Old Photo Projects....

In October 2005, I did a photo collaboration with photographer James St.Laurent and a local clothing designer, Sandra of Gypsy Circus. I never received a copy of the photos from that shoot until recently.

I love editing photos, partly because I love having perfect results, but also because it's good practice for me and helps me to build my portfolio for photo-editing/image manipulation. I have created another "Before" & "After Editing" photo for you to see what has been changed.



In body art, the person is my interactive canvas.
When I do the style of body painting that I did on Sandra, it's more of a dream of archtypical mythological charactors blended with the present and super-imposed onto the person who gives the painting life & movement. It is a form of story telling, even though it is sometimes extremely conceptual and sometimes vague with abstract results.

The Utter Madness of students....

We live rather close to Concordia University, so every year when the welcome back celebrations begin, it is complete utter madness for two weeks; very overwhelming...

McGill University just had their "frosh" about a month ago, total drunken debauchery; it is quite impossible to navigate the cycling path that goes right through the McGill campus. Normally this part of the cycling path is very pretty, except for when you are trying to get out of the way of students who seem totally oblivious to the fact that there are high speed bikes coming their way. I had so many near accidents even when I was going slow.

Concordia students aren't quite as wild but still they completely congest the streets around the campus and they were just as happy and hyper as the McGill students. It also doesn't help that there is major construction going on right around the heart of Concordia's downtown campus, it's really overwhelming to navigate through the throng of excited students.



Normally during the welcome back celebrations I try to hide out and avoid the student congested streets until things calm down, but this year I was really excited to have two contracts for the Concordia Student Union; one for face/body painting on Sept. 16th, and the other was to decorate & tear down said decorations, at Reggies, Concordia's student pub. I will add some photos later on from the decorating contract.

Chitty chatty distant thoughts...

All photography by April-Anna Bremers

Summertime on my porch....





NEW ARTWORKS

In the beginning of August I decided to make this painting for a friend of mine who moved down to Arizona to be with her now husband; they have had a beautiful baby girl since being there. I considered doing a drawing by hand of the photograph but did not have time since I was trying to send the painting down with friends of mine who were flying to Arizona for conferences. So instead I used the photo-transfer techniques I learned with Melanie Mathews in her class at the Westmount Visual Arts Centre last spring. This is the results of the final painting.

Final Painting...


Earlier stage of the painting...



September and the Autumn is coming..... oh humm....

I have been rather busy lately, yes also with art but that has not been my focus for this summer and this past few weeks; I have become absolutely driven with trying to get into the state of health and physical condition/training I desire to be in. My thyroid went under-active when I was 12 and I gained alot of weight from this, that combined with some other factors as well as personal challenges in my family life, lead me into a way of being & living that was not really ideal. Ten years ago I was a size 18, 4 years ago I was a size 16 and now I am, as of the past month, a size 12 but I am starting to realize I must actually be quite petite, because while I am much much healthier, I still have more weight to loose and more muscles to tone. I am guesstimating that maybe I am a size 9? I am not sure since as an adult I have never been my body's natural healthy weight.

I have, as I have mentioned in other postings here on my blog, practicing a form of internal martial arts called Bagua Zhang for the past two years. But I have certainly had my good weeks and down weeks; but this past year, particularly this past three months I am making leaps and bounds compared to where I was at ten years ago. Now, as of this past week, I have officially begin the very slow process of learning traditional chinese medicine. I dont' want to pressure myself, as I choose to go with the flow, but if I can make it through the process, I would like to eventually become a practitioner of traditional chinese medicine. Not because I have any intention of changing careers, believe me, I will always be a career artist, but I wish to volunteer to help people in need as well as to just volunteer at the Gong-Fu centre to help my teacher because, well, just as a thank-you to life for all my blessings. I am so grateful for this life that I lead and the love and support I am surrounded by.

Story of Stuff

I found this amusing and thought provoking...

Neighbours
Norman McLaren, 1952, 8 min
In this Oscar®-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion ...

In this Oscar®-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors. The story is a parable about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower. Film without words.

Halloween Video Portfolio

Little birdie...

This is the little birdie that my cat decided to sit on after it had flown into the window and sat there totally stunned. The photo was taken after it had been sat on (my cat did not seem to be able to see the bird, it was very strange).

