More Beatrix Potter and living creatures along the Rhine.

Hi everybody!

I can hardly believe it, but today was sunny and friendly all day - great!

Today I have another piece for 'living creatures' at AJJ. I made a collage of some of my favourite illustrations from the Peter Rabbit stories - the kittens looking into the shop window, cunning Mr Fox persuading silly Jemima Puddleduck to go with him, Mrs Rabbit in her little shop, and the delightful mice. Beatrix Potter drew all her creatures with an astonishing love of detail, and set them in the beautiful landscape of the Lake District that she so much loved. There is also an online archive where you can read all of her books here. I fussy cut the photo of Beatrix Potter and set it into the collage, and added one of her beautiful quotes. I added some lace and beads as embellishments.

My walk this morning was most interesting. I saw three cormorants down at the shore, which looked like they were sunbathing, with their wings spread wide, a wonderful sight.  One stayed put, one flew off, and one flew up onto the red and white pole. To my left the swan was busy with her morning toilet, and the ducks were pottering about the beach looking for food - a little piece of paradise. I could not get closer to take the photos, and as I do not have a good zoom, they are a bit grainy, but it made me very happy to see those beautiful birds there, as they are quite rare here.

Hope you have enjoyed seeing the living creatures I saw today.

Thanks a lot for coming by, take care,
and thanks a lot for coming by!

Double Tuesday

Hi everybody!

We had another cool and misty day, but this afternoon and evening we saw some patches of blue sky, so I  hope that's a sign that things will soon get better!

Today is new challenge day at Try it on Tuesday and Tag Tuesday.

At TIOT our challenge is 'How does your garden grow?' This made me think of the rhyme 'Mary, Mary quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells

And little maids all in a row'

As you can see, I have been using lots of white painted cardboard again....

The challenge runs for 2 weeks, so you have lots of time to join in - hope to see you there!

At Tag Tuesday our theme is 'Silhouettes', and these tags also fit the TIOT theme.

The images are from Gecko Galz, and have been printed onto some Prima DP, and matted with light blue card stock.

And some pictures from the sky and clouds in the course of the day:

Have a great day you all, hope the sun shines for you! Take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Living Beings - New Challenge at Art Journal Journey

Hi everybody!

We had another grey and wet day here, I was not the only one out for a Sunday walk with wellies!

Today is the start of a new challenge over at Art Journal Journey, 'Living Beings', and I have the honour of playing hostess again. 

I have decided to concentrate my efforts for 'living beings' this month on the work of Beatrix Potter, whose magical work was an important part of my childhood. I still have the complete set of Peter Rabbit books, and they are one of the things which I will never part with. She was a very talented painter and illustrator, whose work hangs in the Tate Gallery in London, and painted all her creatures with great love and respect. I am sure many of you will have seen the wonderful film of her life with Renee Zellweger, 'Miss Potter'. If you are interested you can read more about her life here (English) or here (German).

I want to try to show some of the living beings she created this month, and try to paint or draw some of my own. Your creativity has no limits, you can interpret the theme as you want, with art journaling about any things that live or have lived – unleash your creativity and show us what you can do!

For my piece I painted an A3 page with water colours, and sprinkled on a bit of the wonderful bistre powders sent to me by a friend, and this gave a great grungy look. I fussy cut my characters and put them in scene, together with a photo of Beatrix Potter, watching over her creations. I had great fun making this, and hope you will have fun creating your pages and sharing your living beings at Art Journal Journey.

On rainy and misty days the landscape seems to just dissolve in the distance

The horses were busy grazing as always

And I met this little mouse on my way home, very fitting for today's theme!  The photos are rather grainy, it was dark under the trees where she was scurrying around looking for food

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

Bye bye Frida and more....

Hi everybody!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Today started out friendly, but got progressively greyer and darker and wetter. There is a 'Summer Night' festival in our little town tonight, so I am sorry that the weather is not playing fair!

Now it's time for the last Frida page. I have lost count of how many pages I made, but it was more or less one a day. It was a great month, and now I am looking forward to the new challenge! Here I have used Andy Skinner's beautiful Freebie.

I am linking, once again, to Art Journal Journey!

Today I felt like making another witchy tag. I used one of the large Kraft tags that dear Sandy sent me, distressed it with DIs in Victorian velvet and old paper, and then soaked it and scrunched it. When it was dry I embossed it in a texture folder, inked it, and embossed it with silver to look like a spider's web. I stamped some TH skeletons partially onto the background with archival black. The witch and cat were stamped and clear embossed. I stamped the witch a second time onto transparent foil, and placed it over the stamped witch to give her more definition. I added some Halloween creepy crawlies, black fibres, and some witch-hair - not from me! -  as embellishments. A spare broom and a little skull rounded it all off. I am linking to Simon's Monday Challenge, Witchcraft

Today started off well, but the good weather was gone very quickly

I took a photo of Miss Spider devouring her prey today, not easy, as I am scared of spiders, but I did it and I survived - so did the spider!

And Autumn is on its way, the leaves are falling....

Have a great day, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!