Thesis is Done!

I defended my this on June 3 and it went well.  I am currently in a state of exhaustion and subdued elation.  It feels good to be done even though I have some corrections and improvements that need to be completed before I can hand in the final draft to be printed and bound.  So glad to be done.  A three year and nine month journey that I did not think would take that long.  At least I loved my topic and really enjoyed the travel bloggers who participated.  I need to send them thank you emails as well as an official copy of the thesis when it is published online.  Now I am going to enjoy my summer then return to blogging myself.  But an enjoyment of summer comes first, including a trip to Europe starting next week.  A well done pat on the back from me to me.  Going with my mother and I am excited!  Congratulations to everyone graduating during this spring season.  Well done to all of us who pushed through the difficult times and joyous moments to experience the end.  Yippeeeee!

Dad's Support

My dad needs to replicate himself so more people can have a dad like him.  All these thoughtful comments while he is on a cruise ship and should be having tons of fun rather than reading my thesis.

Exhibit A:

Hi Tonia, 

I’ve read your thesis over more than once and I find it fascinating.  

Knowing that you have given all that you have to writing the thesis and yet have it still not considered finished is more than discouraging.  After all the sweat, blood and tears you have put in, you are right to ask, “What else do I have to do?” 

It is tough to meld academic rigour with heartfelt comments that bubble up from a subject in response to one of your questions.  Cold hard dispassionate quantifiable logic is hard to apply to human actions regardless what a researcher is trying to uncover much less the motivation of people who write selflessly about their own travel experiences to help others. 

The summary of all that has been done to add to our knowledge about the topic (your thesis) needs to reflect the amount of work it took to gain that knowledge, which it does, but written in a way that meets the precision and clarity of thought demanded of the academic environment, while at the same time retaining the human touch.  A bit of creative tension, to say the least. 

It may be one of those times when you have to scream, “I’m tough and I am going to nail this thing!” After all, you are not going through all this to satisfy someone’s notion of scholarly prose, but to communicate to fellow researchers, the subjects you studied, and the wider community of the intellectually curious how the paradigm shift brought on by new technologies has affected a global industry, travel and tourism. 

I’m reviewing the thesis starting with Chapter IV and will pass on my comments in the next e-mail. Stay tuned. 

Love,

Dad 

Missed a Few Months...How....

Wow. I have never missed two months of blogging since I started this blog a few years ago. It is not that I don't have things to blog about, it is about the time factor.  Now that I am in the workforce full-time again, I have a position of management, I continue to write my thesis (despite sacrifices of my recreation time and other life activities), and I moved to a new adult, grown-up, professional apartment. All of this means less time to sit and write creatively for this online space. I don't want to be the type of person that abandons one's blog so I will quickly add this update and a photo from my new balcony and say that after I defend my thesis this Fall (cross my fingers and get to work), I shall be back to blog on a regular basis.

Thanks to my mum, Aunt Arta and others who may read, I do enjoy writing this blog so I shall be back. In the interim, I shall be staring out at this view and I sit and complete my fourth rewrite for my final thesis document.

Thanks to Photosynth, I can give you an almost 180 degree view of what I see every morning and night. Lucky me!

A bien tôt!

Another Voyage

So my life is set up into different chunks of time and focus.  While I was traveling, this blog was about travel.  While in grad school, I focused on it (but I have not caught up with all that I want to say so more to come).  Now that I am a leader or boss of a small organization (I prefer leader), this blog may get a bit theoretical as I attempt to learn how to become a good leader rather than devolve into a horrible one.  This will take active practice and work and I am already staring at six book on leadership from the library taunting me from my kitchen table.  The topic?  LEADERSHIP.  This may mean I lose a few of my eleven or so readers but hey, I write for myself and the process as much as for you (but I really like you a lot so please stay!).

While attempting to finish the thesis that will never end, I read the following quote from an article about economic or extrinsic rewards in business, versus social or intrinsic rewards in business.  Essentially, should organizations create elaborate reward programs to light a fire underneath their employees butts to encourage them to share their knowledge (which apparently people don't do naturally, as we hoard knowledge, much like the show...I wonder if my brian on the inside looks like some of those living rooms...).  Well, as it turns out, people are more apt to share knowledge if they are able to identify intrinsic reasons to do so:

"Employees who think knowledge sharing would increase the scope and depth of associations among organizational members tend to have a positive attitude toward knowledge sharing.  Their positive attitudes toward knowledge sharing are formed by the expectations of reciprocation on knowledge sharing.  Moreover, employees who believe in their ability to contribute to improvements of organizational performance have a positive attitude toward knowledge sharing. Therefore, we should pay more attention to enhancing the positive mood state for social associations which precedes knowledge sharing behaviours and should provide useful feedback to improve the individual's self-efficacy instead of designing an elaborate evaluation and incentive system."
- Bock. G. W., & Kim, Y-G. (2002). Breaking the Myths of Rewards: An exploratory study of attitudes about knowledge sharing. In Information Resources Management Journal, 15(2), 14-21.

