i'm so excited that i finally finished "green honeydew boy" ... it's taken me a few weeks here and there to get it exactly right ... he was originally wearing a purple shirt but my son wanted green and i think he was right on ...

frida kahlo is one of my favourite artist and when i found out that the AGO (art gallery of ontario) was putting on an exhibition (frida & diego | passion, politics and painting) of her work alongside diego rivera, i just had to go ... i'm a little behind in posting this as we had gone last month ... but better late than never ...

i have to say that bringing two little munchkins under the age of 4 to the art gallery is not highly recommended ... since this was a special exhibit, they have hourly time slots to control the crowd and you have to book it ahead of time ... as most parents would know, taking 2 little ones anywhere is quite the feat but having to be somewhere at a certain time is nearly impossible ...

we managed to get there "on time" and checked in the coats (and scarves and mittens and vests ... yes it's winter in toronto), the stroller, the food bag, NOT the diaper bag and maybe our minds ... and thought wow we can do this!  ... until we went to line up for the exhibit and saw a sign that said something like "no washrooms and no re-entry" ... ummm ... do we take turns going in? ... do we put a diaper on the older one in case?  ... do we chance it and hope no one will notice the smell if we have an accident?  ... luckily the people there were really nice and reassured us that if we needed to take one of them out they would let us back in ...

we finally got in and as expected there were a lot of people in those few rooms ... even though it felt like you were in a movie theatre where the annoying couple in front of you keep moving their heads while you try to catch a glimpse of the artwork and at the same time you were part of a slow-moving macarena train ... it was well worth it ... because of the biographical nature of her work, seeing frida kahlo's paintings in person almost feel like you're watching her life play out right in front of you ...

the AGO did a great job in curating so many pieces ... this was truly a wonderful exhibition

here were some of my favourites:

there was also a section of photographs taken of her ... this one was one of my favourite:

her paintings are both surreal and real at the same time ... you can feel her pain and suffering ... i also love the way she incorporates the style of mexican folk art and fashion ...  if you ever get a chance to see frida kahlo's work, i would highly encourage you to do so!

i love experimenting with different faux finish effects on walls ... half the walls on my house has been an experiment!  i painted our powder room walls and used bird stencils from martha stewart crafts that i bought at michaels and applied a faux finish underneath ... here's how it turned out ...

this is how i did it:

1.  i painted a base coat of primer to cover what was underneath (another prior experiment)
2.  i painted a coat of greyish blue
3.  i prepared a mixture of brown paint with glaze and casually brushed vertical strokes to give it that aged look
4.  i did the same thing with cream-coloured paint
5.  i used the bird and berries stencil and randomly placed them all over the room using the cream-coloured paint
6.  put the finishing touches on the room (ie curtains that i made, towel bar, mirror etc)

this is what i needed:

1.  base colour paint (you can skip the primer if there's nothing dark underneath)
2.  lighter colour paint than the base colour (must have a good contrast)
3.  glaze
4.  stencils
5.  paint brushes / containers

who doesn't love snow globes? ... it's one of those things that you never grow out of ... when i come across one at the disney store, i'm always tempted to pick one up for "the kids" for a future birthday or x'mas gift ... and then i remind myself that if i did get it, it really would be for myself ... ha! 

there you have it ... the inspiration (along with the winter weather) for the following digital painting that i created at the beginning of winter  ... it is not obviously titled "snow globe" ... ok it is = )

surprisingly i don't own any snow globes but here are some cool and interesting ones: