More this and that

Hi Everybody!

Today we had some crazy, mixed up weather.

It wasn't as cold as the last few days, we had 

sunshine, wind, clouds, blue skies, grey skies, snow and rain, 

all one after the other.

I went for a walk, and stumbled over a loose

paving stone, and kissed the ground like the Pope. I managed

to turn a bit in falling and landed on my 'old' knee

and not on the new one, so I was lucky, and got off with

a few bruises, a graze on my knee and a hole

in my trousers.

I spent the rest of the day safely at home, reading,

crafting and having fun. I have been making a

lot of large, mixed media tags lately, and am sharing one I

made last week. I used an 8" tag, which was painted, 

stenciled, collaged and stitched:

I am linking to Simon Monday challenge, square

And this little heart was made with remnants left over

from last week - corrugated card, scraps of serviettes, gilding

flakes, vintage linen, string and sewing:

The winter skies are beautiful:

Lots of snow showers:

And a magical night sky:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by:

It's weekend....

Hi Everybody!

It's weekend - have a good one!

I don't know why I always look forward to weekends,

because as a pensioner, my life is made up

of weekends - I guess it's still some

primal memories from working days.

Every day is a gift, so we need to celebrate,

try to be positive, leave negative people and stuff

off the plan and just have fun! 

For Art Journal Journey I made a hybrid piece

for Erika's lovely theme of  'Tell me a story'. The quote is from

Hamlet's famous 'To be or not to be' speech:

(Here I combined my own elements with some from Mischief Circus)

I am also linking to Paint Party Friday

Good weather to stay home and keep warm:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Ice, mist and journal play

Hi Everybody!

Another week has flown by, it's Thursday already,

I need to do some dreaded housew**k,

it's cold and grey outside,

and not much better inside!

I made a cover for the second journal I got as 

a present, so now it's all set up

and ready to go. I painted the A4 cover with some 

blue/green metallic paint, which changes colour with the light,

 and added some soft white in 

the middle before stamping into the wet paint

with the swirl and script stamps. I don't need any ink on the stamps,

The wet paint gets picked up and transferred. 

The floral part of the design 

was made with a paper napkin. When it was dry

I stenciled on the birds and added some

gilding flakes:

I was pleased that the underlying stamping is still visible

through the paper napkin:

This was before the napkin went on:

Then I decided to alter a paper bag to make a pocket inside the

journal. Here it is still on my messy table:

Then I used some new and old stencils to liven it up,

adding some white dots to highlight it:

The front page was quickly painted and then stenciled:

Now I have a journal to fill with dreams.

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, Erika's lovely theme

of 'Tell me a story' and to

Altered eclectics,

and to Stamps and stencils,  swirls, whirls and flourishes,

and to Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin.

And here are some icy and misty photos:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

A story from history

Hi Everybody!

Last week I made this collage. The background was an underlay page, and is somewhere between A4 and A3 size. It already had smudges of green and blue paint on  it, which gave me my colour scheme. There were also various stamps on the BG which I had been trying out. I once again used my (try)-to-clear-the-table-technique, and piled on as much as I could.

Then I decided to divide it into squares and oblongs

with a thick marker.

It still didn't look quite right, so I decided to sew over all of the

lines. I went over three of the squares with diluted gesso to knock them

back a bit, and then added some Hebrew alphas. I left the threads on the sides hanging, as the Hebrew texts and alphas reminded me of a

Tallith, the prayer shawl worn by men:

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, 

Erika's lovely theme of 'tell me a story' - 

there are lots of stories woven into this piece, and to 

Simon Monday challenge, square.

I was most interested to see the models of Kaiserswerth

in the town museum in Düsseldorf.

This is what our castle ruins used to look like:

And this painting shows a political event from about 1000 years ago.

The report is from Wikipedia:

'About the year 700 the monk Saint Suitbert founded a Benedictine abbey on a  werth, a river island that formed an important crossing point of the Rhine. The abbey was destroyed 88 years later. On that area there is now the "Erzbischöfliches Suitbertus-Gymnasium", an archiepiscopal secondary school with the old chapel and parts of the abbey. The former monastery garden is a meeting point for the upper school between lesson times.

The Kaiserpfalz which is a general term for a temporary seat of the Holy Roman Emperor was built at an unknown date but before the year 1016. In 1062, the archbishop of Cologne, Anno II, kidnapped the underage German King Heinrich IV from here and in this way obtained the unofficial regency of the Holy Roman Empire. At this time the island's name was changed from Werth to Kaiserswerth - emperor's island. In 1174, Friederick I Barbarossa moved the Rhine customs collection to Kaiserswerth. The eastern branch of the Rhine around the island silted up connecting Kaiserswerth to the east bank of the river. In 1273, the emperor pledged Kaiserswerth to the Archbishop of Cologne forming a de facto enclave within the Duchy of Jülich-Berg. In 1591, Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld was born in Kaiserswerth.

 Due to its strategic position the town changed regularly. The town was captured in 1586 during the Cologne War, and then occupied by the Spanish from 1589 to 1592. In 1636 the town was captured again by the forces of Hesse. When in 1688 the Elector of Cologne made an alliance with Louis XIV during the War of the Grand Alliance he gave the French access to the Rhine crossing at Kaiserswerth. This caused the Dutch and Brandenburg to lay siege to the town in the June 1689. The French garrison surrendered at the end of the month when their supplies were destroyed by fire. The French reoccupied Kaiserswerth in 1701 during the War of the Spanish Succession and the Allies laid siege to it again in 1702. After a long and hard struggle the town surrendered and the Alliance decided to demolish the fortifications.'

And that's why we only have the castle ruins today!

 I also found this installation really good. When the vaulted cellar
under the tower where  the Shipping museum now is
was  cleared, they found rubbishfrom ancient times
up to modern ones. The artist built the installation

using the found pieces and showing them in their layers:

I hope today's 'history lesson' didn't bore you all to tears!

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!