Self-efficacy in this study is defined as "people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances", a definition which was stole borrowed from Bandura (1996).

Essentially what this says is that my decision to provide an employee this week, who has been invited to participant in...let's say...'turf management', was a good choice.  This may foster a greater desire to contribute to our small but impressive organization, because he will have developed social associations that will motivate him to contribute for intrinsic reasons, which always last longer than extrinsic motivations.  This is why when I was at that crazy school and the administration pretended to listen to the teachers' ideas but really didn't, they did not get feedback when they asked us questions during staff meetings because we had no intrinsic reasons to share our knowledge with them, the leaders of a school, as we knew our organization would not improve without a change in management.  Sharing would have been a waste of our marvellous contributions.  This makes sense now.

I hope 'turf management' does not make anyone lazy.  :)  

Life Update

I can't believe where the past few months have gone.  Crazy busy plus I just got back from a trip to visit family and friends in Calgary.  The purpose of the trip was to begin taking my belongings back to Calgary as I am near graduation, only having had two work related interviews, and no job offers.  My winter gear and all other assorted accoutrements were pack to drive back to Calgary and I received a phone call asking me to come to a job offer meeting.  Yep.  A job offer and I am not finished my degree yet.  This has never happened to me before.  All those hours of volunteering, spent typing at my computer, meeting and greeting people in a new province paid off and I was being offered a job.

When I went to the interview I was ready to negotiate but the organization that wanted to hire me was not.  They had pulled out of their budget what they could and it was a take it or leave it option.  The pay is not great, in fact at my yearly review next summer I will be asking for a big raise, but the opportunity to lead this recreation organization in Manitoba will be phenomenal.  I am excited and surprised, intimidated and in awe of full-time employment.  For the record, this will be the first time in ten years I have to work over the summer.  (No sympathy from you nine readers eh?)

Wish me luck and skill and I venture forward and finish my thesis at the same time!

Cheers!

Crunch Time 3

So I did it.  I handed in my thesis to my professor earlier this week.  Now begins several months of re-writes.  I wonder how sick I will be of my thesis before it even goes to my committee?  While I await the first set of re-writes I am hearing horror stories of both the length of time other grads have experienced for re-writes and how many people cry either during or after their thesis defence.  Despite some harsh criticism of two parts of my thesis, I did not cry during or after the proposal, but I was in shock for about a week.  Walking around thinking about how I could have made the proposal better to have avoided the criticism, as well, wondering where a university's responsibility begins in teaching about their students how to complete research, and where the individual grad student's responsibility begins.  Besides, open verbal group feedback is a very difficult experience and chilled me a bit to the bone.  Then again, that is the whole point of a thesis committee, the group that gives you ideas about how to improve your work, your abilities as a researcher, and your writing.  A bit of a double-edged sword, pointing out the weaknesses while at the same time helping the individual to improve through little tiny repetitive cuts to the top layer of skin.  Hopefully I can handle what comes.  The end is near, I just have to sustain my level of progress until the very end.

Towards the end I looked like every other crazy student's space: papers everywhere, books piled in each other, pens, pencils and highlighters all over the place, cups of leftover beverages strewn about, piles of dishes in the sink, semi-rotten food in the fridge, running out of clothes to wear, few clean towels left, and a dirty apartment that scared me.  The picture below is the cleaned up version of my study space (you will not be seeing the rest of the apartment).  Should have taken a shot before I organized.  It was a hilarious, academic mess.    

Worry, not, I was not bored after I handed in my thesis as my student political career winds down at the end of this month as well.  What a strange and eclectic ride that has been.  Full of the interesting, bizarre, and overwhelming experiences that can crush one's soul or bend you in ways you thought you were not flexible.  I had to have a long conversation around January with a colleague about the sacrifices I was making to complete this political work and the tole it was taking on my academic progress.  At the time I was being steam rolled by a colleague and it was exhausting and disappointing, but not worth delaying my academic progress.  From this and other experiences I have learned that democracy is illusive and hard to work through as a process.  I am willing to interpret rules in order to serve people and ensure their needs are met, but there are multiple interpretations of rules and critical thinking is always necessary.  We serve people, not words on a piece of paper, but the ideas attached to those words are important and subject to interpretation.  This makes democracy challenging and formidable.  It has been an interesting few years.  

