Tag Tuesday, Texture and more

Hi everybody!

Another day here has literally blown over fast, and this evening the weather seems to be a bit calmer. I have a tee-shirt with a nice sentiment on it - 'The only constant thing in life is change' - that seems to be specially applicable to the mad summer weather we are having.
 It's time for Tag Tuesday again, and this week out theme is 'song titles.' My tag shows the Beatles  and a submarine (Gecko Galz) against a background of London. Perhaps you can think which song I mean? The toad-stools also have a connection to the era when this song was composed.

At Moo Mania and More the theme is still texture. Sandy sent me a book box to alter - thanks again! - and I have at last finished it. I textured the box front and back using issue paper and mod podge. When it was dry, I gave it a coat of gesso, inside and outside, and then painted it with a mix of blue and green metallic acrylics. The paper dolls are from the 'Frida Kahlo' book of dolls and costumes by Francisco Estebanez. They have been fussy cut, assembled and varnished to give them more stability.

Inside I used 2 of Donna's photos to line the box.

Here are the original photos, taken by Donna on a trip to Frida's 'Casa Azul' (Blue house), and she has kindly allowed me to use her photos here. Thanks, Donna!

I made a little journal, 10x12 cms to go in the box. The cover has been made with a scrap of material also sent to me by Donna. Inside there are 50 sheets of white paper.

For the inside covers I used 2 of my Frida creations scaled down.
I have a lot of small pictures of Frida, and this will be my mini-Frida journal.

I am linking to Moo Mania and Art Journal Journey.

This busy bee was on my balcony this morning:

And I visited my friends, the horses, who never seem to lose their calm, or their routine:

This afternoon the clouds got very threatening while I was on my way back from my walk, and I had to run the last few hundred yards so as not to get totally soaked:

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

The two Fridas....

Hi Everybody!

Hope you have all had a great weekend.

We have had stormy weather here - hot, humid, windy, cloudy, sunny with rain-showers! I managed 2 almost dry walks, and even the few drops of rain that got me were not bad as it was really hot!

I have made another journal page using one of my try-out pieces. The 2 heads were on the back of a calendar page, and just needed bodies. I was inspired by one of Frida's paintings, called the 2 Fridas.  I used a 'body' I found in my stash  as a template. After using oil pastels to colour them a bit, I stamped the flowers, hearts  and scrolls (which were in my package from Susi, thanks again) with black archival, and coloured them again with oil pastels. I didn't like the white background, so I cut the ladies out and fixed them to a sheet of DP. The owl is from a paper napkin, the other embellies are vintage German scrap. I am linking to Susi's Brainchild Art Journal Journey and to Conny's Mix it monthly, crazy dresses.

This is another Frida Journal page made earlier this year, and will also be given a page in my Frida Journal.

This afternoon I took the path between the lakes again, which is very pretty, but it was not a good idea wearing sandals as the puddles were very large....

The wind was blowing along the Rhine:

This beautiful flower was growing over a fence:

The ducks were holding a meeting:

This family was enjoying a ride through the park:

And the apples look very tempting, but too high for me to reach!

This strange fly was sitting on one of my balcony lamps this morning. It was not shy, didn't even blink when I took my photo. I think it is really gross, and have never seen one like it before. It's quite large, about 1". I looked it up on the net, and it is a flesh fly, and likes to lay its eggs on dead matter and bodies - Yuck!
And she doesn't seem to worry about shaving her legs either!

And this was another sight that I did not like. A lot of people like to picnic at the Rhine, which is fine, and the majority take their rubbish back home with them, or deposit it in the bins which are there for this purpose. Someone must have taken a shopping cart from the local supermarket to carry the food and drinks, and just thrown it into the river afterwards.

Here's wishing you all a great week, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Summer, jam and a bespectacled owl

Hi everybody!

This morning started out cool and cloudy, with a very fresh wind, but by this afternoon it was hot and humid again.

Here you can see the view from my balcony, the sun was trying to struggle through the clouds. It was very windy along the Rhine, but I enjoyed my windy walk.

At Soartful challenges the theme is eyeglasses/spectacles.

I used a large owl stencil on a page painted with paint left over from another project, adding in some colour round the edges with oil pastels to fill in the gaps. I used a foam brush to stencil the owl with black acrylic paint, and outlined it all with a white gel-pen when it was dry. The glasses were cut out of a magazine ad, glued to cardboard, fussy cut and varnished. This was fun to make!

And this was fun to make and will be even more fun to eat! Plums were on offer this week, so I made a batch of my special jam, adding cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, and vodka (to kill off germs!). Jam making is for me a much loved summer activity - buying the ripe fruit when it is plentiful and cheap, cooking the jam, labeling it, and watching the shelves in my store cupboard fill up. Eating it is also a great pleasure, which I have for a whole year.

At Manus Mifoc the challenge this week is 'summer'. For me the jam is part of summer, and in addition  I have collaged some photos of summer around here - the hay harvest, wild flowers on the meadows, the plantation of sun flowers, and  the Rhine with the sun sparkling on the water. The text is the first verse from a hymn we used to sing when I went to school.

Here's wishing you all a great weekend.

Take care, have fun,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Frida Kahlo Collage, a sunrise and horses.

Hi everybody!

Today I have yet another Frida Kahlo piece to share. I have been fascinated by her and her paintings since I first heard of her back in the 1960s, and the more I learn about her, the more I admire her and her indomitable spirit.

The backgound has been painted with metallic blues and greens, which I textured using a crackle stamp.  I collaged various pieces of her journal together with cut out photos. I used a palm stencil from CWS, and did the text and some doodling with a white gel-pen. The white flowers are some ancient rub-ons.
I am linking to AJJ, Frida Kahlo and PPF.

 I tried some rough  sketches of Frida while watching TV this week, but they do not do her justice. I am trying to lean to hold my pencil without using my thumb, and I think I am slowly learning how. I used a charcoal pencil here.

I woke up very early again this morning, and was rewarded by seeing this beautiful sunrise while drinking my morning coffee.

I saw these horses on a field behind the house when I went walking yesterday afternoon, they were very friendly, and came running up to the fence as soon as they saw me. I will visit them again this afternoon with some carrots.

Have a great day, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!