Dream Big Cape Breton

So that was fun! Last week I did a colour a day, inspired by my fave blogger, Elise Blaha Cripe, who did a colour week in 2011. I’d been thinking about it ever since! I love the idea of going on a photographic scavenger hunt to boost my creativity and focus my eye.

The first day of my colour week I was really excited about it, the second day still mostly excited, but by the third day I had lost some steam. There was also that gross two-day storm in the middle, too, so I was storm-stayed in the house and not all that happy about that. But I’m glad I kept with it and kept taking the pictures and looking for the colours, because at the end of the project, putting this grid together of all the pictures made me really happy! It’s funny how by themselves, each picture isn’t overly remarkable, but all together they make something beautiful.

Overall the project reminded me that happiness comes down to what we choose to focus on. The elements for happiness are there, all around us: loving people, good food, clear skies, a good home. Making the choice to see those things, well, it can definitely be hard sometimes, for sure. I get that, and I feel it, often.

This project taught me that it’s still worth it to work on my “choice muscles” and choose to see the good things, because those things add up, and come together to make an overall beautiful picture.

Colour Week individual posts: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue.

Have a lovely Monday.

This is a card my friend Julie in Ontario sent me. I love it, it feels so springlike.

So yesterday was the final day of my Cape Breton Colour Week, and I was looking for blue.

My T-square, which I hardly ever use, to be honest. But it makes me feel like a pro, haha.

This map was featured in the yellow post too. I have it on my office wall and I just love it.
I made this for a class project last year on Illustration techniques. It was fun, I love collage!

Then once I got to school I went for a little walk. Shadows on snow are blue, right?

And the sky was blue for a little bit. These are proof prints for something I made for a fundraiser my class is doing next week. We’re doing a silent art auction at school to raise money so we can attend the Creative Conference next month in Sydney.

My favourite scarf is my blue one.

Then once I got home I went for another walk. It had clouded over and was snowing again. But I still found a bit more blue.

This looks grey but it was blue I swear! And that’s that for Cape Breton Colour Week! I’m putting together a fun collage of all the pictures and I’ll have that on the blog on Monday, along with my thoughts on doing the Colour Week and what it taught me.

The other colours are here: red, orange, yellow and green.

For now I’m off to the market to get me some crepe-y goodness! Have a great weekend, everyone!

Yesterday I felt like I was coming down with a cold, the power was out, and the weather was just gross. (So windy!) I was a little bit discouraged. So I mostly slept. And then I went for groceries, and then we had to go get Adam’s truck, and a little bit after that the power came back on and life was good again.

In between all of that, I hunted for green.

This is a cactus my grandmaman gave me years ago, in a pot that Adam’s mother gave us. In the left hand corner is the thank-you card from Lumiere, the festival I volunteered for last year. This is a corner of a painting by my uncle’s wife Nathalie, who lives in Quebec. Yup, I’m that much of a dork that I have a “Think Cape Breton First” sign hung in my office. You can see me displaying this sign in 2012 at Kennington Cove, here. Detail of a watercolour painting by my friend Ann Hart. I absolutely love having original art in my home, and consider it a kind of richness. Today I’ll be hunting for blue – the last day of Colour Week! Hope you have a great Friday.

The first bunch of photos are from around my kitchen, as I get ready in the morning and look around me for some examples of the colour of the day.

Then I got to school and remembered, Hey! My car is orange!

And so are the traffic cones I walk by every day on my walk into the school:

At lunch I went walking out the little dirt road that leads to the water tower.

When I got home I remembered this hand-painted wine glass has an orange bulb on it: Then I went for a walk around the neighbourhood and looked for more orange stuff. Today I’ll be hunting for yellow, likely just inside my house if this massive storm indeed hits us. Stay warm! And have a colourful day.

As I mentioned last week, this week on the blog I am doing a “colour week”. It’s just for fun, it’s for me to focus on a specific colour each day, and seek examples of the colours out, like items in a scavenger hunt. Each day I’ll post one of my colour pictures on Instagram with the hashtag #capebretoncolourweek, and if you like you can play along!

Winter has really hung on long this year, and so I’m seeking out colours to make myself slow down, and to see some bright spots at a time of year when I could easily get downtrodden.

For those who want to dig deeper into the meanings of colours, I liked the resources I found on this website.

So without further ado, here are the pictures of red I took yesterday during my day! Today I’ll be hunting for orange, and I’ll post those pictures tomorrow. Have a colourful day!