Tea time, and never ending photo sorting

Are you getting bored of reading about my photo sorting thing? I don't blame you. I'm certainly beginning to have enough of it. After having discovered several folders with hundreds of photos from 2011 tucked away in another folder on my external drive, I spent all Saturday and Sunday renaming and sorting photos again. And I had thought I had 2011 sorted. No wonder I have a permanent headache these days. But I'm getting there.

Unfortunately, having discovered all those photos meant that I didn't have time for anything else. I just wanted to get them sorted. But despite all the extra hours at the computer instead of the easel, I'm glad I found those photos. Many of them hold dear memories of a place where I loved to spend a lot of time back in 2011, and which I miss very much. Going through those photos made me both happy and sad.

While I haven't done much drawing or painting for a while (too long), I at least tried to take a few still life photos of my new tea pot and cup. Still life photography is something I want to try out and get into this year. The light wasn't good, but I enjoyed the editing process. And I got something other than renaming, moving and deleting photos done.

Life is like a pot of tea...

After my thoughts about art journaling and how I want to use my art journal, I decided to use it to try out an idea I had in my head for a painting. My beloved, but rather neglected tea pot, that somehow got itself to the very back of the cupboard. It's a wonderful little tea pot that is about three times as big inside as it looks from the outside. Amazing. I guess the inspiration for painting it came from a repeat of Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea, an excellent two part series about "Britain's love affair with tea", that was on the other day. Isn't it funny, how inspiration sometimes comes from the most unexpected places?

I want to paint it on a canvas, but decided to make a version in my art journal first. It's an excellent way to try out and see what works, and it also has the advantage that, should I ever actually get to selling a painting, I'll still have a version of it in my journal. I wanted to keep it very simple. Just the teapot on a patterned table cloth.

I was lucky to get about four big bags of all kinds of maps from all over the world recently, and I decided to use one as a background.

My collection of dried used tea bags to be used for some future tea art projects is every growing, and I took one of the labels add it onto the page. It comes from a most delicious butter mint tea that I discovered earlier this year. Tastes like minty toffee. Mmhhhh. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it anymore when I was in England, three weeks ago. And there's no way that something like butter mint tea would ever make its way to Switzerland.

Even though I'm now quite happy with the thought of art journal pages without any words at all, I decided I wanted to add a tea quote - "Life is like a pot of tea, it's all in how you make it". Next now is the canvas. The design's already drawn up and I'm just waiting for the weekend, to get my paints out.

Now I suggest you make yourself a nice cup, or pot, of tea, and hop over to Paint Party Friday to enjoy all the fabulous and inspiring art work that is shared there today.

TeaArt

I'm back from a most wonderful and relaxing 10 days holiday in beautiful Dorset. 10 blissfull days of lots of walking on the beach, on top of the cliffs and through enchanted woods, picturesque little villages, cosy country pubs, stunning views, carpets of bluebells, and simply irresistible, delicious cream teas.

I took loads of photos (will try to share some of them here soon), and I also did some sketches for each day on some of the evenings, but they are still in their early stages, and will need much more work yet. I'm hoping to make some time for working on them during the weekend, but I just can't wait to be back at the party again. So for today, I'm sharing a little project I did just before I left - a little bit of TeaArt in my trusted Moleskine art journal.

It all started with some tea bags of sleepy tea from one of my most favourite brands of tea, Clipper Teas (which coincidentally happen to be based in Dorset!) I had left lying around in the kitchen.

When I wanted to throw them away, I noticed the beautiful warm brown colour of the dried bags. Wouldn't it be lovely to use them for some background for a journal page, or something? So I kept saving the tea bags.

Once I had enough, I carefully cut them up, ...

... pasted them unto a page in my Moleskine journal, added a bit of white to bring out the textures, and finally added a little, simple sketch. A tea pot and cup just seemed the obvious thing.

I really like to use Moleskine sketchbooks for art journals. They have a good size for smaller, less elaborate pages. I like to use them most of all as a kind of reference for different ideas and techniques. They are my little idea collections, which I occasionaly get back to for ideas to use for a biger painting, and they are also my little documentation of some of my little experiments and ideas. I love all the layers of the different pages when the journal begins to fill up.

