Happy Father’s Day!!

This is the final image of the completed chalk drawing. The spiral pattern is at the top of the frame. Under that it says, "HAPPY FATHER'S DAY" and "HUG YOUR DAD"Hi Folks:

All of Marcia and Mike’s parents are gone now, but we have two sons and a son-in-law and five beautiful grandchildren. We are Grandy and Grandalf! 🧙‍♀️&🧙‍♂️

As with those who are moms, Happy Father’s Day today to all of the strong, loving men who are fathers, to those who are chosen dads, surrogate dads, step-dads, adoptive dads, and to the women who are also dads.

Special thanks to all those who love and support them.

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. For anyone who’s interested in knowing how the spherical pattern was made, click here:
Father’s Day Hugs (behind the scenes)

Father’s Day Hugs (behind the scenes)

Hi Folks:

This is a short post that covers a bit of what went into making our latest chalk art drawing, for those who might be interested…

To start with, credit and thanks to @the.world.of._drawing on Instagram for the design! Much appreciated.

Now, if only sidewalks came with grid squares we would have been all set. Unfortunately, they typically don’t. So, in order to create the design in sidewalk chalk, we had to get a little inventive. The first step was to create the pattern in CorelDraw, like this:This drawing can be viewed as an angular two-dimensional sphere, but upon closer inspection it appears 3D, like a bagel bending around itself.The second phase was to take that pattern and cut it into 12 pieces. Each section is contained with an 8″x10″ rectangle so as to fit on a sheet of letter-sized paper. An X-Acto knife was used to cut out the red lines in the paper, leaving gaps at the junctions to hold the template together. The next step was to assemble the cut-out pages of the template into three strips of four images, using painter tape to hold them together:This image shows all 12 pages of the template with the cutouts held together with painter tape.These strips were reassembled on the sidewalk, and a piece of white chalk was used to transfer the cutout lines to the sidewalk. After that, coloured chalk was used to complete the pattern. The final result looks like this:This is the final image of the completed chalk drawing. The spiral pattern is at the top of the frame. Under that it says, "HAPPY FATHER'S DAY" and "HUG YOUR DAD"That’s it!

Hug someone you love today. Or a stranger. Or, preferably, both!

Hugs,
M&M

Happy Father’s Day!!

A multi-coloured chalk drawing of a large circle, encircled by smaller circles around its edge. There's a two-coloured heart in the middle, and on opposite sides outside the circle it reads, "Hug Your Dad"Hi Folks:

All of Marcia and Mike’s parents are gone now, but we have two sons and a son-in-law and five beautiful grandchildren. We are Grandy and Grandalf! 🧙‍♀️&🧙‍♂️

As with those who are moms, Happy Father’s Day today to all of the strong, loving men who are fathers, to those who are chosen dads, surrogate dads, step-dads, adoptive dads, and to the women who are also dads.

Special thanks to all those who love and support them.

Hugs,
M&M

Happy Father’s Day!

To all fathers and those who have assumed the role: uncles, aunts, grandparents, siblings, friends and others, today we salute you for the monumental task you have undertaken. Remember to lead with love.

Hugs,
M&M

Father and Son
(look closely)

Happy Father’s Day!!

Hi Folks:

Today is Father’s Day, and as such today we celebrate fathers, step-fathers, grandfathers, as well as all of those men (and women) who have stepped in as surrogates to fill the roles left open for them. We salute you all. Being a dad isn’t an easy prospect…nor is it meant to be.

Today is a bittersweet day for us as both Marcia’s father and Mike’s dad passed away last year, within a couple of months of each other. As such we were struggling a bit to come up with a way to honour our dads and all that they’ve given us over the years. We came across the following poem from Terri St. Cloud and it says it better, perhaps, than we could:

honoring you

honoring you

We do our best, every day, to do just that. Embrace those you love, today and every day. Let them know how important they are to you!!

With love and hugs,
Grandy and Grandalf

Hidden (photo by Marcia)

P.S. We live in a society where people are fearful of death, and (unfortunately) where the last act for most people is toxic to the planet on which they lived their entire lives. There’s an interesting TED talk on the subject, here: When I die, recompose me

Celebrating Fathers… and Families…

Hi Folks:

I’m old enough to remember when a family was considered to be a combination of a mother, a father and 1.8 children – although I was never sure which one of the kids lost out on that one.  But if that was considered ‘normal’, my family was, and continues to be anything but normal.  Of course, if you go back 600 years or so the word family meant ‘servants, domestics or members of a household’ (from the Latin familia) so the etymology has changed a bit over time.

In his book ‘Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah‘, Richard Bach wrote:

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.” Continue Reading →