carola bARTz

Blog Tired

2012-03-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

It has been over a week since I last posted on my blog. This is quite unusual for me.

Since I started this space in July 2010 I have enjoyed it so very much. Sure, sometimes I didn't quite know what to write about, but that lasted for about a day or two and then the ideas were flowing again. Nothing to worry about.

The best part of blogging is connecting with other bloggers. I've found so many kindred spirits here that I have hardly found in "real" life. There is inspiration galore, opportunities to learn, to take part in challenges - the list is endless. In short, blogland has been a great place.

However, I have felt a weird tiredness over the past few weeks. I used to blog so often, and currently I write one or two posts a week. This week, I haven't written anything. I wonder what is going on, whether I just need a little break. Is this only temporarily? Or is it something bigger?

There is a lot going on in my life at the moment . First of all, the Geek had surgery last Thursday and that was on my mind a lot in all the weeks before. It went well and he is very perky, recovering from the three hours surgery surprisingly fast. He still is in pain, but for that we have those lovely pills...

January was very busy in my Etsy shop, and I am thankful for that. I had several custom orders and sold lots of Valentine's cards. It caught me by surprise, I have to say, I had thought that after Christmas things would be very slow, but I actually was way more busy than before Christmas. It's good to see that people want to show their love for other people, no matter how. February was exceptionally slow, and currently it's picking up again with custom orders for St. Patrick's Day. I'm doing a happy dance here.

There is a lot more going on, but I don't want to bore you with all the details. The outcome, however, of all of this is that I've lost my mojo for writing my blog. It's not that I don't have ideas - I actually do, and I know that I will put them in here one day, but just not yet. I want my blog posts to come from my heart and be honest, and at the moment I feel I can't do that. Everything is just blah, and to write only for the sake of creating another post to keep this blog going without my heart in it? No, I'd rather not.

So I think I might take a little break from my blog - but as soon as something crosses my mind that I want to share with you, I will. I know that I will be back, I just need to get rid of that pressure that I am putting on myself for no reason at all.

But please tell me - do you ever feel like that, and what do you do if you're blog tired?
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Faces - Again!

2012-02-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

It's still February, and I'm still busy with the 29 Faces for the month. I keep painting and drawing, but I am a face behind - not too bad. I don't have a name for the girl on top, I call her "red cheeks", I obviously had too much water on my brush along with the red color.

I was in a devilish mood with this one:

and this girl is not in a good mood either.

Meet Mary (she looks a bit like my neighbor):

and Clara:

And those of you who remember the boy with the funky hair (I finally decided it's a boy) on the cover of an altered composition book from last Friday - the journal is done and it's in my Etsy shop now.

I'm linking up to Paint Party Friday and Sneak Peek Friday - artful and inspiring Friday, I love it!

A Visit to the Nursery

2012-02-22T16:44:00.000-08:00

My friend Jo and I spent a lovely morning together yesterday. As usual, we started out with breakfast at our favorite little cafe in Graton - they serve excellent coffee there and the scrambles are delicious as well.

The latte is served in real bowls, no paper cups here. That's the way I like it.

After that we were ready to visit one of our favorite nurseries - I know, it's only February, but we both love to garden and just wanted to "look".

The nursery always displays their stuff so nicely - our dreams could take off!

One day I will have a little pump like that in my garden!

I was good - I only bought a beautiful columbine and a small trellis that you can put into a pot. But in my head there are many colorful dreams of a beautiful garden this year. Every year I can't wait to get the garden going. The calendula are beautiful and rich right now, and since we have unusually warm weather the peonies are already on their way out of the soil. I have been trimming trees and cutting back old and dead branches and twigs, preparing the way for new growth. I feel whole when I can work in the garden and feel the soil between my fingers.

Are you a gardener? What are you planning to grow this year?

Tulips and Books

2012-02-19T10:56:00.000-08:00

As usual I am late for Photo Art Friday (yes, I know it's Sunday), but better late than never. For this week, Bonnie asked us to share a piece of photo art where we use one of her textures and then use a layer mask to finesse the texture application. It was quite a challenge, but I think I managed not too bad.

I used Bonnie's texture "desert canvas" in blending mode soft light at 100% and then used a layer mask in PSE to remove most of the texture from the tulips and their leaves. After that the tulips received some of the texture back, but lighter than before. It wasn't that difficult after all, it just takes some time and I had a harder time to decide when I was actually finished.

