Soar

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings (William Blake)

Totally uninspired

I don't know what it is, but I'm feeling totally uninspired at the moment. I had been looking forward to a long three-day weekend filled with paint and creativity, but instead I ended up spending most of the time on the sofa, with no energy at all to pick myself up and do something useful. Although that is not strictly true. I have actually covered four pages in my Moleskine sketchbook/art journal with collages and paint, but these were more repeated manifestations of severe procrastination and frustration than real inspired creativity. The obligation of having to produce abstracts of two articles in French (a language I will never master), filled with a whole range of terms related to some new degree courses I had no idea of how to translate into German, had repeatedly woken the urge in me to grab some glue and paint and stick something into my sketchbook, in order to put off the unpleasant task.

So my weekend ended with two unfinished abstracts and four finished journal pages, but I didn't have the energy to take pictures of them and write up a blog post. So Instead I'm posting some photographs I took during my holiday earlier this month, taken at one second favourite National Trust place, Angelsey Abbey. I've visited this place several times and at different times of the year. It is a perfect place to spend a happy and relaxing day.

The silver birches with their beautifully coloured and textured bark always make me happy:

The herbacious border is full of forgeous plants and flowers, like this delicate "chandelier" of blossoms:

Or these beautifully patterned flowers:

The gardens are full of busy bees of all kinds collecting pollen:

Daisies - simple but always pleasing:

I'll have another day off on Wednesday (our national holiday), and I hope to spend it in my studio. With the abstracts finally out of the way, there should now be nothing to distract me. Hopefully.

A is for Albatross

I've been thinking about using one of my sketchbooks to do an illustrated alphabet, and last Sunday, I finally got started on the first page. I've made a list in my notebook with ideas for each letter. It's fun to think of things, and I've already filled in a lot of the letters. But there are some letters I just can't think of anything at all at the moment. Well, was easy to choose. A stands for Albatross.

This one is a black-footed albatross. Black-footed albatrosses aren't really blue at all. They are dark grey/black, with black feet, obviously. But the photo I decided to use as a reference had a blue tinge, and I thought it just went well with my blue winter page and palette I used this week, so he turned into a blue albatross.

It's probably going to take me ages until I reach Z, with all the other things and projects I want to work on. And there are even more letters after Z to fill the remaining pages of the sketchbook. I'm not going to restrict myself to one language, but am just going to use whatever fits best. And it doesn't really matter how long it  is going to take anyway.

I took out my good old "Wahrig" dictionary to add words beginning with the letter A, which gave me a bit of a headache. Might think of something else for B. I cut out the letters from book paper and pasted them onto the page. Apparently, although acrylic ink is made from acrylic paints, it is not as water-resistant as the paint itself (or maybe, I just didn't wait long enough for it to dry properly). Some ink blobs covered up most of the mess. Must remember to mix my own liquid acrylics again for writing. It's not a big deal to do. You just add enough water, really.

Why an albatross? It's not that I have a special thing for albatrosses, let alone ever seen one. But I've recently discovered the books by Swedish author Majgull Axelsson, and I've become addicted. They are not cheerful books, often rather depressing, really, and sometimes even disturbing. They're mainly about women and their relationships as mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, and no matter what their circumstances in life are, no one is ever really happy. I've read four of her books, am reading the fifths one and have one more waiting in my bookshelf. Somehow, her books totally speak to me right now. It's their bits of wisdom I seem in need to hear at the moment. Suche as the sentence from her latest book "Moderpassion": Livet skulle ha kunnat vara mycket annorlunda. On än inte nödvändigtvis bättre. (Life could have been very different, although not necessarily better). Yes, a different life would not necessarily have been so much better. At the end, it's all about what you make of it.

My favourite book of her so far is "Den jag aldrig var". It's about MaryMarie, who's leading a sort of double life. One of her personalities is Mary, the successful minister, who, when life becomes just too much, is struck by a form of aphasia where, whenever she tries to speak, the only word that comes out is "albatross".

Anyway, it's Friday, it's almost weekend, and time for party now! 

Happy Paint Party Friday!

In our dreams, we are free...

Sometimes, we just feel trapped in our lives. While everyone else is happily fluttering around us in our cage world, we are just not able to feel the same way, see what they see. Instead we feel like we are just in the wrong place, wishing ourselves away, to another place, another life. No matter how hard we are trying to stretch our wings and pursue our dreams and fly towards the light, we just don't seem to find the way out. And everything around us seems grey and dreary, inside and out. And all we can do is sit and wait and hold on tight to our dreams, even if at times we struggle to go on believing in them, and keep trying to stretch our wings, continually, endlessly, in the hope that one day, the fog will lift, the light will shine through, and we're finally able to take off.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. (Walt Disney)

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages. (Terry Pratchet)

Courage and the need for a sensce of security, even if it's probably an illusion anyway, are probably the two main factors that prevent a lot of us from following our dreams... I wish I wasn't such a coward and pessimist...

London Wildlife

I went through some of the many folders on my external memory drive last night and found some images I took last summer in London's Bushy Park after a day spent at Hampton Court.

In my guide book, it said that the park was full of deer and that you'd have a good chance to see some. It wasn't long after I saw the first deer grazing a little distance away. And there were loads more to come. It's really amazing how close you can walk past and take pictures of them. We have a lot of deer in Switzerland as well, but they all live in the forests and you hardly ever get to see them, at least not so close.

I had made the one or other attempt at processing them, back in summer, brightening it up, saturating the colours a bit, and so, but I didn't really know what and how to do with them (the originals are rather dull) and so I just gave up. But last night, I just felt like giving it another try. I felt that I finally knew what to do with them.

There was this group of fawns (is that the right term? and it's probably not 'group' but 'herd' or some other term one's never heard of before) lying in the shade of the trees in the evening sun (it was a very hot day). I just love those two on the ground on the left and foreground with their silly smiles on their faces :-).

Later on, there was a group of stags grazing quite close to the path. I took loads of pictures, first from far away and then closer and closer. I couldn't believe how close I could get to them - and none of them ever even lifted his head to look at me. Ignored me completely. I must say, I was rather glad about that though :-).

It was a lovely day out there at Hampton Court and in Bushy Park. And a lovely holiday, all in all. Amazingly, in the two weeks I spent in London, it rained only once, and that early in the morning, providing wonderful and dramatic clouds over the Thames and London Bridge in the afternoon. Apart from that, it was hot and sunny every day and I came home tanned and sunburnt - and with everyone looking very suspiciously at me when I told them I'd just come back from a holiday in London :-). I'm going to London again this summer. I've been there many times but there are still so many things and places to discover, and I find something new every time I go. I don't think I'll ever get tired visiting that city :-).