Piglets' big day out

Spring, or rather summer, has come and gone, and the temperatures have dropped from the up to 25 degrees of the last days to a cool maximum of 8 degrees. And it's raining cats and dogs now, and it's not going to stop soon. Ah well, I'm certainly not happy about the grey and wet, but to honest, I wasn't too pleased about the hot and humid sunshine of the past few days either. I know, some people are hard to please.

But although it might be cold, and wet, and grey here, the piglets are enjoying their day out, and they are all so excited to go to the big party that is taking place every Friday - it is, of course, the fabulous Paint Party Friday they're heading off to. They have scrubbed themselves until they were all squeaky clean and shiny pink to make the best possible impression at the party.

 And the big spotted piglet has put on its brightest and cleanest necktie, and is hurrying across the grass as fast as his stubby little feet can go to catch up with the others. He's so excited to be part of the party, he doesn't want to miss a single minute of the fun.

Simplicity, the continuing journey, and an art journal page

The last two, three years have been a journey of change in many ways for me. But I feel that I still haven't arrived. I'm still trying to figure out the life I want to live, and how to get there. Blogging, the internet, has played a big part of this development so far. I found inspiring online workshops and met like-minded artists around the globe, all having an impact on my own work. And my way of painting has changed a lot through these experiences. New techniques, new paints, new ideas. Painting, art, have become a much bigger part of my life than it ever had in the whole of my 15+ years of painting, and there are things I'm now beginning to feel are possible, which I'd never even dared to dream of three years ago. It is all part of something I don't yet have the right words for yet. Part of the journey. 

I'm reading a book at the moment, which I came across on a blog, the way you find these things in blogland, by one click leading to another and another... The book's called "Less is More", ed. by Cecile Andrews and Wanda Urbanska. It's a collection of essays on the concept of Volontary Simplicity. As someone who never seems to be able to get rid of the chaos, I'm naturally drawn to the idea of simplicity. But most books just seem to be practical instructions on how to declutter your home and get rid of half of your wardrobe. Which is not a bad thing as such. But what I like about this book is that it's about the bigger picture of living a simpler life, which includes such issues as sustainability, commuty etc. It's not just about having a home with less stuff in it, but about a fundamental change of our society, about the way we live, what we value, and what ultimately makes us happy. I find it very inspiring, and it makes me think a lot about my own life, and how I want to live it. It's yet another step on the way. 

It also inspired me to create a page in my art journal. First a layer or two with some vibrant colours.

Then trying out the new liquid acrylics I bought during my long weekend in England two weeks ago. Absolutely love this metallic pink!

The last step was adding the word with the help of a new stencil alphabet. I first wanted to do the letters in colour, but at the end decided that the outlines would work best here. Keeping it simple.

Linking up to the wonderful Paint Party Friday, which is such an inspiring place.

And a big Thank You to all of you out there in blogland, who have been, and continue to be, such a great inspiration, and who help me to keep continuing on my journey in so many different ways.

Sweet Mother's Day

I thought I'd bake a cake for my mum for Mother's Day today. Even the ingredients were happy to help me prepare a sweet surprise for my mum :). I didn't actually notice the smiley face until I looked at the photo, so it's upside down, I'm afraid.

Especially sweet decoration. The yellow and green ones would no doubt have suited the lemon cake much better.

But I just liked the pink and lilac ones better :)

No calory counting today! :)

Happy Mother's Day! 

Hope you all have/had a wonderful Sunday!

Spring's knocking on my window

My cherry tree branches in a vase gave me endless delighted, but even more so the apple tree branches, as they didn't show any signs of buds at all at first, and I had already given up all hope ,when I it suddenly burst into a mass of perfect white blossoms.

But the most beautiful blossoms really are the ones on the ancient perfect-for-delicious-apple-sauce apple tree outside the bedroom window, which is knocking on my window and announcing spring with a soft pink glow.

Not that it feels much like spring at the moment. Wet and rain, and winter-coat freezing cold, - April weather at it's best.

A rosy palette of watercolours and a new drawing board

I've been thinking about getting this drawing board for a while, and when the artist materials shop had a 20% sales offer, I couldn't resist. It arrived last week. It's made of MDF, lovely light colour, and a good 50x70cm size.

I had to immediately try it out, of course. So on went a piece of watercolour paper, and out came the water colour paint boxes.

The Sketchbook Challenge's theme for February was "Close up" and this month, I wanted to participate in the challenge (after having had to give the doodles a miss last month). I found a photograph of pretty rose, a close up of the centre of a rose. Perfect for the theme and for the watercolours. A quick sketch of the subject, although not being bothered about copying it one hundred percent. For the rose, I wanted a rosy pink palette - the perfect opportunity to try out those fabulous pink paints I had bought a few weeks ago.

I started with a palette of Permanent rose, Magenta and the rather extravagant and very dramatic Opera rose.

As the rose was slowly developing, some more colours were needed for shading and especially for the deep shadows between the petals. I added some Madder lake deep, Permanent carmine, Quinacridone violet and Indigo (don't you just love Indigo? Such a gorgeous colour) to mix some deeper reds and purples.

