Preparing for change

I bought a new art journal and have started to paint the covers in the evenings after work, to make it more personal. I meant to use my at the moment favourite colours, purple and green. But after having completed a first green layer, I just had to add some orange and red the following day.

It is actually already looking different again, as I've been working on it some more. I just didn't manage to take new photos yet. A lot of the red and orange has been covered up again with different shades of purple and some blue. And I've added some patterned paper too. 

To continue working on these covers, and to keep changing them until it all feels right is actually very appropriate for this particular art journal. Because this journal will be all about change. I've been thinking a lot about change recently, big and small, wanted and unwanted. About all the changes I want to make in my life, about how to turn negative, because unwanted, change into positive opportunities, about attitude towards change and how to influence it. It feels like now is the right time to start and make some changes. Maybe not start with all those big, scary but also exciting ones, and not everything at once. But at least start taking the first steps. Sit down with a journal and make some notes, turn the one or other little idea into action, put your mind to it, and get the focus and attitude right. And believe that everything will turn out okay somehow. And make lots of inspiring and encouraging and most of all honest and authentic art journal pages on the way.

Linking this up with the wonderful Paint Party Friday, a truly inspiring community.

SPRING*SUMMER*AUTUMN*WINTER

Sometimes you have a great idea in your head, and you get out your paints, and you start working, preparing all the pieces, only to find out, when you're putting them all together, that it just isn't going to work.

I wanted to contribute something to this month's Art-Journal-Journey Challenge, for May's theme "Zeit / Time". What is time for me? What comes to my mind when I think of time? Time flies, already it is mid May, which means that the spring season's in full bloom. Within a few weeks, the bare trees and brown grass have exploded into the freshest greens, the crops are growing in the fields, gardens are blooming, and the meadows look like green and white carpets. Very soon the summer sun will bleach out all colours, make the pale blue sky flicker, and send people flocking to the lake and river to find relief from the heat and humidity. Slowly, the days will begin to get shorter, the air will get cooler and drier, and the trees around will start to look as if they're on fire, glowing in the brightest reds and oranges, and the leaves rustle under your feet when you walk through the forest in the early morning mist. Soon, it will be cold even in the middle of the day, the air getting chillier and clearer, and beautiful delicate snow crystals start to cover the earth with a soft fluffy cover, turning the world into a perfect winter wonderland. I'm glad I live in a climate where the four seasons are very distinct (although I could do with a bit more snow in winter and less heat in summer). I had an idea about what I wanted to do and made a quick sketch for later, when I would have time to get to work.

I had been working all Saturday afternoon on a watercolour painting (more about it tomorrow), and I wanted to use the same technique for my seasons to reproduce the colours of the seaons.

Summer I found the hardest to do, probably because it is my least favourite season. Even though my idea of a perfect summer holiday does not include lying on a beach, baking in the hot sun and bathing in the sea, I usually spend them in countries where the sea plays an important part - Britain and Sweden.

It's probably not a coincidence that autumn, and especially winter, are the ones I like best. The warm oranges and cool greys and blues just work so well next to each other. I also like spring, though, green being one of my favourite colours after all. But winter is definitely my favourite :)

A palette full of colours of the seasons - spring greens, summer holiday yellows and blues, autumn's oranges and reds, and cool blues and greys of winter.

 

My idea was to create backgrounds and then stick the cut out watercolour seasons on to them. I used the same to colour palettes, and added some text. But when I was finished with them, I realised that it wouldn't really work the way I had imaged.

Even though I had tried to keep the art journal backgrounds as simple as possible, there were too many different things going on in them and the watercolours, that combining them would just be too much. So I'm leaving them as they are, as two different versions of the same theme.

As with the watercolours, it's again autumn, and especially winter, that I like best. I'm going to add some more text, I think, writing down some things about the seasons, and what I like about them.

By the way, have you ever noticed that all four seasons in English consist of six letters? That was definitely a very convenient fact for fitting the words on my art journal pages :).

Linking up to the fabulous Art Journal Journey and the wonderfully 

inspiring Palette & Paint.

A study in orange

The colour for January for the Creative Colour Challenge is orange, and we're supposed to create something using only this colour. I decided to do a little colour study, mixing different oranges, and creating a whole page of orange, including some information about this colour.

According to the  book on colour in which I looked up orange, it is the least favourite colour after brown. Now while I wouldn't really want to wear anything orange, I've always quite liked the colour, especially for painting. It is so vibrant, and strong, and juicy, and it can make bright and happy colour accents.

Orange is between yellow and red, it's complementary colour is blue. Its geometric form is the pentagon, its position on the spectrum lies between 600nm (yellow orange) and 650nm (red orange). It is a modern colour, up till the end of the Middle Ages, pure orange was not used in European painting. It was regarded as a poor and unsuccessful form of red, and therefore avoided. It is named after the orange fruit in most languages.

