A visit to an art fair, and back to some abstract painting

Last Friday, I went to the annual International Art Zurich - Contemporary Art Fair. I was given a free ticket for two at work, and my Mum was happy to join me. It was already the 17th fair, but I have to admit that it was the first time I visited it. But I'm glad I did. It was really inspiring. The exhibitors were both galleries and individual artists, some from as far as Australia and Thailand, but also many national and local ones. There were lots of mediums and styles on show, and although not all of them were to my taste, I appreciated the high quality of the works. There were only about two or three paintings, which in my personal opinion, weren't very impressive and didn't really quite fit the high quality standard of the fair. But as I said, that's just my very personal opinion. I prefered the individual artist exhibitors to the galleries, and apart from the very inspiring work of theirs, I also found it interesting to see how they presented their work and themselves. I collected a lot of business cards, flyers, cards etc. It's always good to get some ideas of how these things can be done. You never know. It was also interesting, though, to see what kind of paintings/artists the galleries represented.

After the visit to the fair, my Mum and me walked through the cold, wettish and autumny city, looking for a place to have lunch, before taking the train back. Back home, I just felt inspired to go to my studio and take out some paint tubes. I've always liked abstracts, and I used to paint a lot more of them earlier, but much less recently. But now I felt like getting back to it again. I've mentioned in last week's post how our own expectations can often get in the way before we even start a drawing or painting. I think that abstract painting can help with overcoming those expectations, as it is a much more intuitive process. I enjoyed very much putting these first layers on, and I'm looking forward to the weekend now to add some more and see where it goes. Apart from the visit to the art fair, it's heavily insired by the season. I'm not a fan of yellow at all, at least not of a cold, lemony yellow. But all the deep golden yellows of the leaves outside have definitely made me grab those yellow paint tubes. And we get a lot of grey, foggy days with the clouds hanging low here too. I love autumn!

Painting backgrounds

I had a busy and productive day in the studio on Monday again. I put the sheep painting aside for the moment in order to just play with some colours and prepare some backgrounds. I had some colours in mind that I wanted to try out and put on canvas, colours that are a bit less bright than the others I used for the intuitive paintings, and a bit more earthy. I really do like these colours together. There might be some more sheep going on this.

I also had a canvas that I had started with some time ago, and which was waiting to get some more layers on. I had intended for this to be a portrait format, but working a bit more on it, it decided that it wanted to be a landscape. I had thought of painting a coastal scene for some time, inspired by my frequent visits to the beautiful Dorset coast.

The greenish layer in the above picture was actually the leftover paint after trying out a technique that Alisa Burke shared on her blog the other day. When I saw that marbling effect, I knew I had to try it out. When your studio is a carpeted room in your rented flat, you have to be extra careful when going a bit wild with acrylics, but with the help of a big sheet of plastic and a rug, I managed to keep it all under control. Oh I'm longing for the day when I'll have a proper studio space, and don't need to worry about paint getting all over the walls and the floor. Anyway. I only did the one little canvas, but I like how it turned out. I'll definitely have to try it out again.

With so many backgrounds and other works in progress, it looks like I'll be busy for a while. I just have to find the energy to spend more days in the studio than just Mondays. It seems that at the moment, come Friday evening, I am so tired, that I end up spending Saturday and Sunday relaxing and just hanging around. By the time my energy is back and I'm in painting mood, it's back to the office on Tuesday. And it bugs me. Relaxing is good, our bodies need time to recharge. But maybe I could find a better balance. Hopefully, my new meditation and yoga practice will help me with that.

Happy Paint Party Fridady!

Art journaling

I got my art journal out again this week, after quite a while. An A4 Moleskine watercolour journal with nice thick paper, which takes acrylics and mixed media very well. I like art journals, they are perfect places to just play, experiment, slap some paint on the page and see what happens. It doesn't have to be perfect, you don't even have to finish it. There is no pressure to create something 'presentable'. You don't have to show it to anyone, but can keep it all to yourself, if you want to.