Bonnie's challenges help me to learn using PSE more and more efficiently, and I am very happy about that. Recently I have also taken more "still life" photos which is new to me and I haven't practiced very often. It actually also helps me to take better product pictures of the items for my Etsy store which is important to me.

I am also linking this to Life in Pictures at Coston Comba Photography, a photo blog I have just discovered.
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Still More Faces

2012-02-17T11:55:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe... I'm still active in the 29 Faces challenge and I have 17 faces "under my belt" - the top one counts as two. I really love to paint these roundheads, they are so much fun. These are Mipf and Mupf, names that Kaefer gave them.

This is Isabel

She looks a little bit like my goddaughter, especially the eyes. Isabel (the "real" one) has quite unusual eyes and I tried to reflect it in this painting.

Now meet the skater who seems to be in a lousy mood

I still want to change her/him - make the eyebrows a little thicker, put a soul patch on, hang eight Olympic medals around his neck - well, I guess you know who this could become. Maybe.

After that I dipped my fingers - well, my brush actually - into watercolors again, and 1,2,3 "die wilde Hilde" (wild Hilde) evolved - I wonder what she is making up in her mind. It can't be good.

And last but not least, here's no-name - s/he sits on the front cover of a journal, an altered composition book that I am currently working on.

It's quite clear which faces I really enjoy, isn't it?

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday and Sneak Peek Friday again, please take a look at all these wonderful artists. There is so much talent in blogland.

Love and Chocolate

2012-02-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I played around with Scrabble tiles, chocolate hearts, a photo studio set up (improvising, of course) and my camera. When I uploaded these two pictures to Photoshop I further added texture and played around with a gradient - first time. I can't decide which one I like better - so I ask you: Which one of these two photos do you prefer, focused on the chocolate hearts or focused on the Scrabble tiles?

Wishing everyone a very happy Valentine's Day!

Dew Drops on Smoketree

2012-02-12T13:04:00.000-08:00

One morning I looked at the smoketree at my frontdoor and saw all these beautiful dew drops on it - of course I had to take a picture. And of course I had to add some texture!

Here's the "recipe":
- Levels adjustment
- Bonnie's texture "artist's easel" in blending mode color burn at 47% opacity
- copied it in blending mode soft light at 47% opacity
- some adjustment in hue/saturation and brightness
- Bonnie's texture "goodness" in blending mode vivid light in 55% opacity
- and a final levels adjustment

I love how the drops stand out and almost glow.

I'm linking this to Photo Art Friday - really really late this time (I missed it last week...)
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Four More Faces

2012-02-10T12:35:00.000-08:00

I'm working on my 29 faces, doing one face a day and having a lot of fun. The one above I did yesterday, using oil pastels on a book page that I had ripped from "Wuthering Heights". The book page, of course, is an inspiration I got from Lisa's girls.

These two girls are charcoal ones, charcoal being my favorite medium for drawing faces at the moment.

She looks a bit mad - I think she needs some coffee.

And this one I did today, wanting to try something different - a different shape to the head, the eyes way lower in the face, clearly far from reality - and I love this sassy little guy.

It's Friday - which means Paint Party Friday and Sneak Peek Friday - that's why I like Fridays so much. I'm looking forward to visit all these inspiring artists.

29 Faces

2012-02-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

Rather late I have decided to join Ayala's "29 Faces" where we paint (draw, sketch...) a face a day for the month of February. Since I am currently practicing faces and find myself drawing faces whenever there is time on whatever paper I have at the moment with whatever medium, this challenge shouldn't be too difficult for me - I hope. I will post the faces in blocks rather than one every day. Here are the first seven faces.

This one is my favorite (it's actually face No. 5):

Thank you, Rinda, for letting me know about "29 Faces"!!
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Thinking of My Mom

2012-02-04T02:00:00.001-08:00

1965

It is five years ago today that my mom passed away. She was 85 years old. I still miss her very much.

My mom was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1921 as the oldest of four children. She is a real Berliner, always missing that city throughout her life. During her childhood, however, she spent many summers in West Prussia (Poland today) and always remembers it tenderly. She told us many stories of her childhood which was a happy one. My favorite one was how she pushed her brother into an anthill as a revenge that he had damaged her doll. I loved this story as a child, and now of course my daughter loves to hear this story over and over.

