My new Sumo bean bag chairs!

I've been in search of a reading chair for my basement office since we moved in. Up to now, I've been using Jeff's old office chair which was ok but not my Dream Chair. Thanks to my friend Ray for pointing me to Sumolounge.com, where I bought a beanbag chair ("Omni") and a beanbag ottoman ("Otto").



I chose it because not because of the sultry women in their demo videos and stills ("What's YOUR favourite position?"), but because of:

- The affordable cost ($129 for the chair, $75 for the ottoman) and the configurability aspect.

- The chair is light enough for me to easily throw around and shape yet solid enough to provide a support for sitting and snoozing.

- It was available in red! Also comes in eight other colours.

- Fabric is rip-proof nylon and easy to clean.

What I couldn't tell from the pictures online, of course, was how comfortable it would be.



So of course I had to put my new Sumo chair through rigorous testing (see photos on this page) and can say without a doubt that I needn't have worried.

All I need is a microwave and a mini-fridge, and I'll never have to leave my basement office ever again.





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Seanan McGuire: Stars Fall Home

So I received my contributor's copy of Seanan McGuire's new CD, Stars Fall Home, yay! I've been listening to the audio file that Seanan sent me but now I also get to admire the liner notes with Beckett Gladney's fabulous interior illustrations.

Recording flute for Dorothy

By Seanan.

As I've mentioned earlier, I played flute on Dorothy; you can hear a sample from the track by going to Seanan's CD page and clicking on "Listen" beside the fourth track in Stars Fall Home. Or just click here to listen to a sample; my flute isn't on this sample, but you can hear Kris Yenney's gorgeous cello.

Seanan's Dorothy song was inspired by a photo comic from Illusive Arts Entertainment, a dark re-interpretation of Baum's original Oz. You can find out more about the song on this page.

I recorded my flute part in my home recording studio with coaching from Jeff Bohnhoff and Kristoph Klover, then sent the file off to Kristoph via YouSendIt (it was a pretty big file).

Listening to Stars Fall Home

I've been listening to Stars Fall Home a LOT in the past few months. Not only are the songs well-crafted, but the vocal and instrumental arrangements are very strong. Every note, every line contributes to the song texture as a whole.

Michelle Dockrey (a.k.a. "Vixy") provided many of the backing vocals on the album; her voice and Seanan's sound FANTASTIC together. Michelle, by the way, is going to be one of the Guests of Honour at FilKONtario next April, along with the equally talented Tony Fabris.

With her arrangements adding interest to already good songs, Seanan has also added musical variety to her songs by inviting guest musicians and vocalists. I think it VERY cool that this album involved musicians from several different countries. This sort of collaboration would have been much more of a hassle in pre-broadband days.

What's also very cool: Seanan's bio page of all the featured artists who participated in the album, including caricatures of each person. Guest musicians on this CD: Paul Kwinn, Michelle Dockrey, Tony Fabris, Amy McNally, Kristoph Klover, Alisa Garcia, Luis Garcia, Margaret Davis, Deirdre McCarthy, Kris Yenney, Beckett Gladney, Arlene Hills, Mich Sampson, Debbie Ohi (woohoo!), Mike Whitaker, Steve Macdonald, Jeff Bohnhoff, Maya Bohnhoff, Erica Neely, and Merav Hoffman.

She also did a group picture (I'm the one playing flute) of the North American musicians:




Seanan has also done a fantastic job with using her Web site to supplement and promote her recording projects. You can read about the Stars Fall Home creation process in her Recording Diary, for instance, and she is also gradually updating a special Behind The Music section to give background details for each song on the album including the story behind it, arrangement notes, interesting trivia, and even artwork.

You can find out more about Seanan at her Web site.
You can hear soundclips and read lyrics of her CDs.
You can buy her Stars Fall Home CD for $17 online.

And THANK YOU, Seanan, for inviting me to be part of this project!



Me, playing Guitar Hero 2 at the gaming party.

Photo by Ray Vankleef.



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blogTO, painting and homemade peanut butter cups

4"x4" acrylics & ink: "Dreamwalk"
For sale as fridge art on Etsy.