I like to use the pages to let my imagination run free. To paint more intuitively, with just a vague idea to start with, and then see what happens. One such idea is 'home'. Where is my 'true' home? Where will I live one day? Will I ever find that place? Does it exist at all? For this page, I glued some pieces of a map on the paper first and then painted over it. It's not finished yet, and maybe I'll never finish it, but just leave it as it is and move on to the next figment of my imagination. We'll see.

Happy Paint Party Friday!

Still a work in progress - stretching those rusty muscles

It's like when you haven't done any sport at all for a while, and then start again. You've become rusty, the muscles don't know the moves anymore. It's painful at first, and it takes a while to get back into those moves again, but the more you keep going, the easier it gets and your muscles relax and begin to fall into the pattern easily. It's quite the same with painting. You get rusty, if you haven't done it for a while, and getting back into it feels strange at first, a bit unfamiliar. The paints behave kind of odd, you're not quite getting it right. It'll take a little while to get comfortable with it again, you just have to keep working on it. Little by little.

She's not finished yet, but I'm taking it little by little. I'm glad that I set myself the goal for this month to link up to Paint Party Friday every week. Because without the pressure of needing something to share, I probably would have given up on her. And I'm glad I did. Because those muscles need a lot of work and stretching for the moves to become familiar and comfortable again.

Happy Paint Party Friday!

On my easel: Portrait WIP

I've got a few projects for May, and one of them is to take part in Paint Party Friday every week this month (and hopefully afterwards too, as much as possible) to help me get my painting mojo back. I can feel it coming back, but very slowly, and so I've only got a work in progress to share today. But I'm sharing it anyway, again to motivate me to finish it by next Friday. I've still got a lot of work to do on her, but I so enjoyed painting a portrait again.

Apart from a guided visit to the Bührle Collection on Saturday, I'm looking forward to spending most of the weekend painting, and finally taking my new Polaroid SX-70 out for a walk. Just hope it won't start raining again.

Happy Paint Party Friday, wishing you an inspiring and creative weekend!

A little painting work in progress, and some Polaroid success

What a week this has been. One of those that you just want to move into some dark corner at the very back of your mind and never think about again. Just delete, and move on.

So on to something more cheerful. I have taken out my paints and brushes again, although I haven't really got very far yet. I've been taking a lot more photos again lately, and dived back deep into post processing in general, and Lightroom in particular. It's time consuming, and didn't leave much time for other things. But it is also a lot of fun and the beautiful trees that are in full bloom, showing off their delicate white and pink blossoms, are just making me happy. I just can't stop taking photos of them, with my DSLR, my iPhone, and my Polaroid.

I've taken out and been playing around with my Polaroid camera again, and I think that I might finally get the hang of it. After having wasted about three or four films, including a colour one with silver frame that I particularly liked and that the shop I buy the films from doesn't seem to have anymore. (A little tip: read the instructions...). With the first one, it was pure luck that it turned out alright, with the other two, well, they were after I read those instructions... The scanner doesn't do them quite justice, the colours are much nicer. But I'm really quite excited about the Polaroid experience again, and I'll be taking my camera out much more often now. And without wasting quite so much film anymore.

But back to the painting. I haven't that much to show yet, only a background - which isn't even finished yet. But I'm sharing it anyway - and linking up with the inspiring Paint Party Friday - as a reminder to myself to keep going and finish it, so that I'll have something proper to share next week.

Saturday studio day

It's been a while since I took the time to just play with my acrylic paints. There are just so many things I want to do, explore, and try out at the moment, so the acrylics got a bit neglected. But I really enjoyed taking them out again yesterday, and put layer over layer. Not finished yet, she still needs a bit of work. But that has to wait for the moment.

DIY Postcard Swap: Work in progress

More details added to the collage backgrounds of my cards for the DIY Postcard Swap. A little bit of paint, texture, stamps, and some washi tapes. 

And I could finally make use of that postcard stamp I bought about two or three years ago. Isn't it just perfect?

