Miss Jones' Birthday

Hi Everybody!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend. The weather here is still good, so 

I have been out walking and spent the rest of my time playing in

my arty kitchen - fun!

The image I used for this journal page for Art Journal Journal, back to school, is from Gecko Galz, and it looks like a scene out of the 50's. I love the way the kids are celebrating their Miss Jones' birthday. I always got little presents from my students, too, and it is good to feel appreciated. I used a vintage paper background, and added the text and the sentiments. 

I gave the image a filter to loosen the edges a bit.

This morning started off looking quite stormy, but it soon cleared and we had good weather.

Today I saw a small heron, which I have never seen before. It's about a third of the size of the large ones we usually have here. It's always exciting to discover 'new' species!

Autumn is on its wa, even though we still have summer temperatures:

The rain we had in the night made the fungi shoot up:

Have a great day, have fun, and take care.

Thanks a lot for coming by!

Weekend Mix

Hi Everybody!

It's weekend at last - enjoy!

For Art Journal Journey, Elizabeth's theme of back to school, I have a vintage image (Gecko Galz) of a girl sitting at her desk. We still had desks like that in  couple of classes at school, black with age and full of scribbles of generations past. It was fun to try to decipher the writing instead of listening to the physics teacher....The background was painted and then digitally overlayed with various layers of script. The quote is by Einstein, 'Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one learned in school'

Yesterday I watched the moon rise in the evening, it was pale and hardly visible at first:

As the sky darkened it took on more colours:

I was up very early again and stood outside on the balcony and watched the sky slowly grow light:

The swan was swimming on the Rhine today, right by the ferry, it didn't seem to worry it at all:

And the heron was staring at the water and waiting for a careless

fish to swim by:

I saw this butterfly in the midst of some bushes as I went by:

That was my day, how was your's?

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Friday this and that and a wild cat:

Hi Everybody!

This past week went by extremely quickly,  and I much enjoyed the time 

Susi spent here with me. Now it's time for Paint Party Friday again, hosted, as always by Eva and Kristin.  I made an A3 mixed media page. The background was painted and brayered with green, blue and white, then stamped while it was still wet to give some pattern and texture. Then I threw lots of flying bits and bobs onto it - cut outs, parts of a paper napkin, some alphas, tissue paper, washi tape etc. After that I used one of the new stamps I got at the Stamp Mecca (thanks, Susi!) and put the face next to the 'napkin face' - they make a nice contrast. The face stamp is one of a set of 3 from Lost Coast Designs. To finish it off I highlighted some areas with Gellatos.

For Art Journal Journey, back to school, hosted this month by dear Elizabeth, I made a hybrid piece. I used a photo of Tower College, a school near Liverpool where I used to teach when I was still in England - it was my last position before I moved to Germany. It was a wonderful school, and I was sad to have to leave there.  The photo was masked and then placed on the cardboard background. I used a row of kids cut from a prospect and added the 'back to school' to their backpacks.

I made a second version with b/w  images (from Gecko Galz), I couldn't make up my mind which one to use....

And I have some  more photos taken during Susi's stay here:

These were taken at the nature reserve in the forest:

Wild cats:

Honey bees and bee-keeping:

A hotel for hermit bees:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!