On Friday night, I met up with some blogTO types at C'est What? on Front Street, including Jerrold Litwinenko, Adam Schwabe, Gary Peter, Kari Gignac, Rebecca Black, Tim Shore, and two others who arrived just before I left but whose names I unfortunately didn't get. I had never met any of them in person before and figured it was about time. I had a great evening and was very glad to have made the trek downtown.



I've been writing for blogTO since early summer. It doesn't pay a lot but I decided to start writing for them because:

- I was impressed by the amount of publicity/traffic Will Write For Chocolate received after Ryan Couldrey (who sadly couldn't make it on Friday so I still haven't met him in person!) interviewed me for blogTO.

- I get access to places and people (for interviews, profiles and reviews) that I may not easily get otherwise.

- I'm meeting a lot of interesting authors, editors and publishers.

- The laid-back atmosphere. As long as they follow certain guidelines, contributors are given a great deal of leeway.

- In many ways, blogTO reminds me of Inkspot in the old days, when it was fun. Except this time I get to do what I enjoy the most (the writing) instead of being pulled more and more into the management and administrative side of things.



I've been doing some more painting. Thanks to artists like my sister and Beckett Gladney, books, and YouTube videos, I've been learning a lot more about acrylics painting. I bought my first acrylics paints when I decided to paint a tree in my basement office when we first moved in. After doing some pottery with Luisa last month, I decided to try painting with real paints rather than just digitally.

Anyway, all the paintings you see on this page were created on 4" x 4" canvas boards and are for sale in my Etsy shop as of this morning.

I've sold 11 pieces since I posted my first listing nearly two weeks ago, mostly mini-paintings that I've turned into fridge magnets by sticking some magnetic tape onto the back. Taking some of the money I've earned through my sales so far, I've bought some better brushes and paints, as well as more canvas boards.

I've never taken an art course (past Grade 10, that is) and it shows, but I'm having a lot of fun with it and practising a ton to gradually improve my craft. I've been occasionally experimenting with slightly larger formats, and my goal is to eventually paint much bigger pieces that Jeff and I can hang up in the house; we still have a lot of empty wall space.



We hosted a gaming party at our place yesterday. Lots of board games but also computer games. Scott Murray brought over Guitar Hero 2; I've never played Guitar Hero before and found it HUGELY ADDICTIVE. I'm glad we don't have a PlayStation; I wouldn't get nearly as much work done.

For those not familiar with Guitar Hero, you basically play scrolling notes to complete a song using a guitar-shaped controller. Your left hand plays one of five colour-coded keys (which represent frets) while your right hand "strums" a button. The more incorrect notes you hit, the unhappier your audience will be; if you hit too many, then you'll be kicked off the stage.

Advanced techniques include hammer-ons, pull-offs, and using the whammy bar. It's WAY fun. Musicians, especially those with guitar-playing experience, definitely have an advantage when starting out.

But now I want to talk about chocolate...

Before everyone showed up, my friend Ray came over and we made Peanut Butta Cups, a recipe that Ray found on Chow.com.



I did the peanut butter filling. I made Ray do the chocolate tempering because I was paranoid about screwing up. To properly temper the chocolate, you need to get the chocolate to a target temperature of about 110 degrees F; if you go too high, then the chocolate's scorched and you have to start again with a new batch. We used a chocolate tempering thermometer.



The peanut butter cups turned out great! I limited myself to half a pb cup, but only with enormous self-restraint on my part.

Next time I'm going to crumble the graham crackers myself instead of using the pre-smooshed type (Ray says that makes the filling a bit more crunchy) and might use higher quality chocolate; this time I opted for standard chocolate chips. And having seen Ray go through the process, I think I'm ready to tackle the chocolate tempering on my own now.



Oh my. Playing with chocolate is FUN.

Hope you're all having a great weekend. Today I'm doing two writing critiques and working on card designs for the UK letterpress company I mentioned last week.






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Seeking card distribution advice!

Thanks for the congrats on my letterpress card news. At present, you can get Blush cards in certain stores in the UK as well as NotOnTheHighStreet.com but they are still looking for a North American distributor so UK shipping fees won't be involved. If anyone out there has any ideas, please do let me know and I'll pass them on.

I can't really sell them in my Etsy shop because I don't make them myself and although I could sell them on my own, I would rather have someone else deal with admin and payment and shipping. Any suggestions welcome!



