you're invited

This coming weekend, November 26th and 27th my studio shall be open to the public and you're invited! If you are in the Ottawa area I do hope you will take the time to stop in and see what I have been up to in recent months. This open studio is part of the Red Trillium Studio Tour (you can click here to see the brochure and view the map).  Thirty-nine artists shall be exhibiting their original art and crafts in fourteen studio locations. Guest artists at my home shall be Retta Rive who creates fabric art and Kristin Trudeau of Little Lamb Creations, maker of fun and functional baby accessories.

This tour is being held four weeks before Christmas and I am sure you will find lots of terrific,one of a kind, gift items for those you love. Please note that I offer a layaway plan as a payment option. Perhaps you might wish to set aside something special for yourself this year! Included in my exhibition shall be a few pieces being offered at special prices - all part of my intention to keep my studio closets nice and roomy. Browsers are welcome too of course.

The tour is a wonderful opportunity for us artists to exhibit our work before the public and it is good for us to come out of our studio caves once in a while to function amongst society. Okay, maybe I am just speaking of myself here. :-) I really do enjoy spending time with our animals but it will be a treat to talk to humans, especially folks that really like art.

This event is being held on both Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 5:00 and there are refreshments served at most studios/homes. So, mark your calendars and don't forget. I look forward to seeing you! And if you read this blog, introduce yourself and let me know you read this stuff. Feedback is welcome and it is always good to know there is a friendly soul at the end of the mouse click.

Okay, must dash, I have a studio to turn into a gallery and furniture to empty out of the living room so my guest artists can set up. And some cleaning to do... yikes...

(P.S. If you subscribe to my newsletter you should have just received my latest issue. If you didn't see it in your inbox, please check your spam folder. You may need to enter my email address into your address book in order to avoid the newsletter getting whisked off to the reject pile. If you don't see it, contact me and we shall get things sorted. Maybe you have a changed your email address. If you don't already subscribe and you would like to get the latest news from my studio (I only send out a newsletter three or four a year) you can sign up at my website,www.teresamallenstudio.com or you can go directly to the sign up page by clicking here. Thanks!)

update on Autumn - art, garden, chickens and goats...

Humpback Hostas, Coloured Pencil on Colourfix Paper, 6.5" x 23"
copyright Teresa Mallen

Here is an update on how my Humpback Hostas piece ended up looking. It has been set aside in my studio for quite a while. I can see one area I am going to give a slight tweak to and then it shall be done.  

I have been working on some other things...here are a few ink and coloured pencil drawings...

Grouse Feather, coloured pencil on Stonehenge Paper, 4" x 6"
copyright Teresa Mallen

...a funky mushroom, coneflowers, Blue Jay feather and a chicken feather (sorry for the dark picture, a very cloudy day and the lighting was terrible, didn't get better with editing either)

Remember when we took photos and had the rolls of film developed at a photo lab? I found this sunflower picture in a box of arty photos that I took some years ago and I have started a pen/ink/cp piece based on this reference.

Sunflower work in progress, pen and ink and cps, 4" x 6"

I haven't been posting to this blog recently as September and October are harvest months here on our small farm. We grow a lot of food, imagine a year's worth of vegetables and you get the idea. The apple harvest was extraordinary this year. My husband and I picked several hundred pounds of apples. Goats love apples and so do we! We are making some hard cider this year for the first time.

Fall is also the season for the grape harvest. A quick trip to the 'little Italy' part of Ottawa resulted in the purchase of several crates of grapes which my husband has now crushed, pressed and fermented. The wine will eventually be transferred into bottles, oodles and oodles of bottles of lovely red and white wine. We are being mentored in our wine making efforts by a neighbour who is in his 90s. He has made award winning wine and he learned his skills as a young man from the elders in his village in Hungary. While the wine has to age yet, the first samples are tasting very promising indeed.

picking apples on a perfect fall day

We had a very hot, dry summer and I think our chili pepper plants liked the weather as there was a bumper crop this year. I guess we are going to be eating quite a bit of spicy food this winter!

I planted around 100 tomato plants and probably another 25 self seeded from last year's crop. They too loved the hot weather. I make all of my own pasta sauce, salsa, soup stock etc. and there is nothing like the taste of organically grown tomatoes from the garden. Oh and did I mention that I started all of my garden plants from seed in the house under grow lights, last February?!!! Yes, all...all of the 100 tomato plants, 50 cauliflower, 50 broccoli, 25 brussel sprout plants, peppers, squash, herbs etc... no purchased seedlings, not one. Many come from saved seeds too. Oops, I did buy some seed potatoes but they were the exception.  

Our young chestnut tree produced a good crop, enough to fill a good sized pail.

when food is beautiful...dried beans from the garden

When the garden harvest is coming to an end, the chickens are allowed in. They love scratching around in the soil looking for bugs and worms.

You might recall my fox story of a few months ago...well the foxes are still here. We see them often in the late afternoon catching mice in the meadow. All of the chickens are still here too! Here is Roosty doing his strut on the front lawn (a couple of hens are in the background behind him).

Goats love tomatoes and here young Ella waits for a cherry tomato to be brought in closer...

Ella's big sister Leah is enjoying a tomato too...

treats and snacks time...Jonah reaching for a chunk of apple...

just picked cherry tomatoes get shared with Veesa...(while little goats watch with envy below)

And here is Leah enjoying having her back scratched...goats so love being brushed too.

Finally, my Cellophane Symphony piece was selected for a feature on Design and Balance appearing this month on the Coloured Pencil Society of Canada website. Also, the prospectus for the CPSC juried exhibition in 2012 is now posted.

Now that the frenzy of putting food up for the winter is behind me, I shall have more time for posting art updates. I am just starting a new piece, fairly big and orangy-yellow...I like a nice orangy-yellow colour! :-)