Back home again

Back home again after a great 2 1/2 week's holiday in England, where, with the Queen's jubilee earlier this year, and the Olympic games later this month, virtually everything is blue, red and white.

I had taken some water soluble coloured pencils with me to work in my storyboard sketchbook, but I wasn't happy with the pencils, so instead I went to my  favourite art shops in London and bought some paints, stains, inks, stamps... and started a new sketchbook/art journal. Staying in a student hall room without telly for the first 10 days, I happily spent some of my evenings collaging and painting away. With all the Union Jacks, or Union Flags (as it is usually called Union Jack only when at sea, although there seems to be some debate about the whole name business), and with having just purchased some red, white and blue paints, a Union Jack/Flag naturally had to go into my sketchbook.

I had the paints, a couple of brushes, and a water glas, but I hadn't really thought about a palette to mix my colours. A simple plastic carrier bag worked perfect as substitute palette.

I found some Liquitex soft body paints in one (and only that one) of the art shops in London. I really like them, they're perfectly smooth and creamy, but not too soft and runny. I just wish I could have bought more of them, as I haven't seen them anywhere here in Switzerland. But there's a limit to how many tubes of paint you can squeeze into a suitcase.

Paint Party Friday 47*5 ~ when is it finished?

My "lollipop" trees are finished. Or so I think. At least for the moment. (And I promise this is the last time I'll post them here).

While I liked the patterns and colours, I just wasn't 100% happy with it. It didn't feel right yet. So I added a layer of white over it, but it was still not right. At the end, I used some oil sticks and generously went over it all, adding a creamy layer while allowing some of the patterns of the layers of acrylics underneath to show through.

It's hanging in the living room at the moment, and I keep looking at it, adding/adjusting a little bit here and there, and thinking about whether to add some shadows or not. It's not always easy to know when a painting is finished.

I went to see the documentary film "Gerhard Richter Painting" at the cinema (watch a extract here) in my Christmas break. Richter often lets his paintings hang for some time between each step, before deciding what to do next, letting them evolve, and often changing them completely in the process. At one point, the film maker asked ihm to explain when /how exactly a picture was finished. He tried very hard to give her a satisfying answer. She wanted a straight, logic explanation, and he simply couldn't give it.

I could understand his struggle. When is a picture finished? In my opinion, or rather personal experience, there are two possible ways to finish a painting:

1. You paint until you come to the point when it simply doesn't need even one single brushstroke anywhere anymore. It simply is just finished, and you know it. You hold it up, look at it from a little distance, satisfied, smiling, and you say to yourself "yes, it's finished".
2. You simply don't know what to do next. You pick up some paint, you are about to put the brush on to the canvas, then you hesitate. No, not there. Maybe here? No. Maybe with another colour? No. After a while, you just put down your brush, look at your painting long and hard, shake your head, and mutter to yourself, "well, I think it's finished then".

Sometimes, the second can result in the first, after some re-working or over-painting after some time. But at the end, you can't really explain when a painting is finished. It's a process, which sometimes can take weeks, months, until you come to the point when you just know, one way or another, that it's finished.

How do you know when a painting is finished?

Happy Paint Party Friday!

On my palette ~ hands-on creaminess

There isn't so much an actual physical palette this week, instead, the palette consists of three oil)paint sticks. They can be applied directly on to the canvas, and then worked and moved around with one's fingers, so  they don't have to be mixed on a palette, or taken up with a brush from a palette. Although they can be used with brushes as well, just like paint out of a tube or pot (although I haven't tried that yet, painting with one's fingers with them is just too much fun).

The colours I used are: Alizarine Crimson, Meadow Green and Antique White.

I mixed them with acrylics, or rather, I applied them over the acrylics (from last week's palette) on the canvas.

Here's a little sneak peek of the finished (?) painting. I'll be posting the whole thing tomorrow, for the Paint Party.

Have a look at what others have on their palette over at  
Palette & Paint!

Summer...

Summer's now finally arrived here, with much delay, and, in my opinion, rather unnecessarily. I don't like summer very much, and I don't like sunshine very much. Long, cold, dark winter nights, the world outside all white, warm lights inside a comfortable, welcoming home, thick wollen socks, a big mug of hot white cholocate, big snowflakes falling noiselessly down outside my window are much more to my taste. The only thing I really like about summer are the thunder storms. Hopefully, we'll have one tonight!

Textures: Shadowhoues Creations

It's my day off today, outside, the temperature is around 30 degrees, and it's hot and humid, and I'm doing the only reasonable thing - I'm staying inside the house. All day. All weekend. And all of next week I would too, if I could and didn't have to go to work, as summer has apparently decided to hang around for a bit now.

