A walk in the (Tier)park

A visit to the nearby wildlife park is always a great way to spend an afternoon. Many years ago, the park started to rebuild the outdated enclosures of the past to make them bigger and resembling the animals' natural habitat. This means that you not always see the animals. Which in turn means that there's always a good reason to go back again and again. Because you never know what you are going to see. All of the animals are, or have once been, native to this country.

The horses are some of the few animals that you always see. They are part of a programme that re-introduces the wild horses in Mongolia, where the became extinct decades ago. We were lucky to get to the fox enclosure at feeding time. A family of five, two adults and their three youngsters. Seeing a bear is always a privilege. My favourite anmials, though, are the moose, which this time were too far away in the woods for my camera this time.

But even if you don't see that many animals, a walk in the park (and a hot chocolate in the café/restaurant) is always a pleasure. There is so much else to see, if you look closely, and for every season, nature has a special display. And autumn is certainly one of my favourite, even if it was a bit early yet for the full autumnal colours.

The magic of mushrooms

Finally, summer is over, and one of my favourite seasons has arrived. The gorgeous colours of the autumn, the softer light, the cooler, fresher air... Such a relief after the hot and stiflig summer. And I'm on holiday! A relaxing holiday at home with N, with long walks, day trips, lazy mornings, home made fruity smoothies and good food. 

The other day we went for a walk in the forest and there were mushrooms, or fungi, everywhere. And so many different varieties! They're so fascinating and magical. Just gorgeous, aren't they? Of course I have no idea what they are all called, but just looking at them, and taking pictures of them, made me happy.

Happy Autumn!

Inspired by Autumn

I finished my autumn inspired painting. The original idea was for it to be all abstract, but a little leaf that I picked up on a walk and forgot in my bag, where I discovered it two days later, dried and neatly folded flat, made it on to the canvas.

40x40cm, acrylics/mixed media on canvas

I love the beautiful autumn leaves that we're getting in such abundance this year, thanks to the dry and calm weather. I've been out capturing them with my DSLR and Polaroid cameras several times. They're beautiful in all weathers and stages, and just so inspiring and uplifting.

The beauty of a grey autumn day

I love autumn. Not being a summer person, at all, I'm always looking forward to when the days are getting shorter and greyer, and when the leaves change colour. And this year has been wonderful so far in that respect. The trees are glowing in gold and red, and the leaves are rustling under your feet, thanks to the dry weather. Most days, the sun manages to break through the heavy clouds by midday, but yesterday, it remained grey. I have to admit that I like it when it does so. It does look pretty when the golden leaves glow in the sun, it's true, but it's when it's heavily overcast that the colours really come out at their best, I think. Especially on photographs. 

A visit to an art fair, and back to some abstract painting

Last Friday, I went to the annual International Art Zurich - Contemporary Art Fair. I was given a free ticket for two at work, and my Mum was happy to join me. It was already the 17th fair, but I have to admit that it was the first time I visited it. But I'm glad I did. It was really inspiring. The exhibitors were both galleries and individual artists, some from as far as Australia and Thailand, but also many national and local ones. There were lots of mediums and styles on show, and although not all of them were to my taste, I appreciated the high quality of the works. There were only about two or three paintings, which in my personal opinion, weren't very impressive and didn't really quite fit the high quality standard of the fair. But as I said, that's just my very personal opinion. I prefered the individual artist exhibitors to the galleries, and apart from the very inspiring work of theirs, I also found it interesting to see how they presented their work and themselves. I collected a lot of business cards, flyers, cards etc. It's always good to get some ideas of how these things can be done. You never know. It was also interesting, though, to see what kind of paintings/artists the galleries represented.

After the visit to the fair, my Mum and me walked through the cold, wettish and autumny city, looking for a place to have lunch, before taking the train back. Back home, I just felt inspired to go to my studio and take out some paint tubes. I've always liked abstracts, and I used to paint a lot more of them earlier, but much less recently. But now I felt like getting back to it again. I've mentioned in last week's post how our own expectations can often get in the way before we even start a drawing or painting. I think that abstract painting can help with overcoming those expectations, as it is a much more intuitive process. I enjoyed very much putting these first layers on, and I'm looking forward to the weekend now to add some more and see where it goes. Apart from the visit to the art fair, it's heavily insired by the season. I'm not a fan of yellow at all, at least not of a cold, lemony yellow. But all the deep golden yellows of the leaves outside have definitely made me grab those yellow paint tubes. And we get a lot of grey, foggy days with the clouds hanging low here too. I love autumn!

Polaroid Autumn

I love autumn. All the beautiful colours, the cooler temperature, the longer nights. It seems I have missed most of its glory, though, as autumn seems to have arrived here much earlier than further north, while I was in England. But I still managed to capture some of it with my favourite Polaroid camera, my SX-70 Alpha 1.

{Happy Sunday} Autumn still life

I went for a little walk yesterday, when it was dry and sunny, gathering some autumn leaves and a twig for a little autum still life.

Today, it's very wet and windy, perfect to stay at home all day, and play a little bit in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Have a lovely Sunday!

