Author: kirsti

New work – Britannia Heritage Shipyard film

| kirsti

I’ve been really behind in updating my portfolio and blogging about recent work. This film is from way back in the spring and was for the Britannia Heritage Shipyard’s new museum. I’ve recently added it to my portfolio and the film can be viewed there. My involvement included photography, editing and photo editing. Full credits listed below.
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Britannia Heritage Shipyard – These Walls Can Talk

Documenting the historical residential experience at Britannia Heritage Shipyard, Steveston, BC
client:: City of Richmond
creative director + producer:: Darren Carcary
editors:: Darren Carcary and Kirsti Wakelin
soundtrack:: Jeff Griffiths
writer:: Dianna Carr
photographer:: Kirsti Wakelin
photo editing:: Kirsti Wakelin
cinematographer:: Darren Carcary
archival imagery:: City of Richmond Archives, City of Vancouver Archives, Harold Steves

Sketchbook – Capilano Canyon

| kirsti

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Capilano Canyon 1 | watercolour on arches cold pressed 7″x10″

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Capilano Canyon Rocks | watercolour on arches hot pressed 7″x10″

I did a little bit of work on these back at home without the distraction of the scenery. I darkened the water a little in both pieces, and did a couple of additions to foliage in the background of the rocks painting. I find I fall in love too much with some of the things in the actual scenery and they don’t alway add to the painting. So to come home and do a bit of touching up in the studio is sometimes helpful – I can concentrate on eliminating things that don’t serve a purpose and accentuating nice little paint accidents. But things can sometimes go the other way and get overworked. And there’s a danger of losing the essence of a sketch done in the field. These are just sketches, in the end. Not meant to be anything but exercises. If I have to paint 200 bad paintings to finally get a good one, I’ve got about 180 of these to go.

The canyon was about the coolest place to be yesterday. While I painted an odd mist would drift down the river, covering up the reflections, and bring cool air with it. Then it would disappear again and the temperature would rise slightly. People came down to the water to jump off the rocks and play with their dogs in the freezing water. And then they’d leave and the surface of the water would get glassy once again.

Sketchbook – Calgary road trip sketches

| kirsti

Sketches from a trip back in June.

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Yellow House, Nelson, BC | watercolour on arches hot pressed 140lb 7″x10″

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Calgary, AB | watercolour on arches cold pressed 140lb 7″x10″

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Nose Hill, Calgary, AB | watercolour on arches hot pressed 140lb 7″x10″

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Nose Hill, Calgary, AB | watercolour on arches cold pressed 140lb 7″x10″

Adapted berry pie

| kirsti

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It’s berry season and we’ve got 10lbs of blueberries to deal with and limited freezer space as well as a whole pile of on-the-verge-of-fermentation lemons and limes. Pie time!

This is the from the Canyon Ranch Cooks cookbook – it’s the recipe for Lemon Blackberry Pie. But I used mostly limes, no zest (because the limes were on the old side and the skins were a little yuck), and blueberries and a few raspberries instead of blackberries. Also, I went with 4 whole eggs instead of 3 whole eggs + 2 egg whites because I hate the idea of throwing out egg yolks. The crust is store bought because pastry and I don’t see eye to eye. Without the pastry prep, this is a super easy pie for me to make (extra points!). And it’s delish.

It’s got 3/4c of sugar and 1/4 c of butter in it. The idea behind including recipes like this in a cookbook about healthy eating is portion control; the serving size is supposed to be 1/16 of the pie. But I, um,  just seem to be able to cut them that small…

I’ve also made the lime pot de crème from the same book – which is also super.

Food vacation

| kirsti

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This post has little or nothing to do with art. It is manly about food. It is, in fact, pretty much completely an ode to food.

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A few friends and I took a much needed vacation to Salt Spring Island. We spent much of the weekend enjoying fresh, local, organic, seasonal food (from our own gardens and from the island) at a lovely farm where we had rented an old house. The rest of the time was spent wandering the island to chase down other foods at their source – namely fresh goat cheese from Salt Spring Island Cheese Company.

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Framed Crow

| kirsti

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I was framing a couple of illustrations yesterday and in the box that passes for my artwork storage I came across a little ink sketch that fit a spare frame I had lying around. Framing is tedious, expensive and time consuming and my wallspace is minimal so things don’t often make it under glass but it’s kind of nice when they do. I haven’t had a lot of time to make art that is meant to be the sort that hangs on the wall. The few large pieces destined for retail applications are very commercial, and other work has been for alternative applications or book art, so doing something that has no other purpose than to hang on a wall is rather novel. It’s also nice to work on a subject that’s purely my own choice and for my own amusement.