This and that

Hi everybody!

Hope your week has been better than mine, life is not much fun here just now. And to add to it all, I cut my hand on a piece of glass that I oversaw in the dishwasher, and now have stitches in my right hand, so am not even able to make a decent mess with paint and glue just now.

The first piece is a journal page, which is my entry for Paint Party Friday, hosted, as always, by Eva and Kristin, and which I am also linking to Art Journal Journey - Less is more, and Journal Journeys - Childhood.

The pictures I have used so rather bleak images of children, so I have painted the pages using mostly sombre grays and black. I just added a little blue and yellow, in the hope that those children saw some blue sky and sunshine in their lives, too. Both pictures were taken in the East end of London, the first one at the beginning of the 2oth century, and the second one is from 1963. The quote I have used on the right side is from Agatha Christie. We so often think of the happy side of childhood, and this is good so, but I think it is important to remember all the less unfortunate children, from past days and today.

(images courtesy of Wikipedia)

The autumn / Halloween hanging was made as part of my Guest DT work for Gecko Galz this month. I started, as so often, with corrugated card, which has been partly peeled, and painted with white gesso. The harvest hymn and the owl are both GG images. The owl has been printed onto canvas and the edges frayed. The right side has been embossed with gold Utee, into which I stamped with a flourish stamp and a script stamp - both stamps belong to those which I use over and over again.. For embellishments I used the usual eclectic mix of flowers, leaves, beads as berries, and bats, which Diane cut for me with her Zing. The branches have been cut from a TH branch tree die. I added the brown lace, string and some home made paper beads to tie it all together, and two coloured eyelets to match the embellies.

 I am also linking to  Craftroom Challenge - leaves/trees, and Simon's Monday Challenge - Embossing.

Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

All the Tuesdays

Hi everybody. 

Today it's time for Try it on Tuesday and Tag Tuesday, so I have 2 pieces to share with you.

At Tag Tuesday our theme is 'Mother and child' .

I chose a photo of my mother and sister taken in 1940. It was wartime in London, the Blitz, nightly bombings and terror, not always enough to eat, a hard time for all, and I have tried to capture the feeling of austerity and bleakness in the tag. I fussy cut the sepia print, and glued it directly onto the corrugated card, which has been partly peeled and painted. The ribs of the cardboard remind me of the bombed and broken houses, with which I grew up. I just added a bit of fairy dust and the contrasting turquoise band to soften it a bit.

At Try it on Tuesday the theme for the next fortnight is 'Home-made flowers', and you have 2 weeks to join in this challenge.

I started with a styropore (plastic foam) ring that I found in the recycling bin, wonderful source of most of my art materials. I painted it with terracotta acrylic and sprinkled it with fairy dust.

The leaves and flowers have all been made from magazine pages, painted with left-over colours, except for some of the red flowers, for which I used some paper scraps. I cut them with the tattered florals die, the leaves were cut with a Sizzix leaf die. The green berries are also from the recycling bin, I found them last January when people threw out their holiday decorations. The leaves and flowers have all been glazed, the leaves were also crackled.

The checkered ribbon was on a biscuit box, the brown bead is one of my hand made paper ones, and the skull just wormed it's way onto my autumn wreath.

This was a fun make, which cost almost nothing, and will look good on my door when it is time for the Autumn decorations. I am also linking to the Craftroom Challenge leaves/trees

The pictures were taken on Saturday evening. The day started out really hot, but the weather broke in the afternoon and we had storms. In the evening the sky cleared, and just before it got dark I saw a rainbow and the moon in the lilac sky. I didn't have time to do the night setting on the camera, so the photos are very grainy.  I have never before seen a rainbow when it was almost dark, so was happy to get the pics. The rainbow formed a perfect arch over the trees and moon, it was so pretty, and a tiny bit spooky.

 Well, I think that was more than enough for today.
Take care, have fun and thanks a lot for coming by.

Challenges

Hi everybody!

