A message in a bottle

Hi Everybody!

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend.

Today I have another mixed media journal page which I am linking to Art Journal Journey, the sea, and Moo Mania and More, bottles. The background is a painted and dripped one which I scanned into the computer and printed out. I sketched in the bottle, and gave it a quick coat of diluted white acrylic to try to give the effect of glass. I added some shading with Gelatos, and went over the outlines with gel pens. The shells etc have been collaged. I painted an oblong white for the 'message' and write on it with a black uniball pen. I added a few bubbles with the white uniball pen, and that was it.

I am also linking to Simon Monday Challenge, X,Y, Z - here 'Y' for yellow.

Here I reversed the colours, just for fun.

Some photos from yesterday's walk:

These flowers are growing right on the top of the castle ruins:

And I love the old walls around our little town.

Have a great day you all, take care,

ad thanks a lot for coming by!

The Spirit in the Bottle

Hi Everybody!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend, and that the weather is being kind to you!

Today I have another bottle piece for Moo Mania and More. I was inspired by the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale 'The spirit in the bottle' (Der Geist im Glas), and by one of my big glass vases. I used kraft paper (A3) for the background, and painted it with black gesso mixed with a bit of blue. After drawing the outline of the bottle I painted the face using diluted acrylics and various pastel colours. Then I coloured the vase using pastel chalks. This was a fun make!

(the little spots were caused by dropping a bottle of spray ink on the table which spritzed, but I quite like the effect, even if it was not intended!)

Also linking to Friday show your face at Kim Dellow's Blog

And this is the vase. The strange spirit you can see is a reflection of me taking the photo....

The day started with a wonderful sunrise:

Mr Jay casting a longing  look at the fat-ball on the wall:

And Lilly has the last word today:

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Bottles, birds and the sea

Hi Everybody!

Another week has raced by, it's Friday already, and for many of us it will be a long weekend with the Bank Holiday on Monday - enjoy it!

Friday is time for Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin, but everyday is a good day for Art Journal Journey, the sea, and for Moo Mania and More, Bottles.

I recycled a large piece of black cardboard (a bit more than A3) that used to live in a picture frame. I drew the bottles with pastel-chalks. I love working with the bright chalks on a black background. Sorry about the fingerprints, in the meantime I have removed them! I didn't see them till I looked at the pics! I have been trying to keep to half an hour for my bottle sketches, but this one took a bit longer - well, there are a lot of bottles!

For this version I reversed the colours and softened the edges:

Here I made a quick water coloured background on textured paper, added the birds with Dina Wakley's stencil and doodled the boat and waves.

These 2 pigeons look like they are holding an early morning chat - perhaps discussing which one should swoop down to my balcony to get breakfast first!

Sunrise and clouds:

A freshly mowed field:

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Bottles, birds and more

Hi Everybody

Another day has sped by and it is starting to get dark again.

I was able to enjoy some time on my balcony watching the colours fade in the evening sky - just beautiful. Okay, I know I am a bit obsessed with sky, clouds, sun, moon and stars, but there are worse obsessions!

For Moo Mania and More, Bottles, I made some quick sketches of some of my bottles using pastel chalks. I limited myself to a maximum of  half an hour pro sketch, and managed to get 5 done which I will be showing in the course of the next days. I love glass vases and bottles, and have a lot of beautiful examples here for inspiration. I used water-colour paper as it gives a nice texture and holds the colour pigments well.

With reversed colours:

The early bird, on the tree top, before sunrise. I don't know if it caught a worm for being up so early, I didn't either.

My resident blue jay, looking sad because the bowl was empty yet again:

Someone forgot to take their grill home:

The Rhine raven:

Looking up:

Sunrise:

Mrs Magpie, waiting for family Jay to move away so that she could come for a feed, too:

 This is my balcony!

The last glimpse of colour in the evening.

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lo for coming by!