What makes a man a man?

Hi everybody!

Just a quick post, as I need to rest my eyes as much as possible this week after the OP.

Thanks again to all who left such encouraging good wishes on my blog, they were very much apprecated, I will be round to visit you all again next week when my reading ban has been lifted!

 

I made this journal page last week, after listening to a talk show on TV about masculine and feminine attributes, so this time I concentrated on the masculine ones, and wrote all the words I could think of. Perhaps you can suggest a few more? The background was a brush-wipe page using blues and rust, and the silhoutettes were painted with Viva Color Rust paint and outlined with white.

I am linking to Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and kristin.

The lovely photos were taken on Monday, before I went into hospital, I love watching the beautiful sunrise each day from my window.

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

Eye am back....

Hi you all!

First of all, thanks for all the good wishes, it did me good to know so many people were thinking of me. The OP went well, and I can see very well with my left eye now, which is wonderful. BUT....the doc noticed some irregularities on the retinas of both eyes, and ordered some angiogrammes to be done, which is a special photographic procedure to get clear pictures of the retinas, and they do not look good. My next appointment at the hospital will be in three weeks.... For the time being, I have eyedrops 5 times a day for the operated eye, ointment for the night, and medication for the high pressure in my eye, so that should keep me occupied for the time being. And to crown it all, I look like a cross between a prize boxer with a black eye and Dracula's mother, but hey, who cares? I decided to show you a picture of Olive Thomas instead of me, she was definitely better looking!

The card here is one of my Gecko Galz DT pieces for February, made a month back, and kept in store till now. The images are from the Olive Thomas Collage Sheet. She was a star in the silent film era back in the 1920s. I matted the card with some silver and black sequined material and red card. I added the pearls to her hat.

Okay, I can only work for a few minutes at a time just now, so need to get off the computer now. I will be round to visit your blogs again next week.

Take care, have a good day, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Keeping my eye on you....

Hi you all!

We had a lovely day here, with lots of sunshine, and I was able to enjoy my walks in between getting some dreaded H*******K done, and clearing off my work-table so that the wood is visible again.

This card was one of my DT pieces for Gecko Galz this month, and I thought it would be appropriate to save it for today....(Black English Humour?)  I used an image from the Arty Jewels Collage Sheet and BG paper from the shabby Chic Garden 1 collage sheet. The matting is from coredinations and the rest from my stash.

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

See you soon!

A journal page and happy mail

Hi everybody!

Thanks to all who left encouraging messages on my blog or mailed me, with so many people thinking of me the OP just has to go well. I think I am just nervous as I have already had so many eye OPs, this will be the 7th one, and because of that it is a bit more risk. But on the other hand, 7 is a good number!

This is another page I made last week. I pasted old book paper and tissue tape onto the page, and cleaned my brush on it after using the rust and blue on other stuff. I added more colour with pastel chalks to fill in the gaps. I have once again used magazine cut-outs and various stuff out of my overfull bit boxes and from my (rather very untidy) table. I had so much fun putting on layer after layer that I had problems to stop, but sooner or later I did. I am linking to Conny's Mix it Monthly - pets, and 

Moo Mania- old book pages.

I received happy post today from Chrissie, who sent me a beautiful card with good wishes for my OP, and some postcards, which bring back happy memories for me, as they are places which I used to visit when I was in living in England. One card shows a painting from David Hockney, who I got to meet many years back when he had an exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, near where I was living at the time. Thanks for your kindness, Chrissie!

Chrissie made this postcard herself:

My room mate at college came from Durham, and while staying with her I visited the beautiful cathedral there:

I found this beautiful tree stump covered in moss and lichens on my way to visit the ducks and geese on Friday:

I had fun standing watching this beautiful pair at Schloss Kalkum. They ate my salad leaves, then hissed at me and turned their backs!

Have a great day, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by, I really appreciate your support!

Stars, clouds and a rainbow.

Hi everybody!

Another week has flown by and it's weekend already, and for me, time to get used to the fact that my Eye OP is on Monday....I have been busy getting stuff for challenges ready as I will not be able to do much for a few days (weeks?).

