Saturday, January 27, 2024
Eagle Artwork
About Me - A Biography of Sorts
Hi everyone! Just wanted to post a bit about myself. Feel free to ask questions, too.
I am an Ojibwe or Ahnishnaabe artist living in Edmonton, Alberta. Having grown up in northern Manitoba, I gained an appreciation of nature and spent much of my free time drawing and experimenting with various media. In my early adulthood I began to explore painting, and eventually developed my own style of Woodlands artwork. I enjoy the freedom of the abstract style and creating images with sharply contrasting colors or smooth blends. I have also been inspired by Inuit soapstone sculpture and folklore. I'm actually inspired by a lot of stuff, but mostly nature.Northern Canada inspires much of my work. As a child, my family often went on fishing excursions, woodcutting, and explorations of Canada's pristine wilderness. I self-studied animals in great detail by reading every book I could find at the local library as a child, and have a great love for birds. In recent years and thanks to COVID, I've gotten into hiking and camping with my husband. We really enjoy checking out new places and being in nature instead of just skimming the surface as one often ends up doing when just driving or traveling. I still love traveling though, and seeing new places and learning about the history and culture of the people living there.
I live with my husband, Lyndon, and my black cat, Maho, in Edmonton, Alberta.
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Bird Artwork
A Selection of Bird Themed Artwork
A loon spirit against a mix of firey reds. Graceful lines cross the loon's back and are decorated with the white dots that are visible on the Common Loon.
Acrylic 12 x 12" stretched canvas. Unframed but is wired on the back for easy hanging.
$200 CDN includes shipping to locations within Continental North America.
Send me a message if you are interested in purchasing this painting. I can send an invoice by email, and hopefully update this page with a more official link in the near future.
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A gold crane lifts off from the ground amidst a pine forest. I painted this based on a Sandhill Crane I saw when I was child out berry-picking. I got tired of picking blueberries under the relentless sun (maybe not the best decision considering there could have been black bears around) and wandered into the next clearing and startled a crane.
They flew up gracefully and effortlessly, calling out "Karoo, karoo" as he went.
The crane was long gone, but those berries were delicious with some milk and sugar, and I had a good memory.
Acrylic on 9 x 12" canvaspaper. Framed using archival materials.
$250 CDN includes shipping to locations within Continental North America.
Send me a message if you are interested in purchasing this painting. I can send an invoice by email, and hopefully update this page with a more official link in the near future.
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Bear Artwork
A Selection of Bear Themed Artwork
Bear and Sunset Spirit - 2020
A bear gazes up towards the night sky as a bear spirit rises up into the starry sky overhead. On the horizon the last traces of the day dissolve into the cool night. Acrylic on 5 x 7" stretched canvas.
$70 CDN includes shipping to locations within Continental North America.
Send me a message if you are interested in purchasing this painting. I can send an invoice by email, and hopefully update this page with a link in the near future.
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The spirit of a polar bear appears within the Northern Lights which dance vividly. My wish and hope that the polar bears do not become just a memory in the wilderness. Acrylic on 9 x 12" paper and is unframed.
$125 CDN includes shipping to locations within Continental North America.
Send me a message if you are interested in purchasing this painting. I can send an invoice by email, and hopefully update this page with a link in the near future.
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Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Out with the Old, in with the New?
So I had to make a tough decision this year. I will not be renewing my domain name (no point sharing it here if it isn't going to exist anymore, lol). It will expire on January 19 (2024 in case you're reading this years from now).
I think I will be posting the artwork that was previously on that page onto here, as time suits me. Then everyone can still enjoy seeing my artwork and those who want to have it hanging on their walls can make a purchase as well. It will take time as I'll have to find the Paypal buttons/links to add in there.
What else have I been up to? Not a lot. I pretty much took 2023 off as an artist, and focused on continuing to create videos on YouTube (Donna's Adventures if you are curious). There's a lot of nature and hiking themed videos. With the whole pandemic I've really enjoyed getting closer to nature and re-discovering/taking a closer look at my "backyard" so to speak.