Project 365 | October 2013

Another month gone, and only two left 'til the end of the year. Doesn't time just fly this year? But I enjoyed October, it was a nice month, with the leaves starting to change colour, the nights getting longer, and the days foggier. After the heat of summer, I can finally breath again, come to life again, feel the fresh cool air on my face when going for a long walk in the forest. With October, my favourite seasons start, autumn and winter. Yes, I prefer dark evenings to long summer nights, and fog and cloudy skies to endless sunshine, and I'm already hoping that we will get lots of snow this winter. October also brought another trip to lovely Dorset, with long walks on the cliffs, spectacular waves in the sea after a night of heavy storms, and a trip to the historical town of Bath. So here's my October in pictures:

I haven't been present in this spot very much this October. I haven't really had anything to show. I'm afraid I'm having a bit of a creative low at the moment. I don't think I've picked up a paint brush even once this past month. I've been spending a lot of time with learning about Lightroom and Photoshop CS6, and I've started doing some more extensive photo editing again, but I'm still waiting for the spark to get me going with painting again. I hope that November will bring inspiration back.

A walk in the woods

I've somehow lost my motivation to pick up a paintbrush the moment. So I've picked up my camera again, and, having recently purchased Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CS6, I'm spending quite some time learning how to use them. Which has inspired me to do some processing using textures again.

I've also started uploading photos to my 500px account. It's a photo sharing comunity that focuses more on the quality of the photography than the comunity, although you can also follow other members, and leave comments etc. I've signed up there at least two years ago, but haven't uploaded an awful lot. The quality of the photography there is just mindblowing, and I was really intimidated to add my amateurish experiments. But if you want to learn and improve, you best learn from the best, and 500px is a great source to get inspired, and see how the pros do it.

I've also created an account at Ipernity, which is sort of the new Flickr. I got tired with Flickr some time ago, and with their new layout and everything that they've introduced recently, I can't even find my way around there anymore. Ipernity sort of is what Flickr used to be before it got too popular and redesigned. And for old Flickr users, there's really a lot that looks very familiar. Unfortunately, there also seems to be all, or at least a lot, of what I came to dislike about Flickr. But I'll give it a try for a while, and see how I like it.

So I'm going to take a little break from painting, and with autumn finally arrived, I hope to get out with my camera for long walks in the autumnal woods, dive deeper into Lightroom and Photoshop, do lots of processing, and hopefully find my inspritation for painting again.

Treasures from nature, autumn, and a new pen

It's beginning to feel like autumn outside. Mainly grey, misty, cold, wet so far. But in my sketchbook, the warm colours of autumn have already arrived. I picked up some acorns and a beautiful litte pine cone on one of my (much too rare, I admit) Sunday walks.

I was using a pen for a little flower sketch the other day, a beautifully rich, deep black ink pen. It was fast becoming a favourite pen for future sketching and doodling. That was until I added some watercolours and discovered, that, contrary to my belief, it was, in fact, not waterproof. It turned the whole sketch into a bit of a mess, but the bleeding pen, together with the watercolours, made for a quite interesting effect, altogether. So I did another sketch, a simpler one, to explore the possibilities, and I think it works really well, giving my autumn leaves that slight autumny feel of decay. So I'll definitely continue to use this pen. I just have to remember not to use it when I don't want that effect! Maybe having put the pen itself into my sketchbook will help.

I'm already looking forward to sketching all those autumn leaves, and whatever other autumnal treasures nature will throw at my feet. I'm really hoping for a beautiful, colourful autumn.

Linking up with the wonderful Paint Party Friday. Pop over and get inspired!

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!

Picture Inspiration Catch Up

The days and weeks just fly by at the moment, and I have so many things I want and try to do, that I never quite seem to manage to keep up with everything, as with Picture Inspiration. But although I've been bad with keeping up posting, both here and in the forum, I have been taking pictures all the time. So here's a bit of a catch up of the last four weeks:

Week 37: Texture love. In week 37 we were exploring textures, that is post processing photos with the use of texture images. Which is something I love and have been doing a lot, even though not so much recently. The mist on that Saturday morning made the shore on the other side of Lake Zürich completely disappear, leaving the little sailing boats looking a little lost and giving the whole scene a sort of timeless feel. I used three different textures to enhance this feel, two by Shadowhouse Creations, and one by Flypaper Textures.

Week 38: A Delicate Balance. The task was to find a delicate balance between image and texture. It was a grey morning, and I loved how the mist hung in between the colourful trees. However, the original picture was rather bland and boring, and needed some processing to bring out the colours. Apart from the usual levels, saturation and light adjustments, I used a subtle texture by Shadowhouse Creations to make the autumn colours shine and to add to the texture of the trees, without making the additional texture too obvious.

Week 39: Leaving Textures. We were leaving texture processing and were focusing on mere texture alone, which the season offers in abundance at this time of year. The leaves all around were of course perfect for this prompt. Not only are they in itself full of texture, but they cover the ground with a blanket of texture as well.

Week 40: Grateful Day. We don't have Thangsiving over here, but this does not mean that we don't have a lot of things to be grateful for, big and small, essential and trivial. So what am I thankful for? There are things I take for granted but which aren't really so self-evident, things that could be better - but also a lot worse, things I worked hard for and deserve, and things where I'm really just lucky, little luxuries that simply make me feel good. Among the last is the fact that, despite my job and long daily commute and all the other every day stuff, I still find time and energy to be creative. And it add so much value to my life.

We received the prompt for Week 41 yesterday. And this one is really going to be a challenge!