Yvonne sent me this beautful card with good wishes for my OP, which was a wonderful idea - thanks Yvonne!

This week I made more collages using images from old magazines on painted backgrounds. This is one which I have called  'Faces of the Night'. I chose the faces because they were so expressive. The quote is from Edna St. Vincent Millay.

And I made another zodiac sign piece for  AJJ. The background was a brush wipe page, to which I added some spray inks and glitter, and some scraps of written and printed paper, because I thought of the term, 'It's written in the stars'. The big stars were stamped and embossed with perfect pearls and outlined with a white gel-pen, the small ones drawn with a stencil. The image is from a free graphic from the web, and has been coloured with twinkling H2Os.

I am linking to Paint Party Friday and Paper Saturdays.

Today was mild, but cloudy, and I was able to get out for 2 good walks again, and clocked up 17000 steps. After I got home I looked out of the window and saw some really dark clouds to my left, on the right side the sun was shining and illuminating the trees. It looked quite scary, but after a few minutes of rain it got lighter again, and then the rainbow showed itself. The whole spectacle was over in quarter of an hour, but I did enjoy watching it from my balcony.

Here you can see a second, fainter rainbow above the first one:

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

Memories are like rusty, brown shadows

Hi everybody!

For the past few days I have been playing around with this little canvas, (6x6") on which I have used many photos of my family - great aunts and uncle, my mother, my great grandmother, a distant cousin and even one of me, which is hiding behind the layers, I covered the canvas with strips of old book paper and painted it with gesso, and then applied various photos by transferring them with gel medium. When it was dry, I rubbed  and wiped some parts off to make them more faded, and then added the next layer, together with some random stamping (some large numerals from TH). After that I put on the top layer, using a mix of gel transfers and images printed onto paper. This was once again wiped and rubbed, partly crackled, and then inked and rusted round the edges. Finally I added the fragments of the old letters, and stamped the dragonfly, which I embossed with copper EP. I wasn't too happy with it at first, as it did not stamp perfectly over the other layers, but then I decided that the partly broken and fragile look fitted well to the rest of the canvas. It did take a long time for such a small canvas, but I am happy with the results. Memories fade and become indistinct, and are layered and merged together, but they are still all there. I once asked my great Auntie Fanny what memories were, and she said that they were like rusty, brown shadows that never went away, therefore the title of this piece.

I am linking to Paint Party Friday and to Moo Mania. book pages (which are there, although you do have to look hard to find them under all the layers!)

Yesterday the weather was very mild, it was cloudy, but good 15°, so I enjoyed my walks and clocked up 14,5000 steps.

At the Rhine:

At the little lake - the white blob in the middle is a swan, I couldn't get nearer to take a better photo:

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

Old Book Pages

Hi everybody!
Hope not too many of you are still suffering under snow, floods and other natural disasters. This winter has been really hard for many people. We have been extremely lucky here and had a mild winter, and spring seems to be on its way.

The challenge at Moo Mania is to use old book pages, and at Artful Times it is 'boxing clever', so I have combined both challenges in this piece. I have used another of my Bresso cheese boxes - good that I eat lots of cheese! I covered the box with strips of torn paper, including some illustrated pages, using the strips in different directions. When it was dry I gave it a coat of diluted gesso, and then a coat of modpodge to seal it. I added some TH tissue tape with butterflies and music notes. I punched out 2 butterflies from black cardboard and book paper and layered them, adding some bead trim for their bodies and antennas. I added a strip of beading all round the rim to finish it off. The box has been photographed on an old Art Nouveau dictionary with a beautiful binding and endpapers.

Today the weather stayed dry again, so I was able to get out for my 2 walks again, and clocked up just under 16.000 steps. The picture here is showing a bronze relief on the town walls just opposite the little pier where the boats stop. It shows how the towpath and town used to look. The houses haven't changed that much, but the ships, and of course, today they do not need to be towed by horses, although there are still a lot of horses here.

Here's wishing you all a good day, whatever you are up to. Take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!