Mountainfest

Well it's that time of year again when Merritt's Mountain Music Fest rolls around. It runs from July 9th to 12th.
Too expensive for us so hubby (who is doing a lot better a month after the 5 day nosebleed ) and I opted to walk around downtown Merritt and check out the vendors instead. There was a great stall selling hats and purses made with real cow hide. The lady told me she was out of Kelowna and makes the stuff herself but I just checked the address and it's American...oh well- we're so behind the times here western fashion-wise! That's Just Bull has great stuff regardless.
A pleasant surprise was Ridley Bent doing a free mini concert downtown- I took a nice picture while he was singing Heartland Heartbreak.


Bigger View at DA
Later on I went to Kamloops to find packaging and photo mats for my art work and got a pretty good deal on that...one of my panoramics is on the back cover of the official Merritt Tourist guide; this one:


Bigger View at DA
A portion of that image was also used for a local commerce publication.
I just finished a Star Trek portrait; Koval. I obviously struggle with colour but thought I would share anyway:


Bigger View at DA
Over at the Official Star Trek site you can figure out who all these alien characters are- lol.
The new movie was awesome by the way in case I never mentioned it before. :)

Tattoo and the Tulameen

I watched another artist recently; a tattoo artist applied his skills to my sister's arm and she's now proudly sporting a gigantic leafy haired woman's head on her right shoulder.
Quite a pretty job the artist did:


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I'm drawing more and more myself as well- trying not to let anything stop the roll I'm currently on...I've moved away from Trek-land for a bit and am working on the Lost Crew...I'm giving 'cross-hatching' a fair try!


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And finally, yesterday being such a stellar day albeit a cold one, we decided to do a little road trip out to Princeton- about an hour south east of Merritt. Surprisingly Princeton seems to be about the same size as Merritt; I always thought it was considerably smaller.
We also headed out to the ghost town of Coalmont which hasn't changed much in the last hundred years I imagine.
The very first road trip I ever took in my own car was to Princeton and Coalmont with the intention of getting out to Tulameen as well although I never went that far back then- I was a new driver and it was snowing horribly...
Anyway, there is virtually nothing left of the ghost town of Tulameen- it appears to exist as a retirement community for people who obviously have money to spend on nice log houses in the back of beyond. It was a very scenic drive and probably the last decent one till spring- it's getting cold these days.


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Hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving...and Christmas if I don't write till the new year! lol

On Drawing, Television and the Coquihalla

On September 27th the Coquihalla toll booth workers were told to go home- their job was done. After 20 years the toll has ended and the booths are being torn down. Quite a historic day! Evidently all the money brought in paid for the cost of the Coquihalla Highway and the government decided to take advantage of the election fever/interest to make themselves look generous! lolThis is a link to the highway web cam which must still be up.
I had driven out last week to visit my sister and remember rummaging in my purse for 10 dollars before I remembered that it's free now! I pulled along side the highway to take a few photos of Merritt in the early morning light:


This is a LARGE version of the panorama at my art account


Also, I should mention a bit about my husband's hunting/fishing successes: He's brought home 4 grouse and 6 ducks recently and 2 days ago 3 beautiful fish- one of them was over a foot and a half in length which shocked me; I didn't think they got that big in Nicola Lake!


Of course It's bigger here!

I mentioned in my last post that I'm drawing again, mostly celebrity portraits. I've actually drawn more pictures in the last 2 weeks than I have in the last 2 years...I was discouraged for the longest time whenever I tried to do a portrait but thank God that's changed. Also, for the longest time I did not watch cable t.v. Like, nearly a decade till last year. I got kind of hooked on first Law and Order and then CSI. I'm sure a lot of people think "oh those are crap shows!" and I would have to agree that some of the episodes are crappy but I don't watch shows like that to pick apart the plot- I watch them to be entertained. Nowadays it's the Star Trek shows, documentaries, still some of the crime dramas, and also the idiotically funny kitchen shows ( Gordon Ramsey Rocks! ). Gord's Home Page where I'm certain he's not quite as psychotic! What I can't stand are the so called 'reality shows'. There is this plethora of useless people ( and I say useless because they obviously have nothing better to do than sit in a room with a bunch of other useless people ) being filmed in meaningless situations...but of course there are exceptions! Mantracker is pure entertainment- a very competent outdoors man stalks his human targets who get a head start and 36 hours to make it to the finish line before Mantracker catches him- or her!
The only show I would say that I truly hate is Family Guy- it's disgusting the things that it condones and makes me cringe when I think that kids watch it. But I'm babbling now! I wanted to post some of the portraits I finished recently:



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This is "Q" from Star Trek: Next Generation.


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This is Doctor Beverley Crusher from Star Trek: Next Generation.


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This is Patrick Stewart who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: Next Generation.


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For anyone interested, here are some of the preliminary steps for the Patrick Stewart picture. :)