It's connotations are: youth, courage, warmth, sun, extraversion, warning, caution, sunset, sociability, sympathy, compassion, health, desire, lust, willingness to make sacrifices, autumn. Orange is radiant, bright, loud, glaring, garish, bold, striking, noticable, cheap, purging. Orange is the colour of health, it is purifying and is good for one's nerves. Hyperactive, nervours and choleric persons should avoid the colour. Orange is an "opening" colour, it promotes the capacity for enthusiasm and releases blockades.

My first Paint Party Friday check-in

Paint Party Friday is another project I want to take part in this year (I started working on a post about all my projects/challenges for this year, which I meant to post earlier this week, but then work got in the way - and unfortunately, I don't mean the creative kind of work...). Well, with the first week back at work at the library after the Christmas break, my creative work has rather slowed down, and I didn't really have the time and/or energy to continue working on the painting I started on Monday (see my last pots).

But I didn't want to already miss my first Paint Party Friday, so last night, I took out my watercolours. It's actually the first time since my painting holiday in Salzburg in mid-December that I did some watercolour painting. Somehow, I just needed a little break from them... (But I'm not giving up on them - yet :) ).

I was quite frustrated, last night. The colours were again doing what they wanted, and all my layers, shadings and details had comletely disappeared once the colour was dry. But after putting it all aside for a day, and then adding some additional layers and details on top tonight when I got back from work, the colours fnally started to behave themselves...

I'm planning to spend quite some time painting this weekend, so hopefully, next Friday I'll have a bit more to show than just a couple of oranges, but I'm happy I actually did manage to do them :)

And now I think I need some vitamin C... and to tidy up my workspace...

Happy Paint Party Friday!

Happy Halloween

Have a wonderful Halloween everyone who's celebrating it! As I've mentioned before, we don't really have Halloween over here, although when walking back home from the station, I've actually seen a few kids here and there dressed up in some rather improvised bedsheets-turned-into-ghost costumes running around with bags ready to collect some sweets. I'm not sure how many of them actually know what Halloween is, and where it comes from, but I guess the sweets are just too tempting :). Well, they didn't ring my doorbell, which is just as well, as I didn't have any sweets. All I've got are my gorgeous pumpkins, and I'm still fascinated by them. I just love their colours and shapes!

And they're a perfect subject for practising my sketching and watercolour painting skills. The green spotted one I enjoyed particularly, patiently buidling up one layer after the other. Here's a step-by-step of how I did it. It really isn't that difficult, it just takes some time and patience. (Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to make that picture series bigger than this):

 

It's so relaxing, like meditating! Just concentrating on the colours and patterns, putting one brush stroke or dot after the other, down on to the paper. I've done three of the five (although the warty one isn't finished yet), so there are two more to go. And then one of them also wants to be turned into a nice soup!

And then there are all those lovely leaves everywhere outside! I've started painting some of them too, and I've got lots more to do. I'm so glad I re-discovered my watercolours. All these autumn things are just perfect for them. I'd never thought I'd enjoy them so much!

{Day 31} ~ Gather Your Thoughts

Prompt for Day 31, and last day, for Picture the Holidays: Gather Your Thoughts

I've read about the idea of choosing a word for the year on Kim Klassen's blog and have been thinking this past few days about which word I might choose for 2011. At the end, I let my Angel Cards decide. I made them myself over 10 years ago, when I was living and studying in China for a year. One of my flatmates, a girl form Canada, had these and one rainy afternoon, I sat down and myself a set. I found them earlier this year in a box and now I occasionally take a card. The card they came up with for 2011 is Inspiration, which sounds like an excellent choice to me.

So in 2011 I'll keep my eyes and my mind open for all the inspiration around me, to allow me to delevop my photography further, to learn more and to grow. But also to be inspired to find new ways to make those changes I've been wanting to for so long.

I have found plenty of inspiration on Flickr and in the online classes I took in the past 10 months which has helped me immensely in learning about photography and post processing, and I know I will continue to be inspired by the skill, creativity and friendship in 2011.

Have a wonderful and inspiring 2011! 
Happy New Year!

Textures by Shadowhouse Creations, Kim Klassen and AlicePopkorn

{Day 9} ~ It's A Sign

I didn't spend the evening of my "day off" the day before yesterday on the sofa, instead I got lost and walked in the wrong direction several times in the dark among several construction sites in a part of Zürich where I haven't been for ages and which I almost didn't recognise, until I finally found the shop I was looking for - and bought myself an early Christmas present, a 50mm lens. Yay!

So last night, I went to the city again to try it out and to take the pictures for the last two days. Thursday's prompt for Picture the Holidays was "It's a Sign". I found this cup in the city's English Bookshop and it just made me laugh. And it will make a perfect present for a dear friend of mine :-).

Christmas time is most certainly not the time for dieting! :-)