The days do fly by. I have just discovered this blog and there is a very generous giveaway on it. Debbie is a new blogger so maybe you'd like to stop by and visit her. http://debbie-mylife-myloves-mystuff.blogspot.com/

I spent yesterday sewing some crazy quilt patches together, it took me all afternoon to do three. I have four more ready to go but I find that I change my choice of colours part way through so it takes quite a bit of time and that's okay.

I stopped by Book Warehouse earlier this week just to wander around and immediately found a book called How To Draw & Paint Fairyland by Linda Ravenscroft. I wrote a post last year about wanting to paint faeries but didn't know quite where to start. This book is great for this. It shows how to create different weather moods and seasons and how to build up a composition. It has some exercises where you can trace a picture and paint it for practice. I have been gathering the equipment I need and will start soon. I realized after looking though the book that I have loved doing this type of thing since I was a child. I have often bought children's books for the illustrations and liked to draw snails, butterflies, dragonflies, toadstools, etc. When my girls were small I used to make a candyland at Christmas with little pixies and faeries with gumdrops on straws stuck in foam that was covered in cotton wool. Linda suggests taking a camera and going on nature walks, taking pictures from a fairie point of view, sketching and collecting bits and pieces to use for inspiration and to draw from. I have always collected bits and pieces of driftwood, conkers (chestnuts), acorns, snail shells (empty ones only) and anything else that looks interesting. I am looking forward to this new direction. I think the faeries I bought last year were the beginning of this.

The Olympics are almost here. No snow at all on one of the mountains and the weather is very much like Spring. I saw some snowdrops today and a couple of crocuses. Apparently it is very busy in downtown Vancouver but it was very quiet on Granville Island and along Broadway and 4th Avenue today. Helicopters have been flying around pretty regularly because I live near the Olympic village and there are searchlights in English Bay that you can see around the city, every night. Someone said the torch was coming by here on Thursday or Friday so I'll have to find out where and when and watch for it. I am not terribly excited about the Olympics because it is a corporate money-grab and money that should be spent on needed resources for people (health care, education and support services for the disadvantage) is being spent in the billions on this two week event. It is no longer about the athletes and also with so many athletes taking drugs it has taken the shine off of it for me. Anyway, it is going on so I may as well stop by some of the free events and I think I will go downtown tomorrow and see what's going on down there.
I can actually see one of the sites from my window where they will be showing the events on a huge TV screen.

I am doing an ATC trade with my granddaughter and a friend from blogland so I am looking forward to that - I love getting mail, especially when it is something creative.

That's it for today, sleep well and may tomorrow be filled with grace and love.