I also used some Permanent Chinese white at the end, for some highlights, as I ended up with too many layers of paint, and almost none of the white paper shining through for natural highlights, as usual. I do love the light and transparent look of watercolour, but I always end up with far too much paint  and very little transparency on mine. The Chinese white didn't really work, of course. It looks great when applied, while it was still wet, but it is transparent, so once dry, there wasn't much left of it. So I used a white ink pen at the end, to add some highlights, which didn't really work too well either. Where the Chinese white is too transparent, the ink pen is a bit too opaque here.

It was good to take those watercolours out again. It's been a while. And it was also good to try and do some botanical painting again (something I want to do much more often), even though I'm not overly happy with the result. Still need a lot of practice with those watercolours. But I like my new drawing board :)

Linking this up with the wonderful and inspiring Paint Party Friday and Palette & Paint. 

Do have a look at the contributing artists there, it's simply fabulous and so rewarding.

Photography accessories

There's a whole range of equipment and accessories available for enthusiastic photographers, some of them more useful and necessary than others. Camera strap covers, for example, maybe not the most necessary items, but they're certainly useful and definitely very pretty and stylish.

 

I was so happy when I found the gorgeous strap cover I had ordered from Sewtamz on Etsy in my mail box this week. Isn't it wonderfully bright and cheerful and happy? Doesn't it just make you want to grab your camera and run out into the spring sun and start snapping? It certainly makes me want to do jsut that :). And the best thing, I had it customised with my initials. Yay! :) I absolutely love the bright pink of the monogram and the "bold font" (which I had no idea what it looked like, but it couldn't have been more perfect!).

I have a feeling that this is not going to be my last camera strap (cover). I just love accessories :)

A splash of pink

Yay, after almost 2 1/2 weeks, I finally got my camera back :-). The plastic rubber grip thingy (I have no idea what is called, not even in German) is replaced and firmly sticking and in addition, they checked the whole camera through and cleaned it's insides. So it almost feels like new :-). Hope the grip thingy won't come off again now!

The beautiful pink magnolia tree in my street is getting into bloom and I was afraid that I might miss it, as the weather forecast wasn't too good and announced lots of rain. However, the weather turned out much better with much more sunshine than rain and the tree is exploding with big pink blossoms. Of course, when I came back home from work last night and my camera was waiting for me, I just rushed out again to take a few pictures before the sun started to disappear behind the hill.

 

I couldn't do anything for the Mastering Manual Mode class for the last two weeks (which also happened to be the last two weeks of the course) without my camera, but now that I have it back, I'm now practising shooting in manual mode, adjusting ISO, white balance, aperture and shutter speed and trying to get it all right. I actually quite like it! :-)

* the secret of patience is doing something else in the meanwhile *

I'm still without camera and waiting, patiently, to hear from the camera shop that my camera is ready. I still have a little hope that they'll call tomorrow, which would allow me to go and pick it up Saturday afternoon, after my painting class. Which would mean that I'd be able to go out on Sunday to take some spring pictures. But then, I'm a born pessimist...

So I went through some of last year's spring pictures instead. I read about this colour palette idea on the Divas & Dreams blog and liked it a lot, and of course wanted to try it out myself, and as I can't take any spring pictures at the moment, it was the perfect thing to get some spring colours on to my blog :-).

I took these pictures nearly a year ago, just after I got my camera. It was the very beginning of my photographic journey and I was using the "beginner's" mode - landscape, close-up etc. I didn't really have any idea yet about how to handle my camera. Most of the pictures are really useless, and by going through some of them I managed to free quite some space on my memory drive :-). But some of them aren't really that bad at all. Just the odd lucky shot, I suppose :-). I'm so looking forward to getting my camera back and to taking spring pictures again and to comparing them to last year's and seeing the progress I've made since then and what I've learned in these last 12 months.

Noodle Soup Addict

Hello, my name is Katja, and I'm a noodle soup addict...

I absolutely love soups. And most of all, noodle soup. I've been addicted to noodle soup ever since I can remember and have been cooking noodle soup on a regular basis for the last 25+ years or so. I also always have a supply of packs of instant noodle soups (nowadays you get great ones which don't even require cooking!) both at home and at work for emergencies.

When I was in my late teens/early twenties, I was famous for my noodle soup. I love my noodle soup to have lots, and I really mean LOTS, of noodles in it. I used to be exceptionally bad at getting the balance of noodles and soup right. I usually ended up with just some kind of wet noodles and next to now soup. 20 years ago, after a concert, when it was still too early to just go home and to bed but too late to really go somewhere else, someone would often come up with the suggestion: let's go to home to Katja's and have some soup! I remember one night, when someone had brought a friend along who hadn't had a taste of my soup before. When he looked at his bowl full of wet noodles, he remarked: "Either there's too much noodles or too little soup", at which all my friends cried "that's how it has to be, that's what's so special about Katja's noodle soup!!!".

These days, my soups have a bit more soup to them, but still more than plenty of noodles :).

