Hello everyone. I'm posting the information sheet that I will have available for people who come by on the studio tour. This is particularly for my friends at long distance who can't come. I hope a little bit of the spirit of my contribution comes through.

Welcome to my ocean!

My basement art began with wanting to transform our ugly old oil tank and voila the”yellow submarine” was launched. Some children visiting from England provided the fish. Then my attention turned to our rusty old freezer...an ice block with penguins and polars bears seemed the perfect solution. Now everything in the basement looked rather dull (even though I did have my album covers from the ‘60’s on the walls) so I came up with the idea of making an “ocean” and having myself, friends, and family all contribute paintings. We had a ball doing it!

I moved on to the guest room and created a "room with a view" from our favourite hotel in the south of France. Then on to scenes from my favourite city in the world (Paris, of course) in my studio. In my kitchen I’ve tried to recreate a little bit of the spirit of Provence with my tiles, floorcloth, and paintings.

Much of the furniture is from the Oak Bay Dump Exchange area (my neighbour, Chris, finds many treasures there for me), thrift stores, and throw aways from friends. It’s really satisfying to take something ugly that no one wants anymore and tranform it.

How it all began...

Since I never got beyond stick figures in school, doing anything artistic wasn’t on my list of around a thousand things I might do after I retired from teaching. It's unfortunate so many of us turn off this pleasure of creating art so early in our lives when we think that/or told that other kids actually have a natural talent for this and we don't. My friend, Carole, got me involved in doing mosaic tiles and I found I enjoyed playing around with colour and design so took the plunge to do some Absolute Beginner courses. Alesha and Jessica at Island Blue were such encouraging teachers that I haven’t stopped since.

And now

It’s given me tremendous pleasure to give my creations to my friends and family. These same friends and family have been urging me for quite a while to sell my work so this Studio Tour is my first foray into the commercial. Mary, who is helping today, was particulary persistent. I have had such joy out of this unexpected tangent that I am thinking of writing a book to encourage others to explore their creativity. My working title is “Have a ball creating art without talent, training or effort!”

Thank you for coming and I hope you have enjoyed your dip in my ocean and your petit voyage en Provence. And above all, think of buying some paints and having fun!


Janice S.

A few things I'm selling.



Beach at Carqueiranne
9 x 12 acrylic on paper - Painted in Carqueiranne, France, 2002
$35



Mimosas
8 x 11 acrylic on paper - Painted in Carqueiranne, France, 2002
$35



Tuscan Hills
11 x 14 acrylic on paper - 2002
$75



Campaniles on box - $195



Carqueiranne Harbour on chair - $195

I finally gave into pressure from friends to start selling my work. I figured I got such tremendous pleasure out of giving things to friends, why take a chance on spoiling that. However, I sold my first painting today and it is quite a charge as my friends have been telling me it would be!

I've been accepted into the Oak Bay Studio Tour which takes place Dec 6 & 7 from noon - 4:30. Brochures with addresses will be available at all the houses on the tour so drop by my house and get one if you're interested in seeing some of the studios. I went to the one in the Spring and thought it was quite fun and interesting.

I've got most of the thiings I'm going to sell priced and displayed and friends are welcome to have a pre Tour look and possibility to buy.



Olympic View, Victoria
11 x 14 acrylic on paper, 2002

SOLD to my very dear friend, Monique!

Today we met our friends from England for lunch. We suggested we go to the Victoria Estate Winery since I had an excellent meal there in the summer and was very impressed with the whole set up. We had chosen all this wonderful food from the menu and were going to have the "wine flights" (a tasting of various wines). Would you believe they are having problems with their liquor licence and couldn't serve us wine...! Surrounded by wine and not a drop to drink. Of course our British friends were flabbergasted...only in B.C.! We ended up at the Rumrunner. I know a number of people who enjoy going out there so you might want to phone before going to see if they have the problem sorted out.

We did our first batch of smoked and candied salmon on the weekend. Really quite fun and easy to do. Thanks to Don and Elaine for getting us started!