"I will work on myself, since the work that I do on myself is going to be the highest thing I can do. As we 'up-level' or raise our own consciousness, we see more creative solutions to the problems that we confront."

-Ram Dass

Before and After Editing....

I am just going through some Halloween photos from a contract I had last Halloween (otherwise known as Samhain in the Celtic calender) and I decided to start editing those images. I am using GIMP which is simular to Photoshop.

The mighty amazing porch of natural adventures...

I am glad my life is interesting; I would be so bored if strange things did not continue to happen to me.

When I got up this morning, (well morning is relative) I opened my back porch door at the exact same moment I hear this "thud" and see a little bird fall down from having accidentally flown into the window. I immediately close the door so my cats don't go onto the porch and discover the stunned little guy who was sitting rather frozen on the wood where he landed.

I am cooking and my boyfriend arrives home for lunch. I tell him that there is a bird sitting stunned on our porch and not to let the cats out. He goes outside, does not see the bird (I admit, it does blend in rather well with the wood) and immediately let's our large male out. I suddenly realize what is happening (our kitchen faces the porch) and go running out there to stop the cat.

Well my boyfriend tries to stop the cat also. The cat gets confused as to which direction he is being herded and instead goes towards the bird. I wasn't sure if he could see the bird though because he seemed to only be paying attention to me and my boyfriend. We are still trying to catch him, he is getting closer and closer to the bird. Suddenly he flops onto the wood and proceeds to lay down on the bird!!

My cat laid on the bird! He sat on the bird! He did not know the bird was there! I quickly and gently lifted my cat, who wined at me, and move him onto the other side of the plants where he just sunk down into the porch, not even noticing the bird! This went on for over half an hour and meanwhile the bird just continued to sit there in shock, but I could tell he was aware because he kept blinking and was watching us. At one point the bird tried sleeping. Eventually the bird flew up into the tree and watched us for a while before flying off into the sky where ever it was he was headed.

My cat used to be almost a hunter; ie, he is known for enjoying hassling the birds and making them fly but I have never seen him try to catch or a kill a bird, but I have seen him hunt dogs. He has brought me living gifts before.

I will post a photograph of the bird later on.

Dream a little dream...

I love dreaming. Dreams come in many forms. They come in day dreams. Waking dreams. They come in passing thoughts. Fleeting images, stimulated by sometimes totally unconnected events. They come when we sleep, sometimes to be remembered, sometimes not. Dreams feed us. They feed our spirit, our soul. Dreams can lead to great folly, or to great deeds. Dreams move us, one way or another. When we block our dreams, we become stagnant, unmoving, or moving very slowly collecting dust.

I just finished reading a book by Neil Gaiman, called Stardust. Yes, it is the same as the movie, however, it must be said that while the movie is very good, it is extremely different from the book. This comes as no surprise I am sure. I imagine the movie likened to an alternative reality, another possible way that the story could have happened, but in the end, I still prefer the book (although I saw the movie first and surely I will watch it again with great joy).

Having quite a feisty passion for old folk lore, mythologies, legends and modern spins working with the old into the new; I can say that this book certainly stirs up my dreams. This book has fed me, such as food does for our bodies, it has reminded me of my own inner light and the light that is within all that is part of this world.

I think what inspires me most about this book, is not in the story itself, but in Neil's gratitude, which also reminds me of a little paper book I found in my couch cushions while finishing up reading the book. But first I must share Neil's gratitude.

"Acknowledgements."
Neil writes, to us, the readers: "First and foremost, my thanks to Charles Vess. He is the nearest thing we have today to the great Victorian fairy painters, and without his art as an inspiration, none of these words would exist. Every time I finished a chapter, I phoned him up and read it to him, and he listened patiently and he chuckled in all the right places."

I know who Charles Vess is and truly his art is inspiring. But really what touched me so much about this statement is the idea of inspiring someone so much that that person should share each leg of the journey as it occurs in the creative process. The creative process can be such a vulnerable and private process. Such an honor is that. It leaves me with a feeling of awe that a great story teller should draw his inspirations, finding his dreams stimulated from the many images produced by the artist.

After reading this book, which I have not been able to put down for days, I am already feeling the build up of energy, the inspirations, my inner muse, waking up, and dreaming, preparing to use this new fuel to help push along my own creations. I always find the creations of others as well as the gratitude expressed from one person to another, helps push me to push myself to try my best to produce my best and see where I can go next within my own creations. I love the experience, the journey that it takes to hone my own skills. My goal is to wake up inspirations in others, such as Neil Gaiman has woken in me on account of what Charles Vess woke in Neil.