Linking up to the wonderful Paint Party Friday again. I can't wait to go and see what everyone has been up to while I was enjoying my holiday! Have a wonderful, creative weekend everyone!

Time tor creativity & tea

I'm participating in Jennifer McLean's Artists Play Room Challenge over on her blog Just Add Water Silly. This week's theme is "Coffe & Tea". As I'm a total tea lover and tea addict, this theme suited me perfectly, and I really wanted to participate, even though I knew I was not going to have any time at all to sit down and get out my acrylics in the evening this week.

But then the whole thing with being creative is not that you should or can only be so when you have enough time to sit down and take out your preferred art medium (acrylics in my case) and spend as much time creating as you wish (although that would certainly be very very nice indeed). The thing is with being creative is that you can be so where ever and whenever you chose to be, using whatever you have on hand.

So, while I couldn't sit down and spend hours creating a pretty tea themed canvas this week, I could without problems:

1. do so some sketching into my little Moleskine sketchbook on the train while commuting, adding some little watercolours with one of those handy water-reservoir-brushes, which takes about 5 minutes and doesn't involve long workspace preparations, and
2. do some Scribbler scribbles during my lunch break.

So here's my little sketchbook Tea Time sketch. I guess that teapot would probably make quite a mess when you tried to pour some tea from it, but I didn't have a model to sketch after, and it doesn't really matter, now, does it.

I usualy prefer herbal tea to fruit tea, mainly because fruit tea often tends to have rose hip in it, which I don't like, but I'm very very fond of my Tetley Pomegranate & Raspberry tea, which does not only taste very lovely, but has a great deep red colour as well.

It was actually the first time I was using the Moleskine sketchbook, and I found out that it doesn't really seem to take watercolours very well, which did somehow surprise me. The watercolours seemed to form little puddles on the paper, which gave some special effects when finally dry. But once dry, the paint seems to stick well enough on the paper.

My Scribbler tea party, with everything I need for a good brew. My favourite tea  really is Earl Grey tea. I couldn't live without it, and befor I didn't have my first cup of it in the morning, you better not bother talking to me at all. I have my tea with a bit of milk, and a lump of brown sugar. At home, I only have lose tea, (except the above mentioned fruit tea) but at work, tea bags ar serving me well.

So here we go. One doesn't really need a lot of time and supplies to be creative. A pen & sketchbook, a computer, and a few minutes of one's lunch break or commute are enough to help creating just a little bit every day. But now I think I'll go and make myself a nice cup of tea, and enjoy a well-deserved break.

Do hop over and have a look what the other participating artists have done for this week's theme, as well as for last week's theme, which is beautifully presented by our host Jenn.

Red phase tea inspired (?) wip

I LOVE my art journal. But the problem with my art journal is that it  tends to keep me away from easel and canvas. But during the Easter weekend, I finally found enough time and energy to tackle the 70x70cm canvas that has been waiting patently in the corner for weeks. I had a hundred ideas in my mind, and none of them included any red. But somehow, I ended up picking up the brighest reds in my paint box. And it felt fabulous and right.

Close-up/detail: I love the texture of the canvas and how building up layer after layer creates more texture.

I must admit that my water jar always fascinates me. How you start with fa jar of fresh clean water, which then slowly adopts all the beautiful colours (and turning into some muddy brown) until being washed down the drain. Isn't this just a beautiful lush red? Like freshly squeezed raspberries.

My palette is now covered in reds. The gorgeous Alizarin Crimson gives a beautiful lighter colour when mixed with white, without turning too pink. I still haven't cleaned my palette, and it is now rather bumpy. Not really ideal for working with a roller.

I added a layer, or rather a few layers, of white on top of it all at the end, because it was all getting a bit too much red. I like the aged, worn look this added.

