How good and pleasant....

Hi Everybody!

Today my sister Ruth is celebrating her 80th birthday.

I haven't seen her for a long time, and do not have  any close contact to

my family - time flies, and sometimes tears family ties apart, but I still wish her all the best on her big day. I made her 2 pieces, which I sent to her, both showing our family history as far as I know it. Our great grandparents came from the Ukraine in the 19th century and settled in the East End of London, between the Docks and the Tower of London, and I, too was born and brought up in this corner of the world.

The Hebrew text, 'Hineh ma tov uma nayim, shevet achim gam yachad', is a song which means ' How good and pleasant it is for brothers (family, friends)  to dwell together' and is from Psalm 133 verse 1.

My great grandmother Rachel is on the left, in the tree house, my great grandfather Hyman on the right. In between is the photo of my mother with my brothers and sisters, Ruth is on the left. I smuggled myself in at the front, as there are no family photos with me on them.

This one shows our family at the top. My great Grandmother is sitting in the window of the house, Tower bridge is in the background. My Mother is standing next to the lamppost, and at the bottom, my great grandmother again with her daughters, Sadie and Fanny, and on the other side my grandparents, with great uncle Benny showing his head  between them. So at least on the paper we have all managed to appear together!

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, journeys, as both pages show a journey through the history of my family.

And to cheer myself up I spend a couple of hours playing with paint, brayer and a glass plate to make these mono prints, which will be used as backgrounds for various things. The first ones were made with blobs of colour on the glass, blended with the brayer. I used very thin paper, which crumples a bit and adds to the texture:

Here I used a spiral stencil:

Here are some of the flowers found in the gardens of the Marien Hospital here:

Well, that has turned out to be a long post!

I am linking to Paint Party Friday, hosted by Kristin and Eva.

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

The ancient Mariner

Hi Everybody!

Today we are beginning a new challenge at 

Moo Mania and More -

Water.

As always, projects of all formats are allowed, and the challenge runs for 2 weeks.

I made a Layout showing the story of the Ancient Mariner,

an epic poem from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an

English poet who lived from 1772 - 1834.

The poem tells the story of a long sea journey, where a sailor shoots down an albatross and brings bad luck on the ship....

One of the most famous quotes from the poem is the

sentence, 'Water, water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink; water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink' . It is a loooong poem, not just the

2 verses shown here! The verse which inspired my project is:

'All in a hot and copper sky, the bloody sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the moon.'

I made a hybrid piece, using a photo as background. The illustration of

the ancient mariner is from Mary Shelley, courtesy of Wikipedia.

I am also linking to AJJ, Journeys

Yesterday evening the clouds looked rather threatening.

The flowers are from a neighbour's hedge:

I had to wait for the tram to cross the road, so had time to take

a photo of it:

The  horses were happy, as always.

And fitting to our theme, plenty of water:

Have a great day you all, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by:

Tuesday Mix

Hi Everybody!

We had a long weekend here as it was the Whitsun bank holiday, but the weather was not nice to us, and stayed cold and blustery. At least it didn't rain while I was out, so that's something to be thankful for.

As it's Tuesday, it's time for Elizabeth's T stands for Tuesday, where we share our drink related posts.  Here's a big welcome to all the T gang! My drink is, as always, cappuccino, so I'm sharing a piece made some time back which is all about coffee. The little cups were stamped, fussy cut and painted. I used cinnamon stickles for the coffee and white puff paint for the milk foam. The little blue cup in the left corner is a button, I just cut off the loop at the back with a scissors.. The background was stamped repeatedly with coffee quotes.

Here is the Italian ice-parlour where I like to drink a cup of coffee from time to time.  I went in today to warm up, as the wind was really nasty. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! I have never tried their waffles from the menu, but they do look delicious....

At Tag Tuesday this week our theme is wings and words. I made a tag with the image of Frida Kahlo, which I drew with a pencil, coloured with sepia inks,  and fussy cut. After I had photographed the tag, I decided to make a journal page from it as well, so here it is. I am linking to journeys at Art Journal Journey, to honour Frida's journey through her art and life. Wings and feet are also necessary for journeys.

My journal is hard to photograph, as it has grown so fat!

And last but not least, a reminder that you still have a week to join in the 

spots, dots and splashes challenge at TIOT! Hope to see you there....

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by.

Africa

Hi Everybody!

For Art Journal Journey, journeys, I made a mixed media spread in my 'new' journal. The leopard was cut out of a prospect.

And some photos from my  walks: 

These two photos were taken 2 weeks back, when the leaves were starting to sprout:

The swan was out for a Sunday swim:

Evening sun:

And my greedy pigeon again:

Where's my breakfast?

 Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

The journey is the destination

Hi Everybody!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Today just seemed to run away - I had a lot planned, and was busy all day, but didn't get much done.

For Art Journal Journey, journeys, hosted by our sweet Erika, I have a double mixed-media spread in my new journal, which is now almost full. I 'm also trying to get rid of lots of scraps. In recent years, technical things have been progressing with huge steps, and the newest technique from Victorian times, although most impressive at the time, is just history today. The technical progress of recent times is a journey which moves us along at an amazing pace, and sometimes I wonder where and when  this journey will end.

We had a lot of cloud this morning, but the sunrise was still beautiful:

The horses are happy whatever the weather is:

Lots of leafy, green paths to walk along:

And this is something I haven't seen before - a nettle growing out of one of the walls:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!