As these two main pieces of my life come to a close, work that has occupied my life for three years, I wonder about the next steps.  I am lucky as I have already had several job interviews for work in both the tourism and recreation fields.  This weekend I am spending time thinking about what I want from life, and I wonder what the future holds for me and what choices I will be asked to make.  All unfolding uncertainties.  Exciting and a bit scary at the same time.

Off to create a poster and re-read my thesis just for improvement sake...again.
I'll keep you posted.

Nutty Professor

This week has been strange.  Many things occurred but in all I am concerned I will never, ever, ever get a job.  Ever.  Let alone one I enjoy.  I expressed my concerns to a full-time instructor from my university, when I saw her at a conference, and she gave me some advice:

"Tonia, quit trying to look into the future and do what you need to do now.  Focus on finishing your thesis.  Become the typical nutty professor who has documents, papers, and pens all around, writing, reading, sleeping and writing more.  Give into this time period and really experience it for the next few months, then worry about the rest of it later.  Be in the moment, this moment."  

Tough advice for someone who is always looking into the future, who has student debt, and is anxious about the next few steps of life.  The more I think about her words, the more they are sinking in.  Listen to the people that have come before you and do what they say.  They know more than I and this is actually advice I have heard from several people on campus.  So I let go.  I focus.  I trust in those who know more than I, immersing myself in this experience.  The only way to enjoy the road and the destination.

What will that destination be?  Dang, still looking forward.  Need to go back to writing but I will be updating my Nutty Professor posts once in a while.  Bring on not showering for four days, wearing the same clothes day in day out, and ordering in food keeping my brain and body in top processing shape (maybe a little cooking would be better for the last one).

Nutty professor.  Here I come.  In costume?!?

Canadian Geographic Nod

We take a break during this regularly scheduled thesis writing time to make an important announcement.  About one month ago I was re-introduced to Instagram, one of the big 2012 website explosions.  This website is a photo sharing site on which those who post retain the rights to their own photos (unlike Facebook and others sites), can use quick filters to alter shots, and look at other people's creative talents.  I only have about 52 pictures up so far but I am finding a great place to post current pictures and past travel pictures that are sitting on my hard drive but deserve to be seen.  Here is my Instagram feed: toniavoyage (pics also on the right hand side of this blog).

Like all social media there are tricks and tips on how to increase traffic to your pictures and connect with other photographers.  By photographers, I mean people who actually take interesting shots with creative perspectives and interesting compositions, not people who take selfies (pictures of themselves) or food pics (just eat it, don't capture it every single day).  So I have been connecting with people, making comments, learning what hashtags connect with the type of people I am trying to connect with, etc.

This week I received a nod from a magazine that I look at on a regular basis and have a goal to be published in some day, Canadian Geographic, one of the premier photo magazines in Canada.  They liked the following picture that I took back in early December:

Art Books Architecture

The photo is a combination of a new art installation on campus near the University Centre, winter and architecture.  In the foreground on the left, the art installation includes old brown and black books encased in decorative plexiglass or plastic, suspended in a larger decorative rectangular prism also made from plexiglass.  The gold, dark yellow and brown leafing and designs set around the books and prism enhance the artwork's details and compliment the colours of the books.  The middle ground leads the eye down a lightly snowed on path, lined with planter boxes and trees, until the eye extends into the background, the Administration building enveloped in a sunset, the most iconic structure on campus.

This small but significant nod made my week.  Approximately 80 million photos are uploaded onto Instagram on a regular basis, and I was LIKED by Canadian Geographic.   Go me!

Back to thesis work I go.  More photography later!

Crunch Time

So it is crunch time for me and my thesis.  I have nine weeks to complete the document and can't afford to take any longer, not professionally, not financially, and not personally.  The number of participants I have is great, if I get a few more, then fantastic.  The data has been organized and now I will sit at a computer for nine weeks and try to find themes, relationships, patterns and create categories to organize all the information.  I hope this part goes well and I complete a thesis of which I am very proud.

