Double First

Hi Everybody!

Today we are celebrating the start of not one, but TWO new challenges - at 

Art Journal Journey and at Moo Mania and More.

We have a new hostess at Art Journal Journey, Mary Nasser, and the new theme 

that she chose is 'maps'. We are happy to have Mary with us, as she is an established and accomplished mixed media artist who specializes in maps, and also designs stencils and stamps. She also has a home page which you can visit to learn more about her. She made us a wonderful piece to start the month, and you can see it on the AJJ blog.

I hope to see many of you joining in again, and projects of all formats are welcome! 

For my start up piece I made a hybrid creation, using an 18th century map of London (courtesy of Wikipedia) as my background. I chose the part of East London by the Thames and docks where I was born and grew up, as I still feel very much attached to this corner of the world. The Beefeater is standing guard over the tower of London, which was a couple of hundred yards away from where we lived. If you look under Mr UM's umbrella you can see 'Well Close', which at my time was called Wellclose Square. The area belonged to the 'Freedom' or jurisdiction of the Tower for hundreds of years. Many of the old building there have  sadly been pulled down in the meantime. The place where my great Grandparents settled when they immigrated to England was in a little court off the square, it is even possible to see the house they lived in on the enlarged map. 

I think the little girl with the camera is a symbol for me, as I loved having a camera in my hands, even when I was small, but the camera had no film in it!

I love the place where I live now, but That corner of London will always be my home.

At Moo Mania and More our new challenge is 'Masculine'. Once again, 

projects of all formats are allowed, not just Moos, so hope to see lots of you there in the next two weeks.  I made a mixed media piece on a painted and stenciled background. The postcard has a torn-paper background, and the image has been made with a mod-podge transfer and then clear varnished.

Yesterday evening the temps started rising after the stormy day,

and you could see the water steaming off the fields:

Later on, when the steam had more or less cleared, everything had a bluish glow:

The sun managed to get up this morning, but I was up an hour earlier!

Some photos taken before the big rainfall:

And these were afterwards.

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!