My mom and one of her brothers - the one who landed in the anthill

1925

1932 - 11 years old

She didn't like to go to school very much and admits that she was very lazy. She just had more interesting things on her mind! What she hated most were the Nazi propaganda movies in the thirties the students had to watch at school, and she and her best friend (who later emigrated to the US) sneaked away on a regular basis and rode their bikes over the old cobblestone streets instead.

In order to graduate from high school she had to enroll with the "Bund deutscher Mädchen" (a youth organisation for girls in Nazi Germany). She hated it (she never liked any kind of organisation like this throughout her entire life) and tried to avoid as many meetings as possible. Fortunately, she was able to graduate from high school. She had big dreams - she wanted to become a surgeon. However, with two boys in the family there was no money for a girl to go to university. And further events changed her life entirely. When the war started in 1939 she was almost a month shy of being 18 years old.

1939

1940

She married rather young and had her first child, a girl, in 1943, almost two months after her husband was killed in Russia. She was 21 years old.

Because of the heavy bombardment of Berlin, women with children were "ordered" out of the city. My mom (unfortunately) went to the East, to a small town which after the war belonged to East Germany and is right at the border to Poland. At the end of January 1945 the Soviet Army came into town, but was beaten back for a couple of days. During that small window of time, the residents of that town packed and left to the West in a long trek of people, becoming refugees in the dead of winter. My mom didn't tell too much of that time, only that every night they found a place to sleep at some farm and somehow they survived. It must have been traumatic. What she told us, though, was, when finally in the West, one GI took a picture of my sister (who was just two years old) sitting on her pot peeing at the side of the road! Funny, what one remembers.

She settled down in Lower Saxony where she worked at a doctor's office (the closest she ever got to her dream) and had a rather unhappy second marriage (she had remarried in late 1944). Here she met my dad and, after her divorce, they married in 1955 in Lüneburg and a year later my brother was born.

My parent's wedding in 1955

In 1960 I came as the youngest, spoilt child. The picture below was taken at my christening, the little boy is my brother and the beautiful woman to the right is my godmother whom I adored. The christening gown I'm wearing is really old - my great-grandmother Agnes was baptized in it in 1862. She was my Mom’s most beloved grandmother (her dad’s mother). In 1998 Kaefer was dressed in it for her christening, and I hope one day her children will be christened in it.

My mom and I, 1961

1960

Four years later we moved further south, to a town about an hour's drive away from Cologne. We had a nice, bright apartment - but I think my mom missed a garden. She loved to garden, and the balcony was always overflowing with flowers. She loved to hear the birds sing in the morning and evening. She was a great cook. However, I wonder (still) whether she was really happy. She missed Berlin. The big city. Her city, that was divided into two parts, and it was such a pain to get there.

She had a great sense of humor. Yes, she could get moody and VERY angry - I remember everybody tiptoeing when she had one of her terrible moods - but she could also laugh about herself and was the first to pull a joke of it. We didn't have much money, but she always manged to create a special advent calendar for my brother and me (my sister was long married and had her own family) and make a nice birthday for us. She was nifty, did sew dresses for me and altered my sister's dresses from the fifties so I could wear them in the seventies. She was intelligent and just a very fun person to be around.

My mom and I - 1983

She was also a very compassionate woman. For decades she volunteered at the hospital as a so-called "green lady" who looked after patients, read to them, talked to them or just listened. She only stopped doing this when she was 82 years old.

On her 50th birthday, in her very special dress. No one else wore something like this.

She became a grandma when she was 43 - my sister has three kids and is a grandma herself now -, but for me she seriously turned into "Omi" when Kaefer was born. And what a wonderful Omi she was!

Beloved Omi - 1999

When I became a mom myself, my mom and I connected on a different way - as mothers. I could tell her about my doubts, and how helpless and stupid I sometimes felt. She could understand. And she would put me at ease.

On her 85th birthday

This is one of the last pictures taken of her.

I wish I had asked her more questions. I wish we had gone away together more, just the two of us. We once spent two weeks on Sylt, the island in the North of Germany, and we had such a wonderful time. I found out how important mother-daughter time is, how rewarding. I regret that she never came to visit me in the States. I am sad that Kaefer has lost such a wonderful grandparent.

Of course she and I had our difficult times - but we were always very honest with each other. We both knew that we loved each other very much. She was very special for me. I love her - and I miss her terribly.

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A Beautiful Morning

2012-02-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

The morning is my favorite time of the day. Today I had an especially good one.