Today I have a few things to share. The first is a piece I made for the SOARTFUL challenge, where my blog buddy Sheila has joined the DT and chosen the theme, 'A single flower with a minimalist design'. Now, this is not my thing, I seem to prefer maxi design and embellies, but as Sheila's a lovely lady, I gave it a try, and was able to use stuff that was already on my table waiting to be used. I picked and painted a pile of corrugated cardboard recently, good to do while watching TV, keeps your fingers busy, and is cheaper than crisps or peanuts. The flower is one of a batch of leaves and flowers I made last week, using magazine pages painted with leftovers from all the colours that pass through my fingers. I cut the flower with TH's tattered florals, and layered it together. A piece of knotted green ribbon became the stem, and I took some off-cuts from a printed canvas for the text. Then I declared it finished and minimalist, at least for me!

At AJJ the challenge is once again to do something 'Less is more'- Grrrrr!

And Conny at Mix it Monthly wants to see  feathers, Leonardo, pink, grey and mint green. The colours are not quite right either, but I have to paint with what I have, and at the moment there's not too much choice. So I tried to combine all of this to make a journal page, at least a page that will go into my journal when I make a new one. I used the feathers stencil from CWS, my Leda stamp from Lost Coast designs, some scraps of ancient handwriting, and a quote from Leonardo. I copied his signature, too. I am also linking to Colour this quote over at Artists in Blogland, where the quote is ' There are no shortcuts to any place worth going'. I was reading how long Leonardo studied and tried till he got things as he wanted them to be, and this is a small tribute to a wonderful artist, scientist, and man of great vision.

Have a great day you all, take care, and thanks for coming by.

Paper Saturday and a Sewing Tag

Hi everybody!

It's weekend already, and that means it's time for Manon's Paper Saturdays, where you can link up with any sort of paper creation.

I made a tag, once again using corrugated card, partly peeled and painted, and then stamped ( although you can't see much of the stamping). The Sewing items are all stamps from Chocolate Baroque. I stamped them onto some canvas scraps left over from other projects using Adirondack espresso, cut them out, and then painted them with water colours, using shades of brown and a little pink. I love the texture this gives. The thimble somehow reminded me of a hat....The buttons are also made of canvas, and sewn on. I cut the pin-cushion twice, made some holes in it, and added the pins. The sentiments are also in the set from Chocolate Baroque, I fringed the edges and did a few stitches with brown cotton. Sewing is not really my thing, but I tried. I am also linking to FSC, where the challenge this time is  'Sew 'n' Sew'. I am also linking to Our Creative Corner - forgotten things: the little scraps tucked away and waiting to be used.

Have a good weekend you all, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Halloween is coming nearer....

Hi everybody!

I have made another Halloween canvas, which was made as one of my Guest DT pieces at Gecko Galz this month.  I re-purposed an old canvas, plastered on some structure paste, scattered a few beads over it for still more texture,and then painted it over with black acrylic, adding in some metallic colours to highlight the colours in the image. I sprinkled the  fairy dust on while it was still wet. The image, from the Gecko Galz Witchy Women Sheet, has been printed onto canvas, and then adhered to the centre of the stretched canvas. I used various autumn embellishments to decorate it. This was simple to make, but I think it is very effective, and I like the contrasts in the colours and between the smooth image and the textured surround.
I am linking to Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin.

And here is another interesting piece of 'living' art - can you see what is it?
It is parked on the car-park at Galerie Burghof near here, a nice place with an art gallery, restaurant, beer garden etc.

The text means 'Cadillac Fleetwood rests here unpeacefully (driven by Elvis Presley)
I love this symbol of back to nature.

Have a good day, take care, and thanks for coming by!

A Tag and some Photos

Hi everybody!

The theme at Tag Tuesday this week is eyes, so I decided to use this image from Gecko Galz, as I love these owls and their funky eyes. I was going to call it 'Owl be seeing you', but decided against it as I didn't want everybody shouting at me....

We have had very changeable weather with blue skies, clouds and rain chasing after each other, which gave me some lovely pics....

And I noticed on my walk yesterday that the summer flowers are on the way out and the Autumn colours on their way in....

Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks for coming by!

A Halloween Card

Hi everybody!

For the month of September I  have made several things that I will be showing bit by bit. I am starting off with a card I made using an image from 'Costume Party 2' by Gecko Galz. I am Guest Designer there for this month. I made a double Z-fold card, and mounted the image on a mat of turquoise paper. The side 'wings' of the card have been covered in some paper which I digitally altered to get matching colours. I used some die-cuts made for me by Diane as embellishments, and added a bow and some beads - from an old earring - to the focal image.

Have a great day you all, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!