Time flies and memory fades

Hi Everybody!

Hope your day is going well!

We had rain this evening, which cooled us off nicely,

but the next couple of days will be very stormy again. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain all day - sounds like good weather to paint, craft and read!

For Art Journal Journey, time, I made another A3 mixed media journal page. The background was a sheet which I had used for brush wiping. I gave it a coat of gesso to even it out, and then collaged more vintage printed matter, old letters and  bits and bobs from my table and boxes. The stamps were still hanging around from the post challenge.This is a good way to clear up and have fun. Mona Lisa was stenciled with black paint (Stencil from stencilry.org). I wrote the quote around her head. The dragonflies are also stenciled. I used grey ink here so that they looked a bit transparent.

And here is part 3 of the 'Altstadt' photos.

Here you can see the Church of St Lambertus with its crooked spire, and the tower of the old palace.

The post office tower, near the harbour:

There are lots of statues, old and new:

Here is the 'Giesser Junge' - the moulder's boy. There is a story that when the sculptor Grupello was filling the mould to make the huge statue of Jan Wellem, he evidently didn't have enough metal, and his boy collected metal trinkets and jewelry from bystanders and was thus able to save the statue. This statue is to honour that boy who saved the day:

This is St Nepomuck

A beautiful fountain with geese:

Düsseldorf is a 'Carnival Capital', so lots of statues remind us of this.

'En de Canon' is one of the oldest pubs in the old town, and was the place where the  Elector Jan Wellem used to go for his drinks:

Carnival again:

And this lady is dancing on top of a Litfass column:

Last but not least, the Lion of Düsseldorf, the emblem of the town:

I will show the rest of the photos tomorrow.

Till then, have a good day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Old times....

Hi Everybody!

Friday has flown by again - time can definitely move faster than

I can!

For Art Journal Journey, time, I have another journal page. The centre part is a mixed media collage, once again full of flying bits of this and that which always seem to fill my table and boxes. I placed it onto an A3 sheet, and used gesso and titan buff round the edges to frame it. I added time stamps from various makers -Paper Artsy, LaBlanche, Chocolate Barock and Unknown. The quote I printed round the edge is from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 'Dark times lie ahead of us, and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right:'

And I have some more photos from my trip to the 'Altstadt' this week. Some of the streets there, especially Bolkerstrasse, have mutated to places where bars, pubs, clubs, cafes and eateries fill the whole street. The old town is often called 'The longest bar of the world' - die längste Theke der Welt. It is visited by a lot of tourists, but it is not a place where I like to be.

The birthplace of Heinrich Heine is also on Bolker Street. The famous German poet, writer and journalist was born there in 1797, and today a book shop there bears his name.

There are many beautiful old churches there:

And some of the old, narrow houses are still in evidence:

The cat statue looks rather worse for wear:

A bronze showing the old town as it was:

The beautiful 'Rathaus' (town hall) dates from 1570: 

The statue of  blind Justitia, or Lady Justice on the town hall:

More old houses:

The tour will be carried on tomorrow!

Till then, have a great day, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Time goes....

Hi Everybody!

Another week has flown by, and not only in my journal pages do I wonder what happens to time....

Today I have another mixed media A3 collage. I collaged various bits and bobs from my bottomless bit-boxes - scraps of printed matter, cut outs from 1950's magazines and some left over embellishments, and then painted the top half of the page with a mix of gesso and titan buff. I sprayed some dark brown ink, and then added the clock. I used one of my own stencils to draw the men with charcoal. The middle one was coloured with pastel chalks and the others collaged. I used a clock stamp for their heads. To finish it off I added some stenciled diamonds in vintage photo DI and wrote the text with a stencil.

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, time, and to Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin.

Today I am showing some photos of the harbour in Düsseldorf, which has changed over the last years from being a rather shabby, industrial harbour to a modern media and communications harbour, with modern architecture, over-priced bars and cafes everywhere, hotels, very expensive flats and a marina where the rich can park their boats in style - a place to see and be seen. It is not my type of architecture or place, but definitely interesting.

The bridge across the harbour to the island in the middle:

The crooked buildings were all built by the Canadian Star Architect Frank Gehry in the 1990s. The middle building is mirrored and reflects  the buildings left and right from it.

On the other side of the marina is a mix of old and new buildings.

Here you can see the 'Flossis' made by Rosalie, an artist from Düsseldorf.

Hope you enjoyed seeing the buildings, although I must confess I was happy to get back to where I live afterwards, cobblestones and old houses are more to my taste.

Have a great day you all, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by.