Coeur d 'Alene to Crawford Bay

We left Spokane on Sunday morning after mom was up all night worshiping to the porcelain gods. We ate at some pathetic "Asian Fusion" where the California roll was made with tinned crab and the gyozas were made with tainted pork. Thankfully, Michelle wasn't with us as she always eats gyozas and I doubt the loo was big enough to accommodate more than a single worshiper. We arrived in Coeur d 'Alene and found it to be a more arty town than red-neck Spokane. We ate lunch and headed North to hit the artisans at Crawford Bay so mom could get a Harry Potter broom....

Coeur d 'Alene to Crawford Bay

Spokane

Well my folks have come for a visit and after they frolicked in the hot springs at Ainsworth we decided to head South to spend our strong Canadian dollar. After school on Friday we headed for the border and our first destination; Spokane. Spokane is a sprawling city of 200K, filled with enormous bill boards and 5 lane highways. I found it to be quite a culture shock as Nelson is so small and dark (especially at night).

Spokane

Pasties'n'Braids at Kevin's

Katherine, Lesha and I spent the day at Kevin's shop playing blacksmith again. It was a very successful day. We made a neato braided twist and fixed the pastie die. We are are pretty much ready to go into production.

Braid Twist

Pasties

My street

Nelson - Fall

Fall has hit Nelson and the colours are truly amazing.

Makin' Pasties!

Well not yet, making the tooling to make pasties. A few of us thought it would be fun to make copper and steel pasties. Katherine and I went to Kevin's shop (Katherine actually lives there) to make the bottom die and to play with the fly press. A big evil machine that smooshes metal between dies and would have no issue taking of your head in the process.

Top & Bottom Pastie Dies

Life Drawing 101

Life Drawing

Ok so I didn't get the hot little number to draw in class today. But, I assure you it has left an impression. There is something wrong with an elderly lady with a Brazilian. I was hoping to use my 6B to heavily shade in the bits. Well I couldn't very well do that with them all exposed in their glory. Thankfully, the model's poses hid things. Take a look at my final drawing, there is no need to see the few lead up drawings. I also apologize to the model, I didn't do you justice, The chair on the other hand I nailed!

Salmo, BC

Salmo

Today I decided to head south to Salmo to see the infamous stone murals carved by students of the masonry school. I wasn't expecting "rock by number" murals, pretty disappointing, but they were interesting none the less. The drive through the valley was beautiful as the leaves are turning to their fall colours.

Drawing 101 - Octopus

Here is a study we had to do on motif. I chose an octopus and boiled it down to the suckers, eyes and siphon.

Sea Horse

Seahorse

Here is my inflated fish project. I'm not sure why I chose a seahorse but am glad I did. It turned out much better than I anticipated.

More of Michelle's Nelson reading

Gil Courtemanche: a Canadian author, both books are about death but are written in a beautiful way
A Good Death
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali

Bryce Courtenay: it's by Bryce Courtenay, so it's pretty much perfect
Smoky Joe's Cafe

Louise Doughty: details the experience of the Roma in the concentration camps of WWII, very informative
Fires in the Dark

Roddy Doyle: after five books, I'm still not sick of him
The Woman Who Walked into Doors
Paddy Clarke, Ha-Ha-Ha
Oh, Play that Thing

Carrie Fisher: highly entertaining, good fluff
Postcards From the Edge
The Best Awful

Gita Mehta: a wonderful snapshot of Hinduism and other assorted religions
A River Sutra

Emma Richler: about a woman who had such a wonderful childhood she's reluctant to let it go
Sister Crazy