Thursday, 15 October 2015

Autumn shows her face

Hi Everybody!

Today I have another face which I am linking to 49 Faces and to Kim Dellow's show your face. The background was made with an A3 brush-wipe page to which I added a bit of colour to fill the gaps. The large leaves were drawn with a home made template, the small ones doodled, and the birds added with Dina Wakley's stencil.








The sunrise photos are from yesterday, today we just had grey skies and lots of cold, wet rain!





The horses were in Autumn colours, too:



This is the path I walked along on Sunday, leading to the Rhine:




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

Wednesday, 14 October 2015

A door in the arch

Hi Everybody!

The journal page I am showing today for Art Journal Journey, architecture, is the second one using pictures of Acre (Akko). You can find the first part here if you missed it. The photo I used for this A3 mixed media page shows a door to a kiosk, which has been built into one of the ancient arches of the crusader castle. The 'King Albert' sign above it is made by hand, and the rusty door was painted with turquoise. Lots of posters and notices had been plastered over the doors, and the electric wires are hanging at the front. Not perhaps the usual standards of safety most of us are used to. I was fascinated by the door, and took the photo of it. I painted round it with blue and yellow, representing the bright sun and the blue water of the sea and sky. I used structure paste to put more masonry round the door. The quote is from Henri Matisse.







And here are some more photos of Akko. Sorry for the poor quality, they were mostly taken with my old cell-phone





Remembering the story of Jonah and the whale:







Also linking to Wen's Neutrals

Have a great day you all, take care,
and thanks for accompanying me on my journey today.

Tuesday, 13 October 2015

Tuesday This, That and the Witch's Cat

Hi Everybody!

Today is the start of a new challenge at TIOT and our theme is 

'It's frightening - Halloween'

I made an 8" tag, which I fixed to a second tag made of recycled black card. Pasting 2 tags one over the other gives more stability when there is a lot on the tag. The background was coloured with DIs in rusty hinge, wild honey and  something Marigold, sprayed with water to let it run, and stamped with my little swirl stamp. Then I stamped the witch and her cat using Archival black, embossed with black EP extra fine. The skull was printed onto an overhead transparency, as was the witch up in the corner, trying to hide behind the leaves and her owl. Somebody told me last year that I always use the same stamps and die cuts for Halloween - true! And as I am happy with them, I shall be using them in the years to come, too. The leaves are natural ones, dipped in embossing ink and embossed with Utee gold. I added a few splodges of Utee round about just for fun, and some seasonal embellishments and some golden stars, because I got 2 huge bottles of them from the 1 Euro shop for my Euro. The Halloween Ticket is a stamp from Tim Holtz, the witch and cat are part of a set from Close to my heart.

You have 2 weeks to enter our fun challenge at TIOT, and projects of all formats are allowed.
I am also linking to Moo Mania and More, patterns, as the background is patterned and to Anything but cute - 31 days of Halloween






At Tag Tuesday our theme this week is people. I used an 8" tag again, and made some quick cartoon sketches of faces, adding a little colour with markers. I glued it to a second tag made of recycled card again, and then drew and fussy cut the face peeping over the top and the hands and glued them on. This was fun to make, and I am linking to 49 faces (I will only count it as one face!) and to  
Kim Dellow's  show your face.





And today is Tuesday, which mean it's time for dear Elisabeth's


I have a fruit and nut loaf that I baked to share. I didn't have enough of the raisins that should have been in it, so added chopped and  dried figs, dates and prunes to the Hazelnuts, and it is very delicious. And I disinfected the dried fruit by bathing it in cognac, just to be on the safe side. You can eat it as it is, or with butter or jam or honey or.....It always tastes good. This is a cake that keeps very well over a couple of weeks, provided that you don't eat it all straightaway! And remember, always cut small pieces so that half of the calories can run out each time.



My coffee with foamy milk is in one of the lovely old cups I got from my great Aunt. In the spoon you can see some chocolate coffee beans. These are roasted beans coated with chocolate, and very delicious. Some of the Italian Cafes give you one when you buy your coffee.


Sorry about the milk I smeared onto the spoon - I'm not used to having company, but help yourselves to coffee and cake!


After another frosty night Venus, the morning star, was glowing very brightly in the clear, black sky:


The early morning colours were very delicate and pastel like:



And the sunrise was glorious as always.



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