Remember....

Hi Everybody!

For Art Journal Journey, collage, and 99 Faces I drew a face and turned it into a collage. The drawing is based on a photo of my sister Cynthia, who died 15 years ago. The photo was taken back in the 1960s after the birth of her youngest son Michael. She lived most of her life in the USA, but was visiting England with her children at that time. Today would have been her 78th birthday. I made a quick drawing with pastel chalks, cut it out, and collaged it onto a background stamped directly with ink-pads in shades of brown and blue. I added some washi tapes and a sentiment. The drawing does not do justice to how pretty she was, you can see the original photo in the second hybrid collage.

The words here are from Christina Rosetti's poem 'remember'.

You can read it all here.

The photos show the sky early this morning, as dawn was breaking. I love the colour changes in the sky between dawn and sunrise:

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Beneath me flows the Rhine

Hi Everybody!

For Art Journal Journey, collage, and for 99 faces, I have a hybrid collage, created using various photos and a face drawing, layered together to make a collage. The background is a photo taken from my window, the buildings at the front show the Altstadt of Düsseldorf. I added a photo of a bird on a branch, also taken from my window, and some wild geese taken at the Rhine. The quote is from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, an American writer and poet of the 19th Century, famous for his epic poem of Hiawatha among other things. I often think of his words when looking down from the top the castle ruins here.

And fitting to the theme of the collage, some photos taken along the Rhine:

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Rusty Rose

Hi Everybody!

Happy Weekend!

For 99 Faces  and Kim's Show your face I made a face which I have called 'rusty rose', drawn onto patterned and stamped cardstock, and painted with water-colours in reduced colours.

For Art Journal Journey, collage, I turned her face into a collage. I made a 

background with texture, flowers and some printed matter onto which I placed her head which I digitally removed from the first background. Then I added the skyline of  Düsseldorf and  the rusty rose which I photographed near here.

Some more photos from my walks; Everything looks better when the sun shines:

The heron flying over the river.

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by.

Collage, sky and birds

Hi Everybody!

For Art Journal Journey, collage and Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin, I made an A3 mixed media Collage. The background was painted with a mix of titan buff and gesso. I collaged various bits and pieces from my table onto the lower half of the page, and added a piece of embroidery thread, some stamping and some tissue tape. The handsome man dropped through my letterbox in an advert. I cut him out, used his reverse as a template and sprayed round him with dark brown, and then added his front side to the collage. I added some stenciling and used another stencil for the text.

We had beautiful weather today - cold but sunny. The day started with a beautiful pre-dawn sky:

The gulls were once again all gathered at the jetty, I love watching them:

The sun was glinting on the water:

As I saw this I was wondering if we had a shark in the Rhine, but as it came nearer I saw it was just drift wood:

Standing on one leg seems to be in fashion for big and small:

Have a good day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!