Our local Jazzercise, where I have been exercising regularly for three years, has finally introduced a 6:00am class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, starting today. I had never thought that I would actually enjoy getting sweaty by 6:15 in the morning - but I did! It was a great class, and I felt wonderful afterwards, full of energy, ready to face the day.

Back home I took a quick shower and then drove Kaefer to school. Coming home after that was so nice - the entire day (well, until 3:00pm when it is time to pick up Kaefer again) lay before me with absolutely NO appointments. Bliss. Shortly before eight, I was in my studio (aka the dining room), painting. I'm currently creating journals, getting a lot of inspiration from Jeanne Oliver's class "Creatively Made".

But it was a walk into my yard that really got me - the sun was out, it was such a bright and beautiful morning, and wherever I looked there were drops of dew. I had to grab my camera and take a few pictures.

Isn't this a yummy texture? (the armrest of my Adirondack chair)

Mr Lincoln, a present from my neighbor Mary

These are glass balls I have in one of my plant containers

My patio table - isn't that gorgeous?

I love how the sun sparkles in these little drops - no, this is not dirt!

The morning light is so warm and makes such crisps shadows

My favorite garden stake

And here is one of the journals I have been working on. It is an altered composition book with ruled pages inside. I used molding paste and acrylic ink for the birds.

Now available in my Etsy store.

So - what is your favorite time of the day?

Staring Contest

2012-02-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, Geeda, our neighbor's cat, was sitting on our deck, looking through the glass door and staring into Kaefer's eyes.

(See the dirt on the window? Those are Geeda's paws; she stretches up the window several times a day)

However, the staring contest didn't take too long since Geeda got a little bit impatient.

And then she got these big pleading, "please, let me in"-eyes - she knows very well that she is not permitted inside due to the Geek's heavy allergies.

However, she always tries - and sometimes she succeeds in sneaking in.

I"m pretty sure our home would be her home as well if we let her. She doesn't like her "real" home very much, the people who own her (and who kindly feed her and take her to the vet) - you know how cats have their own mind about where they want to be.

And honestly, if the Geek hadn't all these allergies, she already would be an established member of the family. She definitely has conquered all our hearts, even the Geek's (he would never admit that, though).

Are there any cats in your life who don't "belong" to you?

A Painting and a Charcoal Girl

2012-01-28T10:08:00.000-08:00

As usual (it seems) I'm late for Paint Party Friday. But at least I have something I can show, I actually finished a mixed media painting in two days and also tried my hand on charcoal again.

This girl with the giraffe neck was inspired by Jeanne Oliver's class "Creatively Made" that I am taking at the moment. I'm learning a whole lot of new stuff there, and I thoroughly enjoy it. In this mixed media painting I played with molding paste and charcoal. The texture of the molding paste - I used Golden's light molding paste - is fun, and I added some pan pastels to it after it had dried. It's on a 4x4 canvas.

Girls/women is a subject I love to paint and draw. This bird girl is made with charcoal, and I mainly did it to practice drawing faces. Then I remembered one of Lisa Wright's girl who had some color in her hair and face that you usually don't see and which I liked a lot. So I tried that and added some blue to my girl's hair and face, some red and yellow (I used pastels for that). It is interesting and I quite like the effect.

Please visit the other highly talented artists at Paint Party Friday - such a wonderful way to see some inspirational artwork.

My First Try of an Abstract

2012-01-26T20:03:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I love Bonnie's Photo Art Friday challenge. What I particularly like about it is that Bonnie's ideas really challenge me and often enough get me out of my comfort zone. One of those is to create an abstract, using three of our photos and at least one of her textures. Oh boy!!! That was way out of my comfort zone - and it shows.

These were my three photos:

I "merged" them into one image just like Bonnie told us in her tutorial, and then selected a filter "cutout". After that I added Bonnie's texture "abstract scratches" in blending mode "difference" at 75%; then added her texture "Monet's music texture" in blending mode "vivid light" at 67%; some levels and saturation adjustment and I felt I was done. I really didn't know what else to do.

Do I like it? Not really...

Perhaps I did chose photos that don't work very well for this project (probably). I wish I knew how to blend the edges of the photos more, so that the photos merge better. I don't like that you can still see the rectangle shape. I have no idea whether and how that is possible. Perhaps someone can tell me?

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Vision and Verb

2012-01-24T13:30:00.000-08:00

I'm over at Vision and Verb today, wondering where the years have gone and how old I really feel.

Please come and visit.