Still a work in progress, but now I'm not quite sure yet how I want to proceed. I have a few ideas but I'll have to meditate on them and wait what'll come out at the end. I've also very briefly considered just leaving it as it is. But I don't think I have to heart to do so. Not because I don't like it, but because it makes me feel guilty. I always feel that if you want to create a piece of art, it needs a bit more to justify it as such than just slapping on one or two layers of paint on a canvas and scraping it around a bit. And all of that in less than a hour. I think that you have to "slave" at least a little bit over a piece to earn it the name of "artwork". And up till now, it has definitely been to much fun and not enough slaving.

So maybe something with white and light green. This combination just screams spring to me, and all I want to do at the moment is having everything around me in white and light green.

Hmmm, I really wonder where this "red phase" is coming from then. I have a slight feeling though that it might be the influence of a new tea I bought the other day. Pomegranate and Raspberry infusion. Delicious! And the colour is just irresistible. Or maybe it's the strawberry & raspberry sorbet I'm totally addicted to at the moment.

Happy Paint Party Friday!!

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!

A little bit of orange

I started working on a little painting on Monday, the last day of my Christmas break.  A new painting, the first in the new year ("new" is the January theme for both the Creative Every Day Challenge and Focus52, which I signed up for in order to try and keep up the creative habit more regularly. I hope to incorporate the themes a bit more creatively in the future...). I wanted to incorporate some orange, start working with that colour, as it is the colour for January in the Creative Colour Challenge (more about this, and my other projects/challenges for this year, later). I love textures and structure, building it up layer after layer on the canvas.

I quite like how it turned out so far. If it was a lager canvas, I might even be tempted to just leave it like this. But it's only a 24x30cm canvas, so the effect isn't quite the sames. And I have an idea in mind that I'd like to try out. Something keeping with the orange theme.

So this is only the background. And it's ready to be painted on to. But before I go on adding my little idea, I first have to do some sketches and exercises in my sketchbook. Try the idea out to get it right when adding it on to the canvas.

But first, I think I'll have a little tea break, if you don't mind. After all, there's no hurry :)

Format Choice: Portrait or Landscape?

In photography, one of the most important parts is composition. You can have the best, fanciest, most expensive, latest pro camera, if you haven't got at least a little eye for composing your image, you're photos will always lack something. It's not about technology but about seeing (although having a good camera is a great thing to have - just don't rely on it to make a great photo). What part of the subject are you going to represent? Wide angle, close-up, macro view, putting it fully visible in the centre (maybe better not), or somewhere to the right and cutting off some parts (remembering the rule of thirds and adding a bit more drama/interest). These are just few examples.

Another question is the question of format you choose: Landscape or Portrait. Some subjects traditionally demand a certain format - such as the portrait or the landscape, obviously. On the other hand, going for the unexpected frame might just make the subjects more interesting. Especially in landscape shots with water, i.e. lakes and rivers, I find that the portrait format often works much better. But at many times, I'm finding it really hard to decide which format to choose and so I often end up taking several photos of the same subject in both formats. And then I simply can't decide which one I prefer! As with my favourite tea lover mug.

I think that the landscape format really works well with the subject, focus on the mug and the lovely amaretti, and I like the cut off chairs and that blue bit behind the chair.

But I also quite like the portrait format which puts the mug and amaretto into the foreground, with the cut off handle of the mug and the two chairs visible in the background inviting you to sit down, take a break and have a nice cup of tea.

Usually, I slightly prefer one version to the other, but here are cases, like this one, where I just simply cannot decide...

Yet another choice then comes with the processing. SOOC (which I never really do at all), some slight post processing to bring out colours, tones, brightness etc. Or using textures and/or actions (which I still haven't figured out how to use with my PSE8). I've been quite a bit of a texture addict these last few weeks, and I still absolutely love them. But in the last few days, when doing the assignments for the Mastering Manual Mode class, I didn't use textures, just some slight processing, and have been quite happy with the result.

So here's the above image with a texture. I quite like it, but I also like the one without. Another example of where I just simply can't decide...



Oh my, always these decisions, decisions. I think it's time for a nice cup of tea now... :-)