~ a first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting (abraham maslow) ~

About 20, 15 years ago, I used to cook noodle soup almost daily. When we visited relatives in Germany, my cousin suggested cooking noodle soup one night - she was as addicted to it as me. And then my uncle told me that my Dad, when he was about our age, used to cook noodle soup all the time. I never knew that, but it amused me no end - a hereditary noodle soup addiction, running through several generations and branches of the family :-).

My basic and established recipee for noodle soup can't really be called a recipe, it's more of a quick fix:

0.5 dl water

1 cube of chicken stock

a very generous helping of any kind of (soup) noodles

1 cube of frozen spinach

some pepper, soy sauce and one or two drops of sesame oil

This is quick and easy to do and just perfect for when you come home after a long commute on a full and cold train and in desperate need of something hot but in no mood for some elaborate cooking.

There are of course hundreds of variations of noodle soups and plenty of recipees around. When I have more time I like to make a big pot and add all kinds of fresh veggies and mushrooms (although I'm too lazy to do a real proper soup, I always rely on my good old chicken stock cubes).

I also like to collect recipes when I come across one which sounds delicious. As long as their simple and easy, like for example Nigella Lawon's Noodle Soup for Needy People or Thai Chicken Noodle Soup or Noodle Soup with Udon Noodles (oh, I love them!). Well, there are lots and lots more yummy recipes (indlucing many not from Nigella Lawson ;-) ), and I'm sure you also have your own special and favourite way of cooking noodle soup.

Hmmmmmmm, what should I do for dinner tonight? I think it'll have to be a nice bowl of hot and steamy noodle soop after this post!

Painted Flowers

Just worked through the last lesson of Kim Klassen's basic Photoshop e-course, learning how to create a paint effect and how to achieve a text with gradient.

The composition here could certainly be much improved here, it's all a bit cramped in the right bottom corner, but I liked how the effects worked out. This is certainly something I'll try again. I could imagine that this paint effect might work quite well with a brush image.

The bonus lesson will be a demonstration on how to use actions. Maybe, hopefully, this will finally solve the problem I had with installing actions and make them work!

To work...

Texture and text stamp by Kim Klassen.

{Day 14} ~ Beyond the Chill

Prompt for Day 14 for Picture Winter: "Beyond the Chill"

These bright pink blossoms are everywhere at the moment, bringing a splash of cheerful colour into the rather dull and snowless winter days at the moment.

Texture by Kim Klassen

{Day 13} ~ Controlled Chaos

Prompt for Day 13 for Picture Winter: "Controlled Chaos"

I wouldn't part with my beloved red and green wardrobe dating from 1737, even though it's rather impractical as it is really far too small. Inside it all's more or less under control. It's outside where the real chaos is, with all the piles of clothes, and other stuff you'd usually keep in a wardrobe, that don't fit in lying around.

But it is so beautiful and has so much history and character that a new, modern, big wardrobe simply isn't an option. Just the lock is a piece of art and craftsmanship in itself and I'm so happy that in all the time the wardrobe was in use, the original never got lost.

Another glimpse into my wardrobe. I do wear black and grey most of the time. But there's some colour as well :-)

This picture reminds me of a book I read the year before last. I decided to read a modern book for a change and to read one from the Booker Prize Shortlist. I picked The Clothes On Their Backs by Linda Grant, admittedly mostly because I liked the cover, but I really enjoyed it a lot.

Texture by Kim Klassen and borealnz

New Year, (yet another) New Project ~ 1*52 of 2011

I admire people who are doing a 365 project - 365 pictures, one picture each day. I know I couldn't do it. Picture the Holidays last month kept me busy and sleepless (spending far too long nights at the computer) and I didn't manage to take a picture for each day and prompt but had to resort to a picture from the archive in a few cases. PictureWinter will mean an equally busy January and I enjoy the daily e-mails and inspiration but I also know that at the end of the month, I'll be glad to get some breathing space.

On the other hand, I like the idea of a year long project, to get the challenge and opportunity to grow and develop. So I decided to join a 52 project - 52 pictures, one picture a week. I joined the Flickr group 52 of Twenty Eleven, which is a themed group, making it even more of a challenge.

The first week's theme is I wish...

I've given up wishing and hoping for too much for the moment. I just wish that the new year will be a better one than the last. And I wish for lots of inspiration to work and improve my photography and post processing skills. But I have no doubts that that wish will come true every day :-)

Texture by: rubyblossom
Butterflies: Lileya
Thank you! ♥

{Day 16} ~ Season of Lights

Prompt for Day 16 for Picture the Holiday was: "Season of Lights"

I was looking for colourful Christmas lights but just couldn't find anything. Most Christmas lights over here are the traditional yellow ones. So I used Photoshop to turn my town's big Christmas a bright pink. I don't think I've ever seen pink Christmas lights anywhere!

{Day 13} ~ Simply Divine

Todays prompt for Picture the Holidays was "Simply Divine".

When I was walking to the train station after work, the sky was a wonderful pale pastel pink. I love the light at this time of year, the very light, soft blue skies, the intense and short blue hour (my favourite time of the day in winter) and those rare, pale sunsets. They are much rarer and often so subtle that they almost go unnotived if you don't bother to stand still for a moment and look. They are a gift from nature - simply divine :-)