Just enough

2012-01-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

This year I'm taking Kim Klassen's e-course "Beyond Layers" which will be a yearlong journey. I am quite excited about it and wonder where this will get me. This past week had been very busy, so only today I started to work on some images for the course.

This week's theme was "just enough" - simplicity in photos. Something I admire and I want to achieve with a good part of my pictures, but so far haven't always been very good at. I looked through my archives and found two images that I once edited a bit (you can see them here and here) and today edited again.

First I did some levels and hue/saturation adjustments. Then I added Kim's texture "awaken", blending mode soft light at 72%. After a brightness adjustment I first eliminated the yellows and cranked up the saturation adjustment.

With this image of a light hanging from the ceiling in a mosque in Cairo I also started with some levels adjustment (this is a scanned slide). I added Kim's texture "papergrunge" at 100% soft light, then copied it, multiply at 74% and did some hue/saturation adjustments.

It was fun editing some images I already had processed in a certain way and now try a different approach. This can get pretty addicting.

Is anybody of you taking this course?

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Girl With a Big Heart

2012-01-20T13:49:00.000-08:00

Fridays is one of my favorite blogging days because it means Paint Party Friday and Studio Sneak Peek! I love these weekly get togethers because it keeps me painting and working on new art pieces - or finishing some.

This girl was still a work in progress last Friday, but now she is finished - she's the girl with a big heart. I really like how she turned out, especially since I've always been afraid of painting faces. She's far from perfect - all my work is like that - but I think she has some soul.

I would like to do a painting of a mother and daughter and am practicing this with charcoal. These two I sketched on the backside of some paper that was lying around (you can see the text peeking through on the bottom) - I still have a lot of practicing to do! But how much do I love it!

Please come and visit the other artists at Paint Party Friday and Sneak Peek Friday; every week there is some wonderful work to see and find a lot of inspiration.

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Three

2012-01-19T16:47:00.000-08:00

Bonnie's challenge for this week's Photo Art Friday was something that connects to the number 3/three. Not only will you see three of my photos here, but each shows three of something - deck chairs, sail boats and trees.

This picture - originally a slide, like the two others as well -was taken at the beach in Brighton, England. It was a windy, partly cloudy day, and almost no one was sitting in these chairs. However, they had something very optimistic about them the way they were patiently waiting for guests to lounge there despite the English moody weather. The texture applied here is Kim Klassen's "warmsun", blending mode linear burn at 50% and copied once with some adjustments (levels, saturation, brightness).

With these sail boats - shot at the coast of Cornwall, England - I went a little bit bolder. The picture was taken in the evening with the sun already gone, but the clouds were still pink and the mood was nice, but quite dark. The original picture is a little bit dull, so I thought some "pepper" can't hurt. I first applied Bonnie's texture "dappled dawn", blending mode exclusion at 90%; did some hue/saturation adjustments; applied Bonnie's texture "mauve magic", blending mode color dodge at 25%; some more saturation and brightness adjustments; and finally I cropped the photo a little bit more. I'm in love with the color!

Finally trees - of course! Again, we are in the Swabian mountains in Germany on a cold winter day, a very cloudy day I should add, the original photo is just dark. I cropped it down to three trees; did a levels adjustment to brighten it up a little bit; applied Bonnie's "edited acrylics" (one of my favorite textures) in blending mode pin light at 85% with some saturation adjustments. I only used a part of the texture, the upper left hand corner, and I thought how interesting it looks when you drag out the texture.

What I really like about these challenges is that I try something new - blending modes I usually ignore, or playing around with the texture first before applying it. Every time I realize how much I still have to learn, but I love, love, love it.

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Late for the Party

2012-01-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

Oh my, I'm late for Paint Party Friday - again! But better late than missing it again. I didn't have much time to paint this week, but at least I started a new girl and I hope that I can get her finished over the weekend.

It's an 8x8 canvas. The heart was my first attempt to work with molding paste, and I love it. I'm also more daring now with faces, I've practised a lot and slowly I get a better grip of it. Shading is so important for faces, and I enjoy doing it. I wonder where this girl will go from here - at the moment I'm envisioning butterflies in her hair and a bird on her shoulder, but who knows whether this will really happen?

I would love you to check out Paint Party Friday - there are over 70 talented artists and it's a joy to look at their artwork.

Photo Art Friday

2012-01-13T13:26:00.000-08:00

For this week's Photo Art Friday we were asked to create something with one (or more) of Bonnie's textures that are available for free on her blog. Please go and check it out - her textures are awesome.