So I'm staying inside the house, spending the time doing things that need to be done, going through my pictures, old winter picures, dreaming of cooler days, longing for winter, snow, ice, the north, another place, another life, listening to my favourite songs, dark, melancholic songs, which bring back memories of times gone by and places where I felt at home.

Maybe I'll go outside a bit later on, when it's cooled down at least a little bit, when the sun has set behind the mountain. But maybe not. I'm looking forward to having the snow scrunching underneath my warm winter boots again, in a few months, hopefully. I feel so much better in thick wollen jumpers and scarfs and winter boots than in t-shirts, skimpy dresses and sandals, and I look much better in them as well, believe me.

Textures: Shadowhouse Creations

So I'm staying in, drinking a glass of cold water with homemade mint syrup, and planning my next summer's holiday: Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland, the North Pole... ;)

Inspired by...

in·spi·ra·tion /ˌɪnspəˈreɪʃ(ə)n/: someone or something that gives you new ideas and the enthusiasm to create something with them

I discovered Donna Downey's blog "simply me" this week, and her Inspiration Wednesday series. I absolutely loved the page created on the latest post from July 13th, the greys, blues and blacks, the splattering effect, the white areas, and of course the stamping. It inspired me so much that I just wanted to get home, get out my colours and start painting.

Inspiration, though, isn't about minutely following instructions and creating a copy, it's about taking the elements that you like and inspire you and turn into something of your own. It might end up looking completely different, or quite similar but with a touch of your own creativity, as the one I did here.

To apply the colours, I used a palette knive instead of a brush, and I went for some bright red acrylic ink splashes rather than the yellow ochre paint. Instead of printing out some text to stick in (I had something about inspiration in mind) I decided to use one of my new rubber stamps instead, together with a bright red ink. "Listen to your heart" just seemed so right for this.

And even before I started working on these two pages in my art journal, I knew that I wanted to use another of my newly aquired gorgeous rubber stamps.

I just really love that stamp. It's so full of life, joy and energy.

I didn't do any sewing either, as I don't have a sewing machine. But I used a fern branch from the park outside the library to add an element of nature.

I'm really pleased with the result. I love the colours and the technique, and the variety of elements and techniques used. You can clearly see where the inspiration came from, but I think I managed to make into something of my own, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

Happy Birthday To You...

...dear little plastic box, and happy anniversary.

It's one year now, since I got my little beginner's DSLR, and it's been one year of exploring, experimenting and learning. It's been a great journey so far, into this wonderful world of (digital) photography. When I first got my camera, I didn't have a clue about how to use it. I used the "beginner's modes", i.e. landscape, macro, portrait etc. in the first few weeks until I was ready to move on to aperture priority mode after a National Trust photography working holiday in the Lake District last May. The firts thing our tutor made us do back then actually was to shoot in manual mode and trying out all the different settings, especially white balance. I found it all rather confusing and overwhelming, and so confortably settled for aperture priority for the next 8 months, ignoring all the other settings and taking my time to discover all about depth of field, focusing and how everything worked together (it's really not much use having someone explain it all to you, you just have so see it for yourself).

Macro mode, 135mm, 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 100, WB: auto. Taken 29/04/2010 (processed 09/04/2011)

By the end of last year, I decided that it was time to move on and signed up for an 8 weeks e-course on how to shoot in manual mode, starting in February. I must admit that when the course began, I was sort of secretly convinced, that it was nice to know all about manual mode, but that I really would go on using aperture priority mode and maybe just pay more attention to ISO and white balance. However, after the 8 weeks, I must say that I quite enjoy shooting in manual mode. It does mean a lot of settings and adjusments to do before you can actually take your picture, but I quite like the feeling that I'm in control of all the settings and decisions. It needs more time but then, all this fiddling with aperture, shutter speed, white balance, ISO etc. really is what a DSLR is about, isn't it. And although I haven't been doing it very long, I do feel that there have been times, when I'm quite sure that I'd never managed to get a satisfactory picture if I had just used aperture priority mode and nothing else. There are, of course, still pictures that go straight into the bin, but that's the limitations of photography. There are certain conditions, where it just isn't possible to get a good picture, and that's another thing one has to learn by experience and trial and error. But I don't think I'll go back to aperture priority mode as my main mode of picture taking, but stick with manual mode and continue on the learning path.