Since I take on too much and stretch myself a bit thin, mostly because life is worth experiencing and living, I have had to remove everything from life that would be a distraction.  No work for my faculty, no favours available for friends, and some time away from other responsibilities so I can get this done.  It is interesting to me the number of people I have met in the past three years who have said they started a Master's degree but never finished.  Now I know why.  It is all on the individual in the end.  No one can make you do this work.  There are no due dates, they are self imposed.  You forgo an existence of participating in the world around you.  No one really cares as much as you about finishing.  It is not relevant to others if you have money or not to finish.  And in the end, you have to want to finish this document and move forward with your life.

Hence, I will not be blogging as much in next few months.  I have to save all my good thoughts, words and ideas for my thesis, as there are only so many that go around ;), so all 10 readers, bear with me.  And if you are travel blogger who has participated in this research, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Vagabonding

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Research your own experiences for the truth...Absorb what is useful...Add what is specifically your own...The creating individual is more than any style or system." - Bruce Lee, p. xviii

Potts introduces the reader to a travel phenomenon called vagabonding, a fun easy going word that means one is moving about the globe gathering experience, knowledge and understanding through observation and personal contact with other people, with about two dimes in their pockets.  We also learn the term anti-sabbatical - a job one acquires with the intention to stay a short time, just long enough to gather sufficient funds for the next adventure, travel based or otherwise.  I had travellers envy throughout most of this book.  Deep envy.

"Vagabonding is, was, and always will be a private undertaking - and its goal is to improve your life not in relation to your neighbours but in relation to yourself.  Thus, if your neighbours consider your travels foolish, don't waste your time trying to convince them otherwise.  Instead, the only sensitive reply is to quietly enrich your life with the myriad of opportunities that vagabonding provides." -p. 36

Potts takes this book to introduce the reader to ways one can travel on a small budget by relying on oneself, great contacts and useful websites.  You will come out ready to travel and to do it well.  Now, where are you going to go?


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Grad School Lazy = RUN

It is time to get in shape using my shapely form.  Going from teaching all day and moving around for 6 hours organizing children, teaching lectures, providing supplies, starting projects and the general mayhem of teaching elementary school, grad school has left me lazy.  Yes, I blame grad school.  Other than the research I completed this summer at festivals and interpretive centres, grad school required my brain, fingers and wrists to function on overload, but not my other body parts.  Hence I am less healthy and fit than I have ever been in my life.  A once former athlete, I have been a casual participant in sports and other activities over many years, and several years ago was so frustrated in a crazy job that I began working out 1.5 hours a day, just to deal with the daily stress and bur-ha-ha.  I was tighter after that job but the insanity lead me to other paths in my life.  I moved to London and started to travel, during which I walked and moved for hours every day, and tried every delicious looking European snack possible (have you been to an authentic patisserie lately?).  Then I transitioned to grad school and lost it all, my sleek calves, my Carnival shaped butt, my tighter abs, and my single chin.  I want these back and in order for this to happen, and under the pressure of great friends, I joined a running club.

This means I have joined the Running Room for a 10 week Learn How To Run clinic.  Now those who know me know I am an athletic person and many of the sports I participate in include running.  My shins have always cried out in pain after a long workout, so I am learning how to run properly and will ease into running with this clinic.  Perhaps I will share interesting wipe-outs and other such nonsense on this blog.  Be prepared for shenanigans!

So far one of the runners this evening told me that there is a new basketball team starting up in Manitoba for women aged 40-49.  I have not found the link yet.  I will keep looking and share because I would really like to get back into basketball.

That would be awesome....must finish thesis first!

My new New Balance shoes:

Love New Balance, always have.

My new ICEtrekkers:

So I don't fall down and go boom!

My new underoos care of Costco and Paradox:

Note: my legs are far more luscious and curvy :)

Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping

Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping by Elisabeth Eaves
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Somewhere behind my desire to be both a reporter and a stripper lay an impulse to conceal.  Stripping - in competition with acting and espionage - is the ultimate job for someone who's instinct is to present different facades of who she might be.  There is nothing more illusory than a woman pretending to be a sexual fantasy for money." - p. 5

This book was on the wrong shelf when I entered a university library about a year ago.  It has been reminding me it is there waiting to be read for many months and I decided to pick it up over the holiday season.  It was on the apartment shelf as a classmate, during my first year of my Master's degree, announced in class one day that she was completing a PhD about women, their bodies and stripping because she stripped to pay her way through her bachelor's degree several years earlier.  I work hard to be an open person and I easily delight in meeting people whose lives are vastly different than mine and who are willing to share their stories of their life experience.  This book was perfect after I had spent several hours talking with my classmate to begin to build a healthier and more realistic perspective of stripping, the why, who, for what reasons, etc.

