Birds, a face and flowers

Hi Everybody!

We had a warm and sunny day today, tomorrow we have been promised thunderstorms again, and next week it will probably be cool and rainy - at least we get plenty of variety!

For Art Journal Journey, masculine-feminine, I have another mixed media journal page. I am also linking to  Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin, to Moo Mania and More, anything goes and to Kim Dellow's Friday face art, a cool place to link up art with faces.

I started out with an A3 sheet of paper onto which I had smeared a bit of crackle paste left over from another project and a few scraps of left over paper. I gave it a coat of gesso, and let it dry. I painted over it with blue and purple paints, and then spritzed it with diluted white acrylic and with gold ink. I glued on some scraps of handwritten paper which I made transparent by ironing some wax over it. I always feel so virtuous when I can say I did some ironing! I drew the face using one of my home made stencils, which I have used for other things this past week, too. I used the stencil waste to mask the surroundings and sprayed the face with some white paint to make it a little lighter than the surroundings. I added colour to the features with Gelatos and a water pen. I doodled and coloured the flowers and birds. For the stylised birds I made some stencils inspired by an image I saw in a book of medieval manuscripts. The birds are holding the little bits of string mentioned in the quote from Bryan Andreas. I used a gold pen to outline the birds and leaves. 

Close up of the texture from the crackle paste:

Some glimpses of one of the gardens in the Church close - enjoy!:

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Feminine from a masculine viewpoint

Hi Everybody!

Hope your day is going well. I have been having problems with my internet today. It is back on now, but slower than usual, so hope things will  soon be back to normal. I know these things are sometimes unavoidable, but it is still annoying.

Today I tried to copy a painting from Toulouse Lautrec, who painted many pictures of women, and whose name is connected with the Moulin Rouge and the Montmartre, where he often portrayed the night life of Paris.  It is called 'Le Corset Rouge',  from 1896. The background was made with brushos and sprayed and dripped colours, and I drew the figure with charcoal and pastel chalks.
I am linking to Art Journal Journey, Masculine and feminine.

Today started off with a cloudy sunrise.

I noticed these mushrooms growing in a hollow tree-stump

Somebody has painted the masculine sign on one of the trees:

Mill Lane:

Roof tops and spires

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

Masculine or feminine?

Hi Everybody!

This will be a quick post again, the day has run away from me and it's much too late and way past bedtime!

For Art Journal Journey, masculine and feminine, I have another journal page. I glued some vintage paper and paper napkin pieces onto an A3 sheet, painted it with gesso and then drew my heads in profile. I thought of the old adage, 'Pink for a little girl and blue for a boy.' I looked up a lot of masculine/feminine attributes on the net, printed them out, and put them inside the heads. I used stencils to draw my man on the left and the ladies on the right. I used pastel chalks for colouring. Do you think the attributes are right? Don't women have direction or stability?  Are men without empathy? Are there any attributes which are strictly masculine or feminine? I am also linking to Mix it Monthly, profile face

A few photos from my walk today. I loved the solitary poppy in the grain field:

 And I always love seeing the ferry and the Rhine:

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Blues and greens

Hi Everybody!

Today is the start of a new challenge at Try it on Tuesday and our theme is clocks/ watches. As always, the challenge will run for 2 weeks, and projects of all formats are allowed. Hope to see you there!

I am also linking to Summer of Colour, where the colours this week are blue, blue and green. Thanks to Kristin for hosting this fun event.

I used water colour paper in A4, and painted it diagonally with metallic paints in 2 shades of blue and green, On the clock is a nasty fly - as we all know, time flies! The wings and body of the fly have been sparkled with  diamond Stickles.

For art journal journey, masculine and feminine, I painted a tree woman, perhaps Mother Nature, once again using greens and blues. This is perhaps the female version of a 'green man'.  I am also linking to Moo Mania and More, anything goes.

And some greens and blues from my walk today:

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