Kunst ist schön

I found a little paper bag with a bunch of art post cards inside, which I had bought at a book shop in Vienna back in spring. The quote on the bag by the ingenious Bavarian comedian Karl Valentin just made me smile.

Art is beautiful, but takes a lot of work.

So true. But it's very rewarding work :)

{Day 18} ~ Centre of Attention / {January} ~ The Beginning of a Year full of Inspiration and Creativity

Prompt for Day 18 of Picture Winter: "Centre of Attention"

Today's assingment was to "pay attention to one subject that tends to keep showing up in your work - something that captures your eye, time and time again, and begs to be the center of attention for your creativity".

Well, brushes might not be the thing that most keeps showing up in my work, although I have taken far more and regularly ictures of painting brushes and other paining stuff than you've seen here on my stream. However.

I painted long before I picked up "serious" DSLR photography last spring, but my creativity has been suffering for a long time. 2011 will be my creative year, so I've decided, and already in the first three weeks of this new year, I have found so much inspiration around me which has helped me to develop my photography skills.

I know that I will never be an artist and never be able to produce true real art, and I don't aspire to do so, I'll always be an amateur. But I very much hope that I will also find the inspiration this year to make painting again one of the centres of my attention and the passion it once was, along with photography. And I'm looking forward to combining the two, I already can see so many ways in doing so.

And I just love images of painting brushes and painting stuff :-)

Texture by Shadowhouse Creations.

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I am also using this image for my "Beginnings" page for One Little Word. My word for 2011 is Inspiration. The prompt for this page actually was to take a self portrait. And I will. Later. But I felt that this would be a so much more fitting image, as this is the beginning of my year full of inspiration and creativity.

I haven't really taken the time to work on this project until today. I always wanted to but then all the photo post processing got in the way. And I was also unable to order the supplies as all the three main thing - the album, the plastic refill packs and the card stock were not on stock. And although I kept receiving messages that some small quantities of stock had come in, they were sold out again so quickly that I never managed to order them all three together. And with the shipping costs from the States to Switzerland being what they are, there was no way I was going to order them individually. But album and cardstock at least are now on their way, together with some other scrapbooking stuff, and the refill pages I'll hopefully soon be able to order over here in Europe.

I'm so looking forward to start to get working on the project. I think it's a wonderful idea to have a special word for the whole year and I think that this class will really help to keep focused on it.

I'll soon write more and in greater detail about this class and project, and will be starting at the beginning, but I just had to create this page today and add it here as when I did the processing work on this photo today for Picture Winter, I just felt that I had finally found my "beginnings" photo.

The Wine of Life

Die Kunst ist zwar nicht das Brot, aber der Wein des Lebens (Jean Paul)

I have tried to find a good English translation of this quote, but although I found a great number of Jean Paul quotes in English, I didn't find one of this particular one. It means something like "Art may not be life's bread but it is its wine". Well, I think you get the meaning.

My painting teacher had this quote, scribbled on a piece of paper, stucked on to the wall for ages. Didn't see it today, but it might just be behind some other stuff on the wall :-).

Texture by Shadowhouse Creations.