They're almost finished but there are still some details I want to add over the coming weekend. I really like how they're coming along, and I can't wait to send them out into the world. I received the addresses yesterday. So exciting! The creative juices are definitely flowing again.

Linking up to the wonderful Paint Party Friday as well, even though there's not really much painting going on in these. But I've missed a few weeks, and it's always a great and inspiring place to to go.

Summer of Colour, Week 5

I wasn't too happy about this week's colour combination, Candy Apple Red & Yellow, I must admit. I like red, but yellow really is my least favourite colour, and I just wasn't convinced that the combination of the two could produce something I'd be happy with. But of course I decided to give it a go, and as the yellow wasn't a specific yellow, I decided to make the best of that and use as warm a shade of yellow as possible, bordering on light orange.

I've only come as far as finishing the sketchbook page, and preparing the background on the sheet of watercolour paper. But I'm determined to finish that one too over the weekend, and catch up with the the past two weeks too, to be ready for the final week next week.

I did the doodles only last night, and, with my head being full of all the new stuff that starting a new job brings with it, my imagination was a bit limited. So I decided to go back to one of my older designs from my trainsketches. I love these sketchbooks, they are becoming such a great source for inspiration.

I have to say that I'm quite pleased with the result. The colours work well together, and I'm glad I tried a combination I'd never would have chosen myself. Can't wait til Monday now, when the last combination will be announced (can't believe it's already the last week!). I already can't remember what combination I voted for, but I'm hoping that it's going to be one that includes blue. We haven't really had any proper blue so far, only the turquoise in week one. Anyway, still lots to catch up with, so I'd better start working.

Patient owls, and some sketches waiting for colour

This week's a bit of a mad week, and there hasn't been much space for painting, or rather, none at all. And I'm so behind with colouring in my lunch- and trainsketches. And I've neglected them a bit too, to be honest. But that was mainly because I spent my train journeys and lunch breaks with reading Harold Speed's The Practice and Science of Drawing. Written in 1917, but still a fascinating read, and a most inspiring one too. 

But anyway. I did a couple of lunchsketches in the past few days, and I found a finished sketch which I haven't blogged about yet. So these will have to do for today's Paint Party Friday. I was thinking about giving the party a miss altogether today, but to be honest, I could do with the "company". So here I am, with my row of colourful owls patiently waiting for news,...

 ... and a few sketches patiently waiting for colour.

I hope to have some time, and inspiration, to colour these sketches, and to do some painting too, over the weekend. But we'll see. I'll definitely try to visit as many blogs as possible, but my mind's a bit preoccupied at the moment, so I apologise in advance if I'm not going to do a very good job with keeping up. But I'll do my best.

Happy Paint Party Friday!

Where is home?

I have been thinking a lot about where I want to live these past few years, where my real home is. While Switzerland is a pretty good to place to live in, and Zürich regularly makes it into the top ranks of the world's best cities to live in, I always felt it was not the place where I really belonged. In fact, I always liked my city, my country best from outside, from a certain distance, for a short visit. I've lived abroad for a year twice, and dreamed of working and living abroad for ages, and I've been thinking about it more often again recently. I think the big canvas (it's 60x120 cm) I'm working on at the moment reflects this search for that place I'm still looking for. I very rarely start a painting without having any idea at all about what I'm going to paint, but this is one of them. All I knew was that I wanted it to be green to match the bedroom. This is what was beginning to emerge in the first session.

In the second session, I still didn't have a clue about where I wanted to go with this, only that I wanted to tone down the bright colours a little bit.

It is not finished yet, and while I do have one or two ideas what I might try - or not, I'm still not sure at all what it will look like when it's finished. We'll see.

Have you found your true home? Do you live in the place where you belong? How did you find it and get there?

Linking up to the wonderfully inspiring Paint Party Friday, which is always a beautiful place to visit.

