Colours and morning mist

Hi Everybody!

Thursday started out here cold and very misty. The mist swirled around for a couple of hours - the sun kept doing its best to get through, but had a hard job of it. In the end, the sun won and we had some blue skies and sunshine for a couple of hours.

Today I have chosen to be inspired for Art Journal Journey  by Keith Haring and his colourful creatures. I used to draw these a lot when I was teaching, they are quick and easy to draw in coloured chalks on the blackboard, and were good for getting attention and explaining words in English lessons. So I had fun drawing them again today. His figures remind me of the blue sower from Wilhelm Morgner that I showed here. The background was painted with acrylics and stamped with a crackle stamp, I drew the figures and coloured them with water-colours, edging them with a black felt pen.

I am also linking to Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin.

I enjoyed watching the mist swirl around this morning, recede, and then come back again. It seems to suck all of the colour out of the world.

Here the sun make a first try to get through:

And disappeared again:

The next attempt:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Inspired by op-art

Hi Everybody!

Hope you have had a nice day. Here it was cold and grey, 

but I suppose it could have been worse!

For Art Journal Journey, inspired by the masters, I have made a mixed media page in my journal about op-art, something that was all the rage back in the 60s. There were many good op-art artists - I have written some of their names around my page, but my fave was Victor Vasarely. I also wrote down some other names and events which I found outstanding at the time.The image of the car is an advert from a copy of 'Time Life illustrated' from 1964, and fits well to the op-art pattern.

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

It stayed grey and misty all day, so I wandered around and took mostly pictures of the birds I met:

The Rhine looked cold and grey:

Have a great day you all, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Inspired by Wilhelm Morgner and more

Hi Everybody!

It was cold, grey and damp here today, not the best of weathers. I still went out for my walks, visited the market and then watched the ships on the Rhine.

This afternoon I had a little nap, ad then spent the rest of the day crafting, which was fun.

Today I was inspired for Art Journal Journey by Wilhelm Morgner, an expressionist painter who lived from 1891 to 1917, when he was killed in WWI. He lived in Soest, a little town in Westphalia. He knew Franz Marc and Kandinsky, and was much influenced by Vincent van Gogh.

The Blue Sower (der blauer Sämann) from 1911 is one of my fave paintings from him, I have often admired it in the Art Museum here in Düsseldorf.

This is the original, which shows much evidence of the influence of Van Gogh.

I decided to make a torn paper edition of this painting. I tore my paper and glued it to an A3 sheet of paper after painting the yellow sky. Then I sewed as many of the contours as I could, nightmare! I drew the lines and circles  with felt-pens. The colours here are not good, I took the photos with electric light, which did not make me happy. When it was finished I glued it into my giant journal.

 At Manus Mikrokosmos the challenge this week is street. I especially love the cobbled and narrow streets in our little town, so here are some of them:

The main street leading down to the Rhine:

One of the smaller lanes:

Another of the streets I pass through every day on my walks:

At the end of the street you can see the recesses in the walls for the flood gates in case of high water:

That's all for today!

Have a great day, take care of yourselves,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Warhol and the return of the woodpecker

Hi Everybody!

I woke up very early this morning, at about 5 am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up and watched he sky turn from dark to day, with lots of wonderful colours - it was worth being up for it, and I didn't regret being awake so early.

For Art Journal Journey I have made a simple page in my A3 journal using stencils (Stencilry). The large stencil was painted with black acrylics, the smaller ones with ink pens. Andy Warhol was never my fave artist, but his work has something very eye-catching in its simplicity and repetitions.

We have a new them at Tag Tuesday, skylines, for which I made this very simple and quick tag:

Here are some of the photos I took this morning:

The lights are from the Airport, which is not far from here:

The moon was beautiful and fascinating as always:

In the course of the day, blue skies, sunshine and black clouds alternated, but we didn't get much rain.

This afternoon the woodpecker returned, and has definitely improved his hanging-on technique, and had a good tuck in, causing distress to all the little tits watching from the trees:

And I must confess that I did nibble a couple of the cookies my friend brought on Saturday; ah well, waste not, want not!

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lo for coming by!