Thursday this and that....

Hi Everybody!

Another day has sped by, where does the time go?

I stayed home all day, something very unusual for me.  I think I did a bit too much in the past few days with walking, running down and up the stairs, and carrying heavy old furniture, and was rewarded with aching, swollen ankles, so decided to have a rest. A friend came, and we sewed her carnival costume, and this evening I did the same with another friend, so it was a pleasant day, with good company, and lots of nibbles!

For Art Journal Journey I took my Inspiration this time from Frank Auerbach, a British painter who was born in Germany. His portraits  often show very bold and sometimes rather wild brush-strokes and outlining, and I wanted to try this effect, but not with much success. Still, it was fun. I started off with a selfie taken in the summer, which I digitalised and used to make a portrait I could work from. I painted it with water colours, pastel chalks and felt pens, keeping to a relatively limited colour range . I messed up the background, so I cut it out and placed it on a background painted with the same colours in the colour-blocking technique, After gluing it down, I outlined it with a wide nib pen in dark brown. I added a few strips of washi tape and some of my letter fragments, as these are the things I like. I spent several days working on it, and was not really happy with the result when it was finished, but in the meantime I like it.

I am linking to Paint Party Friday and to Mix it Monthly, colour blocking.

Here are a few more photos from my Sunday walk along the Rhine:

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Inspired by....

Hi Everybody!

Hope your day is good, wherever you are! 

We had dry and partly sunny weather here, and a wonderful sunrise - things which always lift my spirit!

For Art Journal Journey 'Inspired by the Masters' I have made another page in my Giant journal,  once again inspired by René Magritte. I find his art and ideas very fascinating. Once again I have used his symbols of day, night, the moon, sun, clouds and landscape.  I Painted the background with gesso, and then used sky-blue. For the night images I used blue-black. Tim-Holtz's umbrella man has made an appearance once again. The heads were made with one of my own stencils. I was a bit disappointed at first that the blue/black colour did not completely hide the white of the clouds behind them. Then I decided it gives it more of a dream quality, because in dreams nothing is solid. It's always fun to try to get inside someone else's head, or to allow the images to swim around in your own head....I wrote a quote from Magritte along the edge.

I was up early, it was still dark, but the first light was visible over the airport:

I love the wintry colours here:

And then the sun showed itself:

The starlings were back again, hungry as ever:

The water in the Rhine is rather high, and there were hundreds of wild geese all along the shore:

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

This, that and a bit more....

Hi Everybody!

Hope you all had a good day. I was very busy here, but still went for my two walks - I don't like leaving them out whatever happens. I spent a lot of time clearing my cellar and balcony, and removing old furniture, some rusty balcony chairs, a broken printer etc as they get collected by the refuse department tomorrow. It was a lot of work, but I'm glad I did it. And half of the stuff disappeared almost as soon as I put it out....Recycling!

At Tag Tuesday our theme today is ' winter wonderland'. I made a black tag from a recycled calendar page, stamped it with clear ink and white embossed it, and added some white and wintry embellishments. The red/gold background  is the wrapping paper from the bar of Galaxy chocolate that Suze sent me.

At Try it on Tuesday our challenge is 'Favourite things'. The challenge runs for 2 weeks, so you have loads of time to join in and I hope to see you there! Some of my favourite things are art Journaling, London, painting and stamping, and they came together here. At Art Journal Journey we are still 'Inspired by the masters....' and my inspiration was William Turner. I  did not even try to make anything like he did, I will never be able to, I just tried to capture the light and sun that he always uses so effectively in the background of my London scene. The background was painted with acrylics in blue, white, pink, yellow and gold. When it was dry, I stamped it using 2 different stamps - one that Sue sent me for Christmas, and part of an Artemio stamp that I had, and embossed it with fine EP in black. I placed the finished picture into a larger page which I stamped with London motives, and coloured with Pan Pastels to match the colours in the painting. The quote is from Samuel Johnson. At Simon Monday Challenge they want to see old paired with new, and here I have combined my old and new stamps to make one skyline of London.

The sun made long shadows again today, and I enjoyed walking along the Rhine to the sculpture park:

The sun lit up the castle ruins:

This bird showed itself on my balcony and in the tree behind the house today. It is about the size of a thrush, but has a red breast. The photo is not very good, but I hope that someone might know what it is?

Have a great day you all, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Frida Kahlo and more

Hi Everybody!

We had a real sun day here, very cold and frosty, but sunny and great for walking. I enjoyed my walks along the Rhine, and clocked up 17,650 steps today, so I was happy with that.

For Art Journal Journey, 'Inspired by....' I chose to be inspired by Frida Kahlo and her colourful work. Yesterday I had a couple of play-hours trying out effects with brusho, and this page made me think of Frida straightaway. Some parts looked like flowers, so I gave them some more colour and drew round them. I used a stamp (Lost Coast Designs) which was stamped with Archival black and embossed with fine EP. I added a strip of washi tape with birds and flowers, and wrote some quotes around the edges. The wings were stamped with Stazon onto foil,  The page is for my giant journal  again.

Also linking to Simons Monday Challenge, old and new - new technique for me (Brushos) with my old favourite, journaling and Frida Kahlo)

The day started with a wonderful sunrise:

I had a swarm of starlings on my balcony today, they are new guests. I think my balcony is being tweeted as a good place to eat breakfast. They are very pretty, and extremely fast, it was very difficult to take their photos!

The heron was walking through the meadows by the Rhine today, and found itself something to eat, looked like a mole....

 The afternoon sky was beautiful

And the moon was wonderful.

Have a great day you all, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!