A few of her textures are more abstract, and since I had seen them the first time I wanted to use them, but never quite knew how. I'm not much wiser now, but I gave it a try with this photo, that has been on the back of my mind for quite a while. It's my favorite tree on the Schwäbische Alb (Swabian Mountains), about an hour's drive from Tübingen where I lived in Germany.

It was taken as a slide, and about two or three years ago I scanned it and saved it to my computer.

Inverted the photo

Hue/saturation adjustment

Bonnie's texture "Happy Day" at blending mode color burn at 54%

Hue/saturation adjustment

Probably you can do way more with that... but I like it the way it turned out. It gives it an "icy" feeling.

The Lake

2012-01-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

Today was my first visit to the lake this year. By now you know about my weekly walks around the lake with my friend Jo. I've shared many pictures with you. For Jo and me the lake has become a synonym for a good time together where we share with each other what is really important to us, when we talk about our dreams and fears, about motherhood and our children (our daughters have been going to the same schools since 5th grade - that's how we met). It's also the time when we can vent, be it about our husbands, our kids' school or politics (not necessarily in that order) and simply know that the other exactly gets what we're trying to say.

The lake is also the place where we share our mutual love for nature. It was during a walk with Jo when we discovered the nest of the Great Horned Owls. She is a real expert in everything nature, and thanks to her I can name so many birds and native plants now. We crawl through some brush, hoping to see a bittern (we did). We can stand forever and watch the Great Blue Heron, egrets and Green and Black Crowned Night Herons. I can now recognize some birds by their sounds, like the kingfisher (not difficult) and, of course, the red shouldered hawk - a pair of them circles over our house almost every day.

But I also love to walk around the lake on my own. Very early in the morning is my preferred time, when I'm almost alone there except for a few other photographers and bird watchers. At that time - especially now in winter - the sun is not even over the hill and there are interesting big shadows on the lake. Thursday before Christmas I even saw six otters playing in the water. I had heard about them, but never seem them until that day. There's also a bobcat roaming around the lake, but so far I haven't seen it. Sometimes I see deer, and one morning I discovered a muskrat near the shore. In the summer there are snakes, mainly gopher and garter snakes, sometimes a California king snake, but they are very shy. And, of course, a lot of birds.

Walking around the lake alone always gives me a good opportunity to contemplate things that are important to me. Like my Etsy shop. This is the time when I think of new inventory and ponder about a new file system, so that it doesn't get too chaotic when tax time comes along. I think about blogposts I want to write either here or on Vision and Verb. And sometimes I simply dream - of places I want to travel to, goals I want to achieve. In my mind I'm designing my garden in a different way. I try to figure out how to save more water. And how to be more budget savvy.

It's a good place for me, the lake. A place to relax and refresh. And truly a place of my heart.

Do you have a place like this? Would you like to share?

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Being Authentic

2012-01-09T13:19:00.000-08:00

During the first week of the new year when I visited blogs I read a lot about words for the year, intentions and commitments. It inspired me to ask myself whether I have a word for 2012, and if so, what it is. In 2011 I was late with my word - I actually waited until my birthday which will be in a week.

This first week of 2012 was weird. On the one hand is was wonderful because Kaefer didn't have to go back to school until today. I love it when she is at home. On the other hand this week brought back the dark memory of last year's first week when Katie with her fiancé Jesus and four members of his family were murdered. It hang like a shadow over that week. I thought a lot of their families, Katie's parents and her younger brother who were left behind and how they have been dealing with this incredible loss. I admire their courage and their good spirit. Although I wasn't particularly close to Katie, I considered her a friend and loved her quirkiness. All of us are still struggling with the horrible events.

But with the start of a new week it feels like the shadow is lifting. Some years ago, I have stopped making new year resolutions, because to me it seemed they were all doomed to fail. And usually they did (at least in my case). But I do like the idea of choosing a word for the year and let it be some kind of a guide.

Last year's word I chose was "authentic". Over the months I often wondered whether I lived according to that word. Often I felt I was only lukewarm in my attempt to be authentic, that I held back too much. However, I stopped doing things of which I felt they weren't me. I let go of people who drained my energy and let me spin around in circles, getting hurt. I no longer cared living up to expectations of others.

But there still is a long way ahead of me. When we wrote down our intentions for 2012 over at Vision and Verb, my pen simply spilled out "remaining true to myself". Being authentic. There you have it.

