Painting Therapy

Painting is just a perfect way to keep yourself busy and get your minds off things at those times when life decides to present itself from its bitchiest side. So I pretty much spent most of last Monday, when I had a day off, filling one page after the other in my art journal. Painting in your art journal has the added advantage that you can not only take your mind off things for a while, but to also get some things out of your system and turn them into something pleasing and colourful.

"Pieces of Me" - well, not really colourful. I had to go to one of those awful photo boothes, as the train company asked me to send them a new photo to renew my annual train pass. Gosh, I just hate those. But then the photo on my train pass was from my mid twenties, so maybe they did have a point...

"Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained" -  Sometimes you have to be a bit adventurous, and be prepared for some changes to take place in your life.

"Listen To Your Heart" - Of course there have to be two pages, linked together. I think they speak for themselves.

"How Long Until We Meet At Last?"  - Yes, that is indeed the question right now. Thanks to life being bitchy.

"Anticipating Winter" - Well, I just love winter, and snow, and those lovely, amazing snowflakes, so I just had to make a page for winter. According to the weather forecast, we might even get some snow already tomorrow! Fine with me :)

I'm sorry for having been so terrible with keeping up with Paint Party Friday last week, but, well, life and all that... I promise to do better this weekend. Although I also have the complete second series of Downton Abbey to get through, and some more journal pages to fill...

Happy Paint Party Friday

Not all change is bad change

I've added a new page to my Change Journal, which I have quite neglected a bit these past few weeks and months. It was one of those pages where I had no idea what would come out of it when I started. I realised that I hadn't used much blue for a while, and that I even had some new blue paints that were still unopend, so I just started with painting a blue background.

I've been wanting to create a page using a vintage image for ages, and still not knowing what to do, really, this dreamy, happy girl just seemed perfect.

And lots and and lots of butterflies all around.

I started this journal only a few months ago, to help me work on my attitude towards change. And although there's still a lot of change I'm not happy with, I'm beginning to see that not all change is necessarily for the worse. Some changes are pretty good, really. And they come when you least expect it, and are brought about by the smallest things, like finally writing a long overdue e-mail. And suddenly, your world is turned upside down, and you'll find yourself smiling and dreaming and hoping that there'll be even more changes following that will change your life forever, and for the better.

Happy Paint Party Friday!

Overdue

I have missed so many Paint Party Fridays I can't even remember how many of them exactly! So this post really is long overdue, and I'm glad to be back :)

I'm working on a little "recycling" project, although I don't really like the label. Firstly, the term "recycling" makes most people think of plastic bottles and and recycling containers, and things like that. Secondly, collecting things that inspire us and re-use them in some way or other in a painting, is not really something so very special for a mixed media painter. It's just what we do. But then, we're not all painters, mixed media or others, and some people seem to need some kind of labelling to make sense of it all.

We received a whole bunch of old bound journals at the library, and most of them had those old lending cards in them, with the names and dates of the people who borrowed the books between the 1950s and 1970s. I took them all out and used some of them as a background, adding layers of colour, and some image transfer (book paper, of course) on top of it, before adding the word. "Overdue" just seemed the most appropriate, and it just fitted the size of the canvas perfectly :). And there's even more, less obvious, library related "recycling" here too - I used some cardboard insides of a roll of shelfmark label stickers for the circles. The library is an endless well of inspiration :).

"Overdue" - 30x30cm mixed media on canvas

Happy Paint Party Friday!

Autumn at last

It's the first of October already, and it's definitely beginning to look like autumn here. I began my favourite time of the year with a new Moleskine journal, as the old one, although not quite filled to the last page, is definitely full.

The days are getting considerably shorter, and the mornings decidedly cooler, especially on a bicycle. The trees are still green here, but they should start to change any time now, and I can't wait to see all the beautiful, warm, fiery autumn colours starting to appear everywhere.

Walking through the rustling leaves in the forest, the crisp, clean air, the mist hanging over the river, the explosions of colours all around, coming back to a warm, welcoming home, curling up on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate while it's slowly getting dark outside, and lights are being lit everywhere. There's always something especially comfortable and welcoming about autumn I find.

But the best thing about autumn is, that it is not long now until the first snow!