The new challenge at Art Journal Journey is....

Hi Everybody!

Today we are starting a new challenge at 

Art Journal Journey

and the theme has been chosen by our lovely Yvonne, who is our talented Guest Hostess  this month. Her chosen theme is

Time.

Many of us wonder where time gets to, mostly it flies, sometimes it drags - as Einstein said, everything is relative!

So this month we want to see all you can think of for this theme - get those creative juices flowing, follow the flow, and link your creations to us. I am looking forward to seeing your work.

As it is summer, I have been inspired by the beautiful flowers I see everywhere on my walks. I was inspired to make the one-sided face by an idea I saw on Pinterest. I just used the idea, and drew my own face style and used a stamped collage of roses, leaves and a clock (all 4 stamps from LaBlanche), masking the parts that needed to stay free, and  colouring with Gelatos and water colours. The A3 background was gessoed, and stamped with a text using a remnant of pink paint from another project. I drew in some extra leaves, and added the shading with pastel chalks. I had fun making this one. I am also linking to Kim Dellow's Friday Face Art, where this month our faces should be inspired by other blogs.

I am also linking to Mix it Monthly, mixed media flowers.

Today started off again with a wonderful sunrise. One of my readers asked if I get up specially to watch it - well,  no, I just can't sleep!

The pictures were taken on my Thursday walk to the next village up the Rhine.

I love how the hibiscus is spilling over the wall: 

And I always wonder that this wall is still standing:

I love going through the avenue of beech trees:

And saw lots of the berries of the Arum Lily growing in the undergrowth:

The sun was shining, and the sky magnificent:

The heron was hunting:

The crow was watching him:

All in all, a wonderful walk!

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Last Day of Post at Art Journal Journey.

Hi Everybody!

Friday has come round again, so it's time for Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin.

I made a collage of all the journal pages I made in the course of the month, one each day, so here they are together:

Here is my last page for Art Journal Journey, with a Paris theme. The A3 background was painted with gesso and dribbled with some colour. The bottom half of the page has been made with an image transfer using mod-podge. This is the largest one I have tried up till now (A4), and I was happy that it worked so well. But it was a lot of rubbing! I printed the image using my normal ink-jet printer, and it worked fine. It doesn't need to be a laser print. I added stamps and some stamping to the top half of the page, and used a stencil for the lettering.

Here are some more photos from my hike through the beautiful forest this week:

This used to be an ornamental pond, which nature has turned into a little swamp filled with these delicate green plants

And here are 2 more of the inhabitants of the nearby village. The other photos are on my blog post from yesterday.

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Thursday this and that

Hi Everybody!

 This week is flying by again, I never seem to get as much done as I would like to, but I think that happens to a lot of us. Our weather was more like April than the end of July - sun, wind, showers and heavy rain alternating. But I was able to get out for a long walk for nearly three hours, and although the clouds got very dark and threatening while I was on my way home, the rain didn't start till I got into the door, and then it came down with a vengeance, so I was thankful to have got home on time.

For Art Journal Journey I made another page using one of the pages from the old Sears and Roebuck catalogue as a background, and Mr Umbrella man posing as US presidents again. Then I framed it and turned it into a stamp. 

And then I made more stamps as I was having fun playing:

Here are some of the photos from my walk in the forest yesterday. I love looking up into the sky through the tall trees:

It is very overgrown and mossy, as it is not used any more:

This was a short cut from one side to the other - walk the plank! We decided to take the long way round, we didn't want to fall into the water underneath

The narrow paths were all slippery from the rain, and often very steep, with obstacles to climb over, but it was fun!

When we came out into the open we discovered a small and very old Jewish 

grave-yard in a tiny, fenced in place. Some of the stones were still easily decipherable, others were very weathered and crumbly. This one shows the hands spread in the priestly blessing.

The grave yard was started in 1790, and I was happy to see that it survived, as so many were destroyed and desecrated by the Nazis in the time leading up to  the Second World War.

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!