekend my friends! see you in september =)

my definition of artistic… and merriam-webster’s too =)

To create your own wordle cloud visit : wordle.net

after a 4 day migraine, things are finally getting back on track! it seems as if my lovely HOT days in vegas, in the dry, non-humid, constant climate environment left me a little ‘hung over’ and my sinuses freaked out being back in the damp and pollen-happy northwest lol… that and two lovely days of weather changes and the fact that the botox is wearing off all made for a tired, grumpy and headachy girl.

but ahhhhh… all is right again and i’m back in the groove. creating art and working on graphic design stuff for a few clients. i’m getting jiggy with it as they say and it feels good!

so… a few of you had emailed about getting a better view of a few of my new pieces [plus i have 8 more on the go for portobello west this sunday] so i thought i’d give you a better view of the lovelies that are being dropped off for stretching tomorrow…

I also have a couple of scrappy layouts/projects in my head at the moment, so that will be appearing soon too! think 6×12, panoramic landscapes with twinkly lights [hint hint!!]

Me n T Vegas Monorail

just back from Vegas… we were both hot and now we’re both tired. unfortunately i am working all day today and through the evening until 10pm at a special City event. i will try to post tonight if not i’m too tired. in the meantime, here we are on the LV monorail heading off to dinner. my hubs is one funny dude =)

in a mad frenzy to get a few pieces finished and off to my giclee printers in quebec, so i could have them back and stretched in-time for portobello west on august 31, i finished off 4 new pieces and thought i would give you a sneaky peek at these latest editions.

gotta say…. i love these. they are vibrant and soft at the same time [if that is possible!] and are going to be available as limited edition reproductions on canvas only. yum!

i’m off to land of casinos, pools and sweaty people [its 104F in las vegas!! holy $hit!] for a few much needed days of holiday with the hubs but thought i would leave you with a little eyecandy while i’m gone… i thought you might miss me a little and didn’t want you to be lonely ;^)

click on the thumbnail at the right and enjoy!

Funny/Cute Moments with Robert Downey Jr

LOVE the RDJ…
Enjoy!