Paint Party Friday

Hi everybody, good morning from Kaiserswerth! The sun is shining, and it's Friday again, which means it's time for PPF hosted by Eva and Kristin.

I had a lovely day with my friend B yesterday, scrapping, painting, chatting, eating - you name it, we did it! We started off with a lovely breakfast with fresh rolls and croissants and coffee, and then did some *work*. For lunch we had ice cream and a glass of bubbly, did some more *work* in the afternoon, and B made a great Paella for supper. We talked a lot, too, B is someone you can talk to about everything, and so it was a very enjoyable day.

I have 2 pieces to share with you today; an altered canvas that I have been working on all week on and off, and a piece I made yesterday for paint party Friday. I am entering the canvas into the TIOT *Wild card* challenge, which has to be something you can hang up. For the canvas I have used pictures of Erika, a lady I cared for for several years, and who was also a distant relation. I have used photos from her childhood and youth. She was born and brought up in Germany, had to flee with her family in 1938, lived for many years in Uruguay and Israel, and came back here as an elderly lady. She died 4 years ago. She must have been very spoilt as a kid, but had a lot of hard times later, and was sometimes one very difficult old lady, determined to have her own way, and always with long, painted finger-nails, nicely dressed, and in general had the ambition to be the prettiest gal in the room, even when over 90! I have also used some pieces of documents belonging to her. The middle picture is a gel transfer, applied to a gessoed paper background. The other photos are prints applied with mod-podge.

The piece I made yesterday for PPF is a bit different to what I usually make, just felt like doing something different. I scrunched up some tissue paper, and stuck it with gesso onto a sheet of water-colour paper, then gave it another coat of gesso after forming the paper a bit with my fingers. After it had dried, I painted the eye onto another piece of tissue, and fixed it with mod-podge. In the centre of the eye is a tiny heart, and I have used a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's *Little Prince* - *It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye*. Finally I distressed some of the raised parts with some Inca gold in gunmetal grey. I'm not sure if I am going to leave it like this or do something else with it; time will tell!

So, once again I have rambled on and made the post longer than I intended! Have a good day you all, take care and thanks for visiting; your comments and visits are very much appreciated!