Montreal

Montreal

After four years together, and many not-so-subtle hints dropped, Luc finally brought me to see Montreal. It was beautiful, so many old buildings, cobblestone streets, narrow passages, and ornate architecture, offset by the 'haute couture' of Montreal. Very neat. Luc booked us a room in a beautiful hotel, called the 19th Century (or XIXe siècle)

http://www.hotelxixsiecle.com/ .

It was pouring rain when we ventured out for our walk. The benefit of that is that the colours came through so much better on the camera. And after finding a couple of umbrellas in this little shop, we were all set.

A picture of a smoked meat sign for my Mom. She had told me I *must* try real Montreal smoked meat. Unfortunately, due to my untimely bout of killer food-poisoning, I had to live with the picture and hope that next time I can try it!

Restaurant du Vieux Port, which was located, yep, you guessed it, right near the old port, was very nice. We ate dinner there Friday night. I had Santa Fé chicken. I told Luc it was my absolute favorite dish. Now I can't even think about it without gagging. :)

I think this was someone's residence... Lucky.

Whenever and however you celebrate, may your winter solstice be filled with good cheer, reflection, hope for the rebirth of the light, and peace.

http://www.candlegrove.com/solstice.html#open

I sometimes remember this poem, which I read in high school. It always struck me as so beautiful. Today a friend sent me a forward with kids playing with baby skunks. So I looked it up.

Excerpt from 'Valentine for Ernest Mann'
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious.
He was a serious manwho lived in a serious way.
Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so.
He really
liked those skunks.
So, he re-invented themas valentines
and they became beautiful.
At least, to him.
And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Well, sadly my painting class has come to an end... Well, technically my last night would have been this week but we're taking the train to Montreal for an xmas dinner party at Luc's work, so that won out.

Here are some of my paintings (please have mercy on me, I'm a beginner!!) The brightly coloured one was my first crack at trying to do something 'abstract'. The girl is still in progress. The lighthouse was from my trip down east. And the black and white one was my bad mood. :)

It's snowing. I thought I would be a bit more excited than this, however, since I'm locked in the city today, the big white flakes against the concrete buildings just paint everything with a dull shade of grey. Boring.
So I went to my painting class last night in a foul mood. At least I was able to do two 'abstract' paintings with virtually no effort. They're not good, but I did find that it was nice to just let my mind wander, while my brush moved. I wasn't trying to create any particular mood or feeling or image, so I just let my subconscious bicker away with itself, mulling over this and that, and all the while my brush added shades of black and red to my canvass. It was quite a nice experience, but I grew tired very quickly and packed it in early (as did the rest of the class, I don't think the dreary rainy weather was helping much).
I have to sign up for my next class soon. I just received a new bout of inspriration today when I stumbled across an artist from Texas, Cyr McCurry. (http://www.cynmccurry.com/home.html) Her art is absolutely beautiful, and so realistic. I really have found I enjoy capturing 'real' objects on my canvasses, and I do thank my art teacher Agnes for pushing me to use colour when portraying my first person (from a magazine, but you have to start somewhere). It got me over my fear of doing flesh tones. I still have a ways to go with that painting, but I enjoy it immensely. My next class will be doing nudes, should be interesting (read: daunting).