In my sketchbook: Commuters, flowers, glasses, and lots of pages waiting for colour

I seem to have a bit of a painting low at the moment. I just don't seem to find the time to spend a day, or even half a day at my desk or easel to get the acrylic paints out and do some 'proper' painting. Too much work, too much commuting, and a day trip up a mountain last Saturday sort of got in the way. But I've been keeping up my trainsketches, and even found a spare half hour on some evenings to add some colour. There's always time, even if it's just half an hour here and there.

With my long commute to work, almost 4 hours both ways, I spend a lot of time in trains. Those train journeys can be very relaxing, at times. Most of the days, I quite like my early morning journey. There aren't too many people on the train, so that I usually get a little compartment on my own, and it's usually dead quiet, because everyone's asleep. Outside the window, night changes into day, and I've got time and quiet to do my little sketches. But occasionally, my fellow travellers are just a pain, getting on my nerves big time. And the best outlet for one's frustrations is, of course - one's sketchbook.

I'd like to do a lot more sketching in my lunch break too, but working out in nowhere, in a small team, where everyone eats their lunch at the same time and at same table, I don't feel comfortable enough to do so. But occasionally, there's a day when I'm all on my own, and then I draw and use whatever is lying around on and around my desk, such as my glasses and some stencils we use to label boxes. Although I'm a winter girl, I'm looking forward to some warmer temperatures now, so that I can go outside for some sketching in my breaks.

Nature's one of my biggest sources for inspiration, and I like sketching flowers. Realistic flowers, imaginary flowers, doodle flowers - flowers in every form. These are more realistic, though I'm not sure what exactly they are supposed to be. They could be tulips, I guess. Sometimes, the boundaries between realistic and imaginary isn't that clear.

I've had more time for sketching in the morning than for adding colour to them these past 10 days, so I've now got a whole bunch of sketches that are waiting for colour. And I can't wait for the weekend to begin so that I can get the watercolour paints out. And hopefully there'll even be some time for the acrylics to come out on Sunday.

After having had to give it a miss last week, I'm linking up to the wonderful Paint Party Friday again today. Have a wonderful, creative weekend!

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.

Back-to-green-again wip

 Last week I was happy experimenting with a sudden red phase tea inspired worn background, but I haven't quite decided yet how to proceed with it. Jenn suggested adding teal, and I must admit it sounds very appealing. So maybe some teal combined with light green and white? Abstract or not? I simply don't know yet. I'll just have to let it hang on a wall for a bit and wait & see.

So this week, I started working on a new canvas. I'm thinking about buying the wooden frames and fabrics  separately and start stretching them myself, as it allows much more room to experience with different fabrics  etc. than the ready made ones. But I haven't got round to get all the required supplies yet, so I just popped into the shop and bought a stretched canvas, a 70x100cm one.

I usually stick to my usual tried & tested products and brands, but this time decided to try out another brand. I like these broad ones, but they tend to be quite expensive, especially at this size. This canvas was half the price of my tried & tested brand's normal, narrow one, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm usually quite suspicious when these big canvases are "too" cheap. After all, when you're going to create a piece of art you want to be proud of, you shouldn't economise on the quality of your supplies. But anyway, the most important thing is that the canvas lies flat and isn't warped, and this one was plane enough. And I think it was the first time I walked out of the shop without having spent a fortune - despite having not only bought a big stretched canvas, but three bottles of paint and a sketch book as well!

I'm back to painting with my beloved greens and added a first layer of paint. Green just makes me happy :).

The pictures I took of my palette unfortunately didn't turn out very well, so I'm afraid I'll have to post some pictures of my paint bottles instead. I don't stick to one particular brand of paints when I paint, instead I mix and match them all. I'm quite fond of Lascaux paints, though. Unfortunately, they are on the expensive side.

Unlike with last week's red painting, I know exactly what I want to paint on this one. But the background is not quite right yet and will still need some more work until I'm happy with. But first I'll have to go back to the shop and get some more paints.

Happy Paint Party Friday 

&

 Happy Palette & Paint!

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!!