After having graduated with an art degree in 1980 and having had one solo gallery show the same year, my career as an artist dwindled to almost nothing.

I'd lost the desire to make art over the years not just because I'd become a busy mother but because I'd also had many health challenges. Now that my children are adults and I'm also getting healthier (my health blog), my desire to create has re-emerged. Even while in school, I was always hard pressed to think of what in the world I could paint. But now … well, I have enough material in my mind, inspiration in my heart and photos on my laptop to paint for two lifetimes!

My trip in 2008 to China (there are lots of my trip pics here: chinainjune.blogspot.com) and the photos I took there have inspired me to work on a series of acrylic paintings most of which are unique Chinese vehicles and I have finsihed about nine of them. I was extremely interested in the old fashioned tricycles being used in the farming city (Zhumadian) where we were staying for a period of two weeks and since I was not able to walk much at the time, I stood at the street intersections "shooting lots of film" - and was only asked twice by officials to stop taking photos.

In the winter of 2010, for a colour break (because the colours I'd been working with were so subdued) I took a pleasant side journey painting from some photos with very strong sunlight and very bright colours. The photographs were taken by Rose Lipton, a friend of my daughter's, who was studying overseas in Oviedo, Spain for two years. Three are done, one is started, two more are talking to me.

In June of 2010, my husband and I stayed at a cottage owned by my brother-in-law in beautiful, big-tree Muskoka. We arrived in the early evening around 6 pm and after a long day of driving through mixed weather the sun began to shine, so I rushed down to the dock and took about 30 photos before I even unpacked the car - who knows if we'd have any more sun for the rest of the week (... I thought, coming from Halifax NS). Well, we had lots more sun that week, but the photo I decided to use was from the first evening of our arrival. I painted this muskoka chair for Peter during our week in Ontario's cottage country to thank him for the use of his summer home as well as three nights at his house in Toronto.

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