"I learned that no one is neutral about female bodies.  If they aren't sex objects used to sell every conceivable good, they are political objects, causing bitter debate on how to manage their fecundity.  And where not sexual or political, they are imbued with society's ideals with fears, turned into Miss Liberties, Virgin Mary's, and Wicked Witches.  Everyone had an opinion on what to do about female bodies, and sometimes it feels as if the only people who get in trouble for holding such opinions are young women themselves.  Some of us, though, have to live in them, and we each get by in our own way." - p. 6-7

Eaves explains how she first became involved in stripping and we meet several of her colleagues, who become friends, and their work as strippers, what purpose is serves in various lives, for some the cycle of dependence that is created in this industry, and the rules of safety that are continuously broken by purchasers and strippers alike.  Eaves teaches the reader that every woman had a line that she has drawn about the sexual work she is willing to perform, and sees many women move and bend this line under pressure from others and due to economic circumstances.

"And I was tempted to see sex work as more of a symptom of social illness than a cause.  The sex biz was nothing more that a sophisticated arbitrage operation, dealing in morals rather than financial instruments...At some point women had become artificially divided into two types - the good and the childbearing ones, carefully trained to disdain sex so that they wouldn't stray, and a separate, pro-sex class.  The second group were despised and disparaged so that the good women wouldn't want to join them.  One group of women ended up with respect but no freedom, and the other with freedom but no respect.  But economics abhors a vacuum, and the whore class...rushed in to fill the chasm between men's actual desires and the social structure that they, with women, had built.  I don't think the divide between the two types of women would go away until all the girls were raised to be free, responsible and unashamed of sex.  And until society had bridged the sex-ed gap - porn for boys and religion and romance for girls - there would always be Lusty Ladies [the stripper club Eaves worked at]." -. p. 138-139

A book that was telling and a strong mixture of social and political commentary shaken together with the lives of women and how their work infiltrates all aspects of their lives.  Give it a read!


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A Little More Understanding and Equality

May we spend 2013 spending more time learning more about people, analyze and improve how we treat each other, and see the ways that we can improve relationships with each other to coexist with more understanding and equality.

Here are two examples of ways in which people are changing the world to create a more positive, considerate and thoughtful sphere on which we live.

Idle No More:

Religion and Homosexuality:

A BYU's student review of the new LDS Church website about homosexuality.

May your holidays be merry and bright!

New Places to Get Lost

Here are a few blogs and websites I have recently discovered as enjoyable or awesome.  Totally distracting myself from my actual work.  Yay for holidays!

For all you design lovers and home project do-ers out there:

Design Salon

A funny look at life, work, family and sarcasm:

I Am Prepared to Give Up At Any Time

Need a t-shirt?  I have not ordered any and I am unsure of their quality but a quick gaze through these is an historical walk through modern times:

6 Dollar Shirts

Since I am in grad school, here is a person who is on her way to a tenured track professor position.  Funny and honest:

Fumbling Toward Tenure

Enjoy!

December 21: Are We Gone Yet?

It is the end of the world today.

Well, maybe not.  

Most likely just a normal December solstice.

Either way I am repeating the same questions I posed to friends and family as I did several weeks ago on the day 12/12/12 near 12:12 PM.  

Shuswap Pictures

My cousin is having a new stain glass window made with the colours, shapes, and textures from photographs that the family has taken on the family property on Shuswap Lake.  I finally added some of my pictures to the medley.  I hope they will prove helpful.  It is one of my favourite places to take pictures and I shall continue to capture the natural, least altered beauty of one of my favourite places on earth.  Enjoy!

Larch Haven Blog: Shuswap Pictures

Holiday Concert with Women of Note

After one year in Winnipeg, I joined a choir.  It is my second year with them.  We are a 70 voice women's choir, with a 25 voice smaller chamber group within.  We have our holiday concert on December 2 at Westminster church in Winnipeg.  Start time is 3 PM (not indicated on the poster, oops!)  Last year I had one friend come.  This year more friends have purchased tickets.  As a group it turns out we have sold almost 500 tickets for our concert and we are going to print more.  Thank goodness our concert hall can handle about 900 people.  Come and get in the Christmas and holiday mood while listening to our fantastic voices.

The first half of our concert includes Christmas songs and other works.  The second half of our concert is a small string orchestra, soloists and the choir all singing Vivaldi's Gloria.  I had never heard the piece before singing it with this choir and I consider classical music something I was raised on.  Glad my repertoire and knowledge of this type of music continues to grow.  I do enjoy singing Vivaldi (Handel on the other hand.....)

