Fragments of the past

Hi Everybody!

The big snow storms thankfully didn't strike here,

but it is very cold. Today we had sunshine and blue skies,

the ground was frozen hard, and lots of

hungry birds were hopping around.

For Art Journal Journey, Erika's lovely theme of

'Tell me a story', I have a double page in my 

New journal number 2. One of the things I 'inherited' 

from one of my old ladies was a box of torn

up photos and letters, with the instructions, 'Do what

you like with them but don't give them to my brother!'

Here I have used some of the fragments of photos

and  letters, and a part of a Hebrew text. I interspersed the fragments

with scraps of  paper napkins. A thin coat of gesso

knocked some parts back. I used soft wax crayons

to add some colour, and some random stamping.

I am also linking to Paint Party Friday:

I took some dry bread with me when I went out,

and it was enjoyed by gulls, ducks and the fishing raven, who 

was looking rather bedraggled today:

The gulls swarmed around, it was rather a Hitchcock moment:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Tags and heads

Hi Everybody!

Time is flying by again - it moves more quickly

than I can!

For Art Journal Journey, Erika's lovely theme of 'Tell me a story', and for Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin, I have a

hybrid piece made from 2 large tags I made this week. 

I scanned the tags into my computer, and with some digital magic

I put them into two of my heads and grunged them up a bit.

I placed them on a background made from another collaged

tag made this week which I will show another day. I changed the

colors to black and white in one of them and

added the sentiment:

For my mixed media pieces I used 10" kraft tags. First they were painted with olive and blue metallic paints, then stenciled using some new stencils Annette sent me for Christmas - thanks so much! After they were dry I used my 

clear-the-table technique

to collage them with all the UFOs flying about, and then used more stencils to draw the figures. To finish them off I added some white stenciling and some dotted highlights on the figures. I had fun making these, I haven't been able to do much lately as my fingers are not being very cooperative.

As I have used my new stencils I am also linking 

the tags to Simon Monday challenge

and to More mixed media

anything goes

These were the backgrounds before I pasted everything onto

them:

Recently I visited The Kunsthalle art museum

in Düsseldorf. I have a season-ticket which gets me into all

museums without having to pay, but I would have 

been very disappointed if I had paid 18€ to view this

'wool and water' exhibition:

And this exhibit really takes the biscuit -

this is not my idea of art:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Past, present, future

Hi Everybody!

It's been another cold day here, and we have

been threatened with winter storms over the

next few days - I'm hoping they are wrong!

For Art Journal Journey, Erika's lovely theme of 

'tell me a story', I have a hybrid piece using  a canvas I made 

of some of my ancestors. I  placed them here onto a

grungy background. The original was made with various photo transfers, interspersed with scraps of old letters. My great grandparents are both there,my Mum, my grandparents, my great aunt, and I am hidden in the background.

I like having many layers, even though they are not all visible -

life is a palimpsest, one layer covering up and sometimes

erasing the other. People who lived before us are still

'with us'in our memories, they are part of us as we are a 

continuation of them:

And this is the tag I made for Tag Tuesday, theme 'silver':

'To speak is silver, silence is golden'

Would be a good tip for some politicians these days....

Some photos taken this week, mornings and

on my walks:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!