Interesting, isn't it? The process that is...
Where would we all be without each other?
I have such gratitude that you exist.
Whom do I speak?
Why you! The reader!
Because as I said, where would we all be without each other?
I have such gratitude for the process, the journey, and I can't wait to see what happens next in this adventure we call life.



Magic Words

"In the earliest time,

when both people and animals lived on the earth,

a person could become an animal if he wanted to

and an animal could become a human being.

Sometimes they were people

and sometimes animals

and there was no difference.

All spoke the same language.

That was the time when words were like magic.

The human mind had mysterious powers.

A word spoken by chance

might have strange consequences.

It would suddenly come alive

and what people wanted to happen could happen--

all you had to do was to say it.

Nobody can explain this:

That's the way it was."

- - after Nalugiaq

Edward Field, 'Songs and Stories of the Netsilik Eskimos
Quoted from Green Man Press

Totally hilarious....

Ok. So recently, I have come to recognize exactly how geeky I am. I guess I should have known since I am dating a computer programmer and that sort of says it all. What tipped me off is how every so often, in the middle of the night, I get totally hooked to the DVDs my boyfriend brings home such as Doctor Who. At first, I was really anti-doctor but then, it sucked me in, like the vortex it is. This could be said about a few shows. I have always been a fantasy buff, with a leaning towards sci-fi, but usually more in the novel format (I adore reading) and often movies. Of course, I am totally obsessed with an on again off again ongoing research that I do of old faerie lore and world mythologies; very inspiring for my own creations.

What I am leading up to is "The Guild". I totally love this bizarre and quirky internet mini-show. I also relate to it. I went through an obsessive gaming phase as a teenager and into my early twenties. This is proven by the fact that I once failed a university course due to this obsession. I guess maybe it was a bit of an adiction. Failing the university course was a really good reality check. But something valuable I learned from going through that gaming phase is that I realized at a certain point that everything I learned in game, if I were to apply it to life, I would probably find life alot more interesting and alot more engaging. So I swore off gaming because I did not seem to be able to find the middle ground with it all. What I learned from gaming was perseverance, stamina and how to successfully face my challenges in life.


Today, while I can appreciate it, I have no interest in participating in gaming because I just have way too many career related and other activities that absorb all the time I have. I love how productive I am with my time, now that I don't play video games. However, my boyfriend is still a gamer and one night I caught him watching "The Guild" and quickly found myself adoring it. It's totally freaking funny and reminds me of a few people I know.

Having a voice to speak with....

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

Having a voice to speak with, I choose often to first sit in silence and watch, to learn and to try to observe how I can best assist in creating positivity. Ideally, when I speak, I don't want to waste my energy, so when I speak, I speak with the intention of being aware of the needs of my listener, I try to speak when I will be received, when I will be heard.

I don't know if I will be heard, but right now I choose to speak. I hope that in speaking, I will contribute to a domino affect of positive and healing change.

A few months ago during a midnight research session, I became aware of an upcoming documentary that aired tonight. I was privileged to have a promo-ticket to see the premier of The Cove. I believe everyone should see this film. It's so tragic but very important that we be aware of what is happening and to do all we can to create change for the better.



This film really struck a chord for me, maybe it's because of the graphic nature of the film footage, but truly, I could not stop crying through out most of the film. I was so upset when I left the theatre, that I accidentally twisted my ankle in a hole in the sidewalk I did not see. I knew these things were happening but to see the footage, it's very devastating. It's horrifying to think that this isn't just happening in Japan, it's happening everywhere pretty much to all species, including ourselves.

We all know this song and dance; why do we just keep falling into the same cycle of harmful actions as a human race?

Before and After....

I have been doing more and more photo editing and graphic design for myself and friends. I use GIMP instead of photoshop; I used to use photoshop but then due to my boyfriends ethics and my sense of privacy, I decided to go onto a linux system on my computer along with all free software.

It was at first difficult to adjust from photo shop to GIMP, and the only thing that GIMP doesn't do is CMYK, but that easily rectified by going to see a friend with a legal copy of photo shop.