As it's now a year since I got my camera, it means that I'll now be able to compare my pictures with those from last year. I like to believe that I've made some progress and am getting a bit better at it (though when looking through my old pics, they aren't all that bad). Of course, photography is more than just the settings on your camera. It's as much about seeing, about composition, colours and catching moments that mean something to us, that tell our story and our way of looking at and seeing the world. But knowing something about the technical stuff certainly doesn't hurt, and in fact can help you to achieve better results.

Manual Mode, 50mm, 1/1000, f/1.8, ISO 100, WB: daylight. Taken 09/04/2011

Another thing I've started to learn about in the last 12 months is post processing. I got PSE8 almost three months after I got my camera and really started using it about another two months later, mostly doing a bit of levels and saturation adjustments. I also used the straightening tool a lot because I seemed to be absolutely unable to take a straight picture (something I've managed to get much better at). I also used Picnik a lot for my post processing, because it was so easy to use, but I was also often a bit frustrated about its limitations. I felt that I didn't have much control about the processing and I really wanted to learn to do it myself. I found some e-courses (what a great thing they are!!) and learnt first the basics and then all about working with textures, which I really enjoy. I processed the top image with a lovely Kim Klassen texture, the one in the middle using a close-up of one of the blinds in the living room, and the one below with a number of adjustment layers and cross processing. The possibilities really are endless.

Manual Mode, 50mm, 1/1000, f/1.8, ISO 100, WB: daylight. Taken 09/04/2011

So that has been my first year with my little camera. I'm still at the beginning of my journey, having taken only some small steps so far. There's still so much to learn and to practise. Portraits, for example, is something I'm no good at at all but would like to do more often. And there's still a lot to learn about all the settings, most of all about white balance, which I often find very confusing and probably really the most difficult thing of all. But I'll write a separate post about that, I think. All I can say is that I enjoyed the journey so far and I'm looking forward to many more months and years of following the path, and keeping practising, practising, practising... :-)

Light & Shadows

~ there are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast (charles dickens) ~

Photography is a great medium to take a different look at things and put them into perspective. I took this image for the Flickr group 52 of Twenty Eleven for this week's theme Shadows.

Some recurring health issues are casting a shadow over my general state of wellbeing at times. The bright side to it is that it could be worse (but hopefully never will be).

But that's life: full of lights and shadows. And at the end, it is really mainly a question of attitude and the point of view you choose to adopt. (Says a born pessimist and expert prophet of doom and gloom... ;.) )

Textures by borealnz

{Day 17} ~ Stark Raving Magnificent

Prompt for Day 17 for Picture Winter: "Stark Raving Magnificent"

Today's assignment was to "capture some kind of starkness today", to "think minimal beauty", to "think simple".

Firstly: I didn't take this shot today but on Boxing Day, which was a perfect winter wonderland day spent with the family.

Secondly: I just can't think minimal and simple enough to do without using textures at the moment.

Thirdly: but I think I captured at least some minimal simple beauty with this winter road shot and as to starkness, well I must admit I had to look it up in hte dictionary to figure out what exactly that meant (and I'm afraid I've already forgotten it again...).

And finally. I just like how this shot turned out :-)

{Day 12} ~ A Whole Lot of Happy

I'm a bit behind with some of the pictures for Picture the Holiday, but yesterday, I finally had the inspiration for my shot for Day 12 - "A Whole Lot of Happy". Most of the baubles you find around here are the conservative ball, either plain/single-coloured or whith a bit of glitter or other decorations. But there are not a lot of those funny shapes and stuff around. Or at least I haven't come across too many. But yesterday, I found these three smiling snowmen ornaments, and I just loved them. They looked so cheerful and friendly and happy, I just had to take them home. They also were perfect for my Day 12 shot. I had also much fun with the processing, and got quite carried away in the process. But I think these three chaps can take it, and I'm sure they appreciate all the chill and snow I've added :-)

{Day 2} ~ Reframe

Day two of Picture the Holidays and the prompt for today is "reframing", to find time in the hectic pre-Christmas time to enjoy it and calm down. I couldn't live without books and there's no day when I don't read but in winter, I especially love to get up really early on Sunday mornings, when the world around me is still asleep. I love that calming feeling of being the only person awake and having the world to myself. I love to spend the time reading one of my favourite books in those early wintry, snowy, calm mornings and drink a nice cup of tea.

It has also become a bit of a tradition for me to re-read a favourite book in the time before Christmas. This year, I'm re-reading Peter Hoeg's "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow". For a winter and snow lover, the absolute perfect book! :-) I have three different copies of this book, all of which you can see in the picture. The one I'm reading at the moment is the one on top.

It's the last week of the Colour scrapbooking class and the colours are the neutrals, black and white and the shades in between. I think this and the snow outside has inspired me for the tones for this picture :-).