I've become quite a fan of local ceramic artist, Jasna Sokolovic. Her image transfer techniques on ceramic fused with her painting or drawing applied afterwards create these unique one of a kind wall pieces. Each piece is fired after the surface treatment, even up to five or six times.

In addition to her wall pieces, she creates these adorable tiles that are meant for hanging by themselves or as a grouping. Worn images of wallpaper in the background, with flowers, birds or dresses drawn about, sometimes words, create an atmosphere almost like a dream.

Vancouver Public Library has announced the installation of a new Aperture Project Work - Red, Blue and Yellow by Karin Bubas in the Library Square Promenade on March 1st, 2007. Inspired by the playful and romantic work of Rococo artist Jean Fragonnard (1732-1806), Karin Bubas's newest installation romanticizes everyday activities like reading. Each work is installed at the library for a period of nine months.

Last year I attended a Gocco Workshop at Blim, a community-based art resource center off Main Street at 17th. I had only heard about this screenprinting process through the internet and knew little about this low-cost screenprinting system invented in Japan. It is used mainly for small print jobs such as greeting cards but can also be used to print onto cloth such as t-shirts, canvas bags or anything you can dream up. Fourteen months later, little did I know how this little machine that I subsequently purchased would become such an influence in my creativity.

If you're a little bored this weekend, the fog and cold weather has you down, why not try a couple of these little crafty ideas to brighten up the dark days of January.

Whip-Up had an excellent link to some free digital downloads this weekend for making valentines. From creatingkeepsakes.com, these not too countrified swirls and backgrounds are created by the people from twopeasinabucket.com. If you have access to Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator software, it can be quite easy to place these .png files into Illustrator or Photoshop and then add your personal words or images. The font used in this package is called Porcelain. It can be downloaded from misprintedtype.com along with some other amazing free fonts and brushes.

I think I've been a tad obsessed with walls lately. Almost all of my posts here at BR have been about walls. I think it's because I've gone so long without any pieces on them, a sort of promise I made to myself not to put up anything but real art, and because of that, not being able to afford the real thing, I stayed away from it all together. But like wearing all black, back in the day, after a while you get tired of it and it's time to move on.

So as promised, last week I said I was going to do a post on affordable art. Well here it is, my ideas and thoughts into getting some real art without breaking the bank.

Last week I brought the idea of guerilla art stenciling indoors to spiff up the home on a budget and to continue on that vein, a few more ideas have been spinning about.

With all the vinyl wall decals out there right now (to put it lightly) and for those of us renting, these oversized wall graphics are self-adhesive and removable. So if you rent or are just commitment- phobic, these decals may be just the thing to bring life to a blank wall without damaging the surface with paint spraying or nail pounding.