Charcoal cloth

Originally uploaded by lightspeedchick

I once dated a windsurfing instructor for 5 years, and over 5 summers of frustrating, hard training and personal instruction, I never managed to learn to windsurf. That’s when I realized that mastery can never come from just training. You need training AND potential.

I’ve always thought I could draw if taught, but my drawings have always been technical-looking outlines, with shading and color my nemeses. I’ve been taking some lessons over the past few weeks, and the instructor had me do this charcoal exercise to overcome some of my shading demons. It’s been fun but exhausting getting over my normal style.

Here’s hoping drawing doesn’t become another futile exercise in windsurfing.

Public service announcement: Are you a creative English-speaking woman in Quebec? You could get up to 25000$ in funding for an interactive project!

Filmmakers, photographers, new-media creators, graphic designers, sound artists, programmers, interactive storytellers, writers, and other techie creative creatures are invited to apply to First Person Digital, a new program set up by the NFB with Studio XX.

Representatives will be present at my Girl Geek Dinner talk next week.

You can also listen to one of the organizers talk about FPD on Wednesday’s edition of CKUT’s XX files.

Deadline for application is March 1st. Go!

Next post: How Mass Effect 2 put Mr. Darcy into a Canadian commercial from the 80s.

I absolutely adore this birthday card I received from a colleague yesterday. In case you’re wondering about the pegleg, Comet’s leg got hurt last week (but she’s ok). Merci JF!

Scots have a lot of things in common with Québécois. They are a culturally rich and distinct nation within a nation, have some history of animosity with England, and love their conceptually disgusting but actually delicious national dish. One thing in which they really differ from us, though, is their apparent love of getting married. I’ve had two weddings to go to in Scotland in as many years (without even accepting all invitations), the same number I’ve attended in a decade in Québec (accepting all invitations). Then again, I can see why: kilts, castles, folk dancing, bagpipes (they’re ok in context), what’s not to like?

So, like last summer, I’m going to a wedding in Scotland next month, and have decided to make my own dress. I made the whole thing from a store-bought pattern and finished it yesterday; the result was less than conclusive. In order to fit in it I would have had to be Dolly Parton up top, and Kate Moss on the bottom. So I scrapped the store-bought pattern and drew my own from scratch, late into the wee hours. This morning I took the dress apart stitch by stitch, and started making it again using my own pattern.

Here’s the work in progress; I’ll post more pictures as it progresses.