Speaking of backyard, we are fighting a battle right now with a coyote that has discovered our deck has a gaping hole in the latticework, and realized it would be a great home. There's been prints all over the backyard and copious amounts of poop. Big poop. Not sure what it's been eating but it's been eating well. Not the thin pointed poop full of fur that I usually see the creek valley or natural areas. I tried taking my cat out there to make a presence but it was too cold for him. He stood in the tracks yowling while I quickly distributed some loose fur around along the trees then whisked him back indoors. Poor little guy.
I told him he was helpful even though he got cold. I think my cat likes being helpful, although he's usually more of a help in the kitchen with cleaning up food scraps, especially meat.
I went back outside and scooped up all the fresh poop the coyote had somehow produced overnight (how can one animal poop so much?) and even the urine that was frozen solid in the snow.
My cat was also very excited as my husband and I headed out there with a staple gun and coils of chicken wire to try to close up the hole. It should work, for now. He sniffed my gloves thoughtfully when I got back in, nudging the fingers.
If nothing else I will try to get out there to make a human presence known and hopefully the coyote will get the idea that he should find somewhere else to live.
That's all for now. Hope to be on here again soon.
Monday, June 21, 2021
Where did April & May go?
Whoops, I missed making a blog post for April...and May.
And the months seem to have flown by without my noticing.
So what have I been up to? The usual, I guess. Work has gotten busier, and I've ended up doing a couple of extra shifts on my would-be days off. Can't complain about that, but it also means I won't be able to do my usual day-off stuff. Like go for a walk, or even contemplate painting.
My donation is finally set up and will head out the door tomorrow. Nice to see a painting heading off to a good cause. I don't have a photo easily at hand right now but it was one of my phoenix paintings. Hope it generates a good amount of funds for the organization. 😊
Also been hiking on my days off. We went to the birding area near Tofield but was too early to see Snow Geese. Also visited Islet Lake in Cooking Lake Provincial park, which was also too early to see much sprouting, but I made a video featuring the butterflies we spotted.
Kind of a fun video.
In my art-world, I've been frustrated as its been several months since I've even picked up a paintbrush. Just not feeling any motivation lately, and I don't want to just waste time. And paint. And materials. The current lack of sales doesn't help, either. I think the last thing I painted was of a loon. I think it looks ok, but maybe a bit lacking in the overall impact.
Anyhow, I guess until the creative urges come back I'll just keep doing what I'm doing - earning a living at my day-job and keeping my happiness by spending time in nature.
Friday, March 26, 2021
Loss of focus? I shouldn't be so hard on myself.
Been noticing that it's been a long time since I last painted or created any sort of artwork.
In spite of that, I had two recent sales, which made me feel better. And yet, I still don't feel like painting.
I feel like my energy recently has been put into making YouTube videos. I've been finding it fun and a good way of sharing my love of nature and meeting other YouTubers around the world and checking out their videos.
I also have a stack of picture frames sitting on my desk which I rescued from work. With the upcoming renovations we've been clearing out a lot of old paperwork and clutter.And I spotted three never-used picture frames sitting around. Glad to have them, but they're a bit of a unbecoming color as they're this sort of grey-ish brown that I wouldn't want to hang up.
Maybe I'll paint them.
The photo does them justice. The color doesn't look that bad.
But there is a big scratch on the one without any protection, so maybe that one I will paint up.
Going to add in my second-most recent video. I was a little disappointed with the view count as I put a lot of work into making it, of course. But it's informational. Lots of pretty photos of bugs and mushrooms and stuff we saw. So maybe people in the Edmonton area will watch it when they consider hiking at Bunchberry Meadows.
I even did research for that one, looking up plant names and bug names, especially since I couldn't find some of them in my guidebooks.
Still, it was fun.
Glad I have this weekend off. This is my day 8 of straight working. I am feeling a bit tired, but happy as one of those days I got to work at my old store in Wetaskiwin. It was nice seeing my former coworkers, and some customers that remembered me. Also had a nice walk in Wetaskiwin at their By-The-Lake Park. I should be able to make another video from the footage in that walk.
If I do make a video, I'll try to post it here.
Later!