Paint Party Friday

Hi Everybody!

It's Friday already, and nearly weekend - where did the time go again?

I spent a lot of time in my arty kitchen - when I wasn't outside walking - and tried to use up as many scraps as I could by making collage. I made an A3 mixed media collage, using scraps of paper napkins, stamping and a printed image. The paper was first given a layer of gesso which I textured with a script stamp. When it was dry I added pink and yellow acrylics before collaging it. I added some sewing as a finishing touch:

This is just a part of the huge amount of 'scraps' I have collected, so I might be occupied for the next year or three using it all up!

Here in the close-up you can see the script in the background:

I am linking to Paint Party Friday and to AJJ, Mia's flowers challenge.

The second piece is a hybrid piece. The background was made in 2 minutes by rolling left over acrylics over the page. When it was dry I stamped the tulips with black Archival. The sentiment (Mischief circus), figure and my blackbird photo were added in Serif.

Today we had wonderful weather, so I had 2 good walks. The photos were taken on my walk through the fields and along the Rhine:

I am so delighted to see so many poppies this year, they make me so happy!

My second walk was long, and  on the way back I visited Schloss (castle) Kalkum to see if the goslings have grown - and they have! The photos are still on my camera, I will show them in my next post. But I did take a little video on my smart phone:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Rain's Thursday art date - cracks and crevices

Hi Everybody!

It's time for Rain's art date again and this time her theme is cracks and crevices.

The first thing that came into my mind was  the poem about the Lady of Shallot from Alfred Lord Tennyson. This is the fatal verse:

She left the web, she left the loom

She made three paces thro' the room

She saw the water-flower bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

       She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

'The curse is come upon me,' cried

       The Lady of Shalott.

If you click the link you can read the whole poem.

Agatha Christie used 'The mirror crack'd from side to side' to write a Miss Marple book, which was made into a successful film:

And if you want more about cracks in literature etc, you can find enough here to keep your mind occupied till it cracks....

And I won't even start on the huge cracks in society dividing the haves and have nots, religions, races and sexes....

 I found some art pieces with cracks. I definitely have cracks in my mind:

And another piece showing my cracked head - the feathers are already coming out:

This also seems to have cracks in it:

This is an altered photo made so long ago that I don't remember what it's a photo of, just guess!

My shadow is also cracked:

This is a book cover I made:

More cracks:

And here a mirror with cracks:

Cracks in the entry to this school:

And a mosaic - naturally with cracks on a cracked wall:

I love to see plants pushing their way through the cracks:

This menhir - standing stone - from prehistoric times is on the corner of our street. In the bad old days, a few hundred years back, there used to be a chapel opposite, built to counteract the bad vibes from the old stone. Prisoners being led to execution in our little town, had their heads bashed against the stone for good measure. Perhaps that explains the cracks? The visible part of the stone is about 6 feet high, but there's about the same length again under the earth, to make it more difficult for people to dig out and take home....

There are many cracks and crevices in the old walls of the town and the houses here:

Plants spouting again:

My feet walk over cracks in the stones day for day:

The castle ruins are full of cracks and crevices and plants which sprout from them:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by.

There are always flowers for those who want to see them

Hi Everybody!

Hope you are enjoying your day. It was warm and sunny, so I was able to walk about  a lot, and this afternoon I had a nice afternoon nap on my balcony, and woke up to bird song and the wind rustling the leaves of the trees - perfect!
By the way, the title is a quote from Matisse.


I have another tag for Pinky's 'animals' challenge at Tag Tuesday. I used on of my photos taken here in Kaiserswerth as my background, a ginger cat photo and a digital dog image from Mischief Circus, all put together in Serif:

And I have another floral piece for Mia's flowers challenge at AJJ. I used a flower painting made some time back, and magicked it into my digital programme. Then I copied it a few times and placed them over each other. I digitally cut out some of the flowers and layered them on top. This is a rather fiddly job, but great fun when it works out!

On Sunday morning my early walk took me through our little town, and I took photos of the houses and courts which have such lovely window boxes filled with flowers:

It's a lot of work to keep those window boxes looking so good, so kudos to the house owners who do it so well!

Yesterday  we had a lovely evening glow in the sky, so I took photos from my balcony:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!