What I like about GIMP is that it's co-created software by computer programmers who believe that software should be free and easily accessible for everyone. Free software is a constant evolution created by volunteer programmers on their spare time outside of their day jobs.

The photograph you see is a sample of my most current editing work in GIMP. The clothing is designed by Advika Clothing on 100% organic fabric.

Artist's Life

By Kern, Kite, Bandit & Lisa 12-06-07 drowtales.com

Artist's Life:

Monday Night, 5am
"We have to start going to sleep earlier."
"mmhhmmm"

Tuesday Night, 6am
"We really have to start going to sleep earlier."
"mmmmhhm"

Wednesday Night, 7am
"We REALLY, really have to start going to sleep earlier."
"mmhmmm *snore*"

I borrowed this comic strip from another website called Drowtales: Moonless Age, it's a fantasy comic that has recently peeked my interest. At the end of each chapter they have cutsie humorous parodies. Hence where "Artists's Life" came from.

When I saw this comic and what it is depicting, I was just laughing and shaking my head because this was such a typical day for me. Oh the artist life!

Latest & newest creations: a peak in my studio....

I took a class this spring from a wonderful teacher & artist by the name of Melanie Mathews, where I was excited to learn more techniques taking me further in the realm of mixed mediums.

"A dynamic and contemporary approach to acrylic painting in which mediums, gels, image transfer, and glazing are used to enrich your painting style. This is a contemporary take on the versatility of the acrylic medium, emphasizing personal imagery and a process of discovery" - quoted from Melanie Mathews



This particular painting is a custom creation for close friends of mine. I am also offering custom paintings like this on etsy. Using the above techniques, I create an original painting collage for that utilizes one of several photos submitted to me.



I started with two photos of the couple, one was of them camping and the other was from their wedding day. I then created a photocopy and transfered that onto the canvas (see photo). I then took two photos of their kittens and practiced drawing the kittens until I had results I was happy with. I layered the original art on top of the transfered photographs, painted with acrylic colours & metalics, then layered in gels and other mediums. The final coat is transparent butterflies.

"No job is too small to do beautifully"

(quoted from Brian Froud's "The Faeries Oracle")

" He sings as he works.... He would be the first to tell you that superb craftsmanship, however magical, is hard work - joyful and energizing hard work, but always challenging... work is done as well as possible, even where it will never be seen by anyone else....persevere through difficulties, learning still more of our craft as we work...."

"labor of love.... be willing to tackle difficult challenges... surpass previous achievements... patience... willingness... again and again until it i seven better then the best one can do... Yes, in balance to all of this, the "Master Maker" reminds us that we also need to learn our own limits... balance..." - Quoted from "The Faeries Oracle"



Right now I am trying to redevelop my rusty drawing skills, get them un-rusted then shine and polish until my skills are growing, honing, finer and finer, more and more precise... Alas it is a bit of a task that requires quite alot of patience. I am grateful that I have grown patient with age. I used to practice pencil drawing in realism regularly from the time I was 10 until I was about 17; I got very good for a while but I found I would get increasingly stressed out and frustrated with the challenge of trying to get it perfect. So I took a break from pencil drawing and have been exercising other aspects of my artistic skills (as you can see from my portfolio).

Now I am trying to come back full circle and bring all my skills together, expressed in what is for me, new experimentation in multi-media. I am having alot of fun.

Last night and today I have been practicing drawing my cat as well as my friend's kittens. I am alone in my studio at the moment and didn't have anyone to get feedback from to help point out to me what I struggle to see.... I can see it's a bit warped but I have a hard time breaking it down in my mind how to correct my drawings sometimes. So I put the image into the computer and layered the drawing with the reference photo; and wow that sure helps me to see how to correct things. I then print that out and by eye, I try drawing and erasing in the corrections.

Here is where I am currently at (I am not showing all the stages right now).

I went out of the city this past weekend....

I went out to the cabin in the forest with some close friends. It's easier to share in images then words these types of experiences.

In words, well we left the Montreal late and met our friends at the pond in the forest, in the "quebec outback". They spent one night with us, we were silly, had a great supper, got tipsy, played with kittens, went swimming, hiked in the forest. Then one set of friends went back to the city while we awaited our next guests to join us. There is a second video to come.

I create these video journals for my friends, family and all other curious people. I love taking photos and find it fun to make "ghetto" video recordings on my digital camera.