Here is a Vivaldi sample:



Come and listen to us sing and pay attention to the low notes because Alto 2's rock the musical basement!

Summer 2012: Pottery

There was a chance this past summer to begin creating ceramic pieces again.  I have not touched a wheel for two years so I was really excited to ensure the skills I have been developing over the years were still there, and that I could hone a few more skills.  Over time I have given away most of my pieces and this time I decided I was going to keep the pieces and make what I wanted to use every day in my own eating, cooking, drinking and for my own enjoyment. 

I was able to take some time to make several functional pieces but there was not enough time before the pottery area was going to be shut down for me to make any complicated items with lids, spouts, and other accoutrements.  There was little time to glaze as well and I had to complete all of it in one night, which amounted to about 5 hours of glazing, completed very quickly, without a great deal of forethought for more pieces.  Next time I will try to secure more time.

Yes, I made mugs because there aren't enough of them in the world.  When I make mugs I try to create interesting shapes, fun handles the size needed to actually get one's hand or fingers in there.  Too many uselessly small handles in the world.

A funky twist on a handle.

A geometric addition to a handle.

I am reminded every time I get to the wheel how physically demanding such work is.  In fact, in observing friends of mine who complete many different types of art, I am always reminded that they physical literacy that one is demanded to learn in the arts is often as physically demanding as the literacy required for those who participate in sport.  As well, art can get just as dirty as European football or rugby on a rainy, wet, muddy day.

A medium size bowl whose circles of shape and glaze I enjoy as my new counter-top fruit bowl.

This is the piece-de-resistance for the summer.  A white bowing shape onto which I flicked underglaze of green and black.  Several coats of high firing clear glaze and I loved it as soon as I saw it at the bottom of the kiln.  As much as one can decorate, plan and co-ordinate a piece of pottery, the kiln always surprises you.  In this case, a wonderful surprise.

Over the past few months I have had friends request and attempt to claim several pieces, but I am sticking to my guns for now.  I don't have any pieces of pottery in Winnipeg and I am keeping these until I leave....if I leave.

Summer 2012: Chinese Brush Painting

My mother is talented.

 Yes.  This talented.

My father Greg bragging to us about my mother Wyona's painting skills.

This summer it was decided that we were all going to sit down and try our hands at Chinese Brush Painting.  Now you may wonder where in the world a caucasian Canadian family would learn the skills of an ancient art form from a country on the other side of the world.  This is a good question.  My mother.  When my father obtained his job as Canadian Trade Commissioner with the Foreign Service we began traveling.  First to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, then on to Manila, Philippines.  While we were abroad we had hired house help which left my stay-at-home mother with some time to pursue other pursuits.  One she chose was Chinese Brush Painting whose art influence obviously extended beyond the borders of China, and at which my mother excelled.  While she was a teacher, and while I taught, she would show her and my students the basics.

Wyona demonstrating the fine art of bamboo painting

One always starts with bamboo and after several months the new learner is allowed to progress to roses.  Since time was limited (the summer was coming to a close), we had a 15 minute bamboo lesson, followed by a 15 minute rose lesson.  We practiced for several hours and some of us faired pretty well, creating almost realistic foliage.

Zach doing very well with bamboo stalks

One of the main pieces of information that Wyona always tells the learner is that this type of painting is single stroke with diluted paint.  You make one stroke, them move on.  You do not go over your work again and again, bad, naughty.  The depth of the painting comes from the variations in hues of the paint through the single strokes, from dark to medium to light colour contrasts.  Two essential art details.

Needed: water, paint, a place to dilute colours

Sabrina showing us the seriousness of art and bamboo

Alicia focusing on her roses

Then there were those of us who may need a few more summers to get to the Chinese painting part, yet enjoyable images were still created.

Chinese-Canadian-American rainbow?

The serious faces of each mini-artist is so perfect

The group is deep concentration with their roses

We did have a great time and learned that you throw away the first 3-45 sketches, even though they may look anywhere from pretty crappy to not too bad.  It is tough to let go of ones art when it has just been completed and a part of ones heart is in it.  Another summer, after more practice, we shall save and frame several pieces.  Only 41 more practices to go.  Until then, we have a semi-professional in our midst guiding our learning and visuals of her work to motivate us.

Keep Shining

While I plaster my blog with videos....here is one a cousin shared with me.  She was able to see Shad in London.  You and I get to enjoy his video and powerful music through YouTube.  Thank you to all the women who have taught me so much.  Keep shining.