Postage Stamps and blue skies

Hi Everybody!

It's really hot here this week, 34° outside, and not much less inside -

I think it's summer!

Last Week the Queen visited Germany, and this was my inspiration for this journal page for Art Journal Journey, post and postage. The queen has been pictured on more stamps than I could ever try to count, and a few of them are here. I have often seem similar caricatures of the Queen, and I had fun drawing this one. The background of the A3 page has been painted with gesso, and I drew the cartoon with a Pentel pen and used Gelatos and India-Ink pens for the colouring. The golden trellis and post mark were stenciled. I had so much fun that I drew a second one, which I will show in the course of the month. I was asked if I do all of the journal pages for the month in advance, and have not yet managed so many. But I do have 17 ready made, which leaves me some time to join in other challenges, too.

Today started off with a great sunrise, and I was fascinated by the beautiful skies with little, fluffy clouds.

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

New Challenges at Art Journal Journey and Moo Mania and More

Hi Everybody!

Today is a double challenge start, with new themes at 

Art Journal Journey 

and

Moo Mania and More.

At AJJ our challenge is post and postage.

I know most of us send emails more than letters these days,

but it is always a great feeling to find a letter in the mail-box.

Well, perhaps with the exception of bills and letters from the Tax office....

But letters from friends - especially handwritten ones, perhaps

with some art in them are always a source of joy.

This theme gives us lots of possibilities to live out our creativity.

You could journal about the history of the post, how the post works,

about stamps - old ones, new ones, special editions, first day of issue letters etc.

Or perhaps you could use old letters, love letters, letters from famous people

in your journaling. 

Or what about collages using old envelopes, stamps, letters etc?

Perhaps it will inspire you to make some Mailart and send some

love in a letter to someone. I am sure you will all be brimming with ideas,

and Susi and I will be posting examples nearly every day to get your inspiration going.

My example shows a wonderful set of stamps from the Solomon Isles  using owls.

I did not want to use the originals, so the set was scanned, printed and fussy cut.

To make it look more realistic, I pricked along the perforations with a needle.

And of course, from owl to owl post to Harry Potter and Hogwarts

was just a logical jump. 

 I painted the background with gesso, and then gave it a thin colour wash with blue for the sky. The pictures of Harry Potter and the Hogwarts crest were from Stencilry. I am looking forward to seeing your journaling for the theme of post - postage.

At Moo Mania and More the challenge is to use swirls. All formats are allowed, so let your creativity swirl and flourish, and link up your creations!

My tag and the die-cut swirls were painted with Vivacolor Maya Gold paint in ice blue. The background paper for the tag and Moo is from Gecko Galz. I added some colour-coordinated embellishments.

Have  a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Big mixed bag for Tuesday

Hi Everybody!

Hope you are enjoying your day!

Today is the last day of our challenge 'masculine-feminine' at 

Art Journal Journey. 

We had lots of fantastic entries, and I enjoyed making my projects, too. Once again I have made a collage of my journal pages from the whole month.

At SOC the colour combo this week is red+red+gold. I used a clear red  to make the print from the lino-plate, and a crimson for the frame. The gold I used is from Deco Art Media interference gold. It just proved very hard to take pictures of.

The lino plate is one I made back in 1991. It is A4 sized.

After printing my page I painted all the white parts with the gold. I went over some parts several times to strengthen it a bit. The frames were also sprinkled with golden fairy dust. The gold looks rather greenish, but it is gold metallic.

I am also linking to Art Journal Journey, as my last entry for the month, and to Kim Dellow's Friday Face art.

And last but not least I have a tag for Tag Tuesday, where our theme is faces.

I used an 8" tag.  I painted the edges of the tag with Vivacolor rust. The image, from Gecko Galz, was collaged and then I used structure paste to make the diamonds, which I distressed with gold paint. Some parts of the tag were collaged with scraps of vintage paper, and given a coat of crackle glaze. I added some ears of grass sprayed with gold as embellishment.

We had a warm and sunny day, but the sun often had to fight its way through the clouds:

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Time for Wildlife

Hi Everybody!

Hope you have enjoyed your weekend. We had great weather here today, and looks like the weather will be good all week, so that's something!

I made this rather crazy piece a few weeks back for Art Journal Journey, masculine feminine, and for Moo Mania and More, numbers. I started out, as always by preparing my A3 sheet with gesso and some left over colour, and stenciled various motives to give more depth. Then I drew my head, and started to fill it with lots of different stamps, in fact I used all the stamps which were flying around my table - yes, quite a lot. I think I was trying to put all the things I enjoy on my walks through nature inside my head. Well, I suppose it's better than having an empty head....
I am also linking to Simon Monday Challenge, summer.

On July 1st we are starting new challenges at AJJ and MM&M, so be sure to come back to read all about them. But you still have 2 days to link up to the current challenges.

Today I enjoyed my walk along the Rhine very much, and was much surprised to see 2 herons and a stork strolling around the freshly mowed fields looking for their Sunday lunch. The herons are often here, but I have NEVER seen a stork here before, officially they don't live in our county!

This one had just picked up some food and was swallowing it....

Here's wishing you a good start in the new week. Take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!