Lots of snow in Toronto yesterday. My instinct was to cocoon inside where it's cozy and warm but I forced myself to bundle up and venture out. I try to get off my butt and seek out some real exercise for at least 30 minutes every day, no matter what the weather.

Sometimes I go to the gym, and sometimes I go for a run or a power walk. For me, the biggest challenge is getting out the door. I usually start work around 6:30 or 7 am and by 4 pm or so I'm either dead tired or so much into my work that I don't want to stop.

Most of you work outside of home, so you get outdoors no matter what. For a hermit-type like me who works at home, however, it would be SO easy for me to hide away in my basement office all day (and evenings, esp. now that I'm painting many nights), immersed in writing, drawing, painting, and songwriting.



I don't exercise just to keep fit. I find that if I don't, my creativity starts lagging and I also get stressed way more easily.

Once I'm outside, I'm always glad to be there. Yes, even in a snowstorm! Don't know about the rest of you, but I'd much rather be out there in the blustery cold (as long as I'm bundled up) than melting in the summer heat.



Cafe Pleiade has become one of Jeff's and my favourite dinner restaurants in Toronto, and not just because of the fantastic food, cushioned benches and cozy atmosphere. I'll wager that Chef Stavros Tsimicalis is one of the only restauranteurs in Toronto who is also a published poet!

I've posted a review of Cafe Pleiade in blogTO, if you're interested.



Tonight I'm getting together with some of the blogTO types. I've never met any of them in person, so it will be nice to finally put faces to some of the names.

Links O' The Day:

Photojojo store: I just found out about this store through the latest Photojojo e-mail newsletter. Holy cow, I am SO drooling over some of this stuff. I already have the magnetic photo rope in my office, which I love (just $10!), but the custom-made photo bags look SO COOL, with a much wider range of choices than CafePress. I may treat myself to one of these next year once I sell some more art.

And a reminder to those you writers out there or those shopping for writers, don't forget to check out my list of Gifts For Writers, Librarians and Bibliophiles.





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Flickring and my art on letterpress cards (!)

When Flickr first launched, I remember lots of people being highly skeptical. I signed up for a paid account ages ago and still love this online photo/image service. About 90% of my illustration clients find me through my Flickr pics, and I've even made money with a few photos as well. My school teacher friend Allison just earned some money with one of her photos because of Flickr; apparently Scholastic Canada is going to use one of them in an upcoming textbook!

What I enjoy most about Flickr right now, however, is the fact that it's a glimpse into a zillion other lives, one photo at a time. Fascinating to go into Everyone's Most Recent Photos every so often, for example. Click "Refresh," and the entire page changes. For photographers, it can be truly inspiring. I recently happened to follow one random photo to this set of amazing photos and then this blog. I'd kill to be able to take wedding photos like that.



Flickr also got me a new illustration assignment. A small letterpress company based in a village in northern Wales wants to do a line of letterpress cards with my illustrations on them! They like my woodcut style characters like the cat below, and have commissioned more artwork:



I'm very excited about this! I've been fascinated by letterpress since seeing the letterpress display at Coach House Press during Doors Open and subsequently interviewing letterpress publisher Nicholas Kennedy for blogTO.

Anyway, I loveLOVE the idea of this north Wales shop hand-printing cards on Victorian letterpress printing machines with MY ARTWORK on them. When they're for sale, I'll let you know.

I've posted a review of Penrose Fish & Chips on blogTO, if you're interested. It's one of our favourite fish & chips places in Toronto. Yummm...



Sold two more paintings yesterday. I decided to revamp one of my current paintings (the fairy painting below).



Instead of a regular wedding card to accompany the bowl that Luisa and I made for our friends Hrach and Lori, I created the 4" x 4" mini-painting in acrylics (see below) instead. I designed a note to stick to the back of the painting, we signed it, then inserted it into a small envelope.



Some of the paintings above are on sale in my Etsy shop.

Video O' The Day:

I was grossed out by the zombie scenes at first but then was HIGHLY amused.

THE LAST DUET ON EARTH: "In the future, music will be the only thing that matters anymore."



(Thanks to Ray for the link!)



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