My new old word for 2012.

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A favorite piece of photo art from 2011

2012-01-05T20:15:00.000-08:00

After a few weeks of break we're back at Bonnie's Photo Art Friday. For this week, Bonnie asked us to share one of our favorite pieces of photo art from 2011.

Oh the choices. There were so many that I really like, but I have already posted them here and I don't want to bore you with repeat photos. However, I found one that I edited in PSE from an older slide that I took sometime in the early nineties. The texture I used is Kim Klassen's "kkluminous". It is not my best photo art, but I love the mood in it and it reminds me of the times when I was still living on my own and bought myself some fresh flowers at the farmers market every weekend. This must have been taken in May or June, the time when peonies bloom in Germany. Dark red peonies like the ones in the photo belong to me very favorite flowers. They look wonderful by themselves, but are absolutely stunning when you pair them with blue delphinium or purple lupines.

Family Fun Faces

2012-01-03T12:27:00.000-08:00

In one of my last posts I mentioned that I'm taking a class by Carla Sonheim about drawing and painting faces. "Faces 101" has turned out to be a real fun class. Carla is so nice to make the worksheets available for the entire family, and Kaefer and I completed some of the assignments together. We laughed a lot while doing this. Later, the geek also joined us, but he asked me NOT to post his drawings. The first day of the class turned into a real family fun activity.

First Kaefer and I did some blind drawing on a "warm-up" worksheet. Then we got into the more serious stuff. We had to draw each other using our non-dominant hand.

My drawing of Kaefer:

Kaefer's drawing of me - simply charming, right?

Then we both drew the geek. Here's Kaefer's take:

and here's mine (he doesn't even look close in both drawings):

After all this was accomplished the next assignment was to paint eight faces with watercolor. Kaefer skipped this one, but I again had tons of fun. These two are my favorites:

Goodbye 2011

2011-12-31T18:24:00.001-08:00

Practicing Faces

2011-12-30T12:14:00.000-08:00

Painting faces has always been a challenge for me. They never turned out the way I imagined them, the eyes were crooked, the entire face was crooked, and the girls either looked totally grumpy or as if they were ready to burst into tears. Everything was just off.

So I started to practice, practice, practice. And eventually, my faces got better. There are no perfect faces, but I think they got some character now that is other than grumpy or sad. I still want to achieve more expression in their faces, but for the time being I see improvement and that alone makes me happy.

I'm doing an online class next week, "Faces 101" with Carla Sonheim - I'm pretty sure it will be a good one.

After many weeks of absence (and very little painting) I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday. I'm so glad to be back in this group of wonderful artists. Please check them out!

The Owl and the Girl

2011-12-28T15:38:00.000-08:00

After weeks and weeks of no painting at all, I finally picked up the paint brushes again and started a new mixed media painting that I finished two days ago. It feels so good! This time I tried to be less messy, "cleaner", actually paint a little scene. I'm not quite sure whether I really succeeded in it, but I do like the result. It's on an 8x8 stretched canvas.

Oh, and you bet - it will be in my Etsy shop very soon.

This, however, is not my first "The Owl and the Girl" painting - a few weeks ago I created another mixed media painting featuring a girl and an owl. I did make it for the swap with Donna who sent me her wonderfully altered book.

Yes, the owl is a photo of "my" Mama Owl. I hope I will see her again next year.

.

Made in Germany 40 - Exiting the Castle

2011-12-25T13:34:00.001-08:00

Tübingen in the snow - some winters we had lots of snow, some winters not so much. We also had very cold winters when the River Neckar would freeze over so that people could walk on there, ice-skate and enjoy a mug of Glühwein (mulled wine - the booth was right on the ice). We certainly made the best of the situation.

Tübingen's castle is right above the medieval city center and its exit, as you see her, leads right to the Irish Pub! The castle houses a museum and some departments of its university, the more "exotic" ones that don't draw big crowds (= students) like ethnology or anthropology. It was quite a climb up there on cobblestone streets (better not wear heels here), but there was also a small path that led to the Schloßberg (castle hill) right behind it, at which end I lived, where it met the forest. It was a lovely way to enter town on a Saturday morning.

This is my last photo in the "Made in Germany" series. It has been in this location for 40 weeks, and I think now by the end of the year is a good time to say farewell to it. This doesn't mean that there won't be anything German on my blog anymore - German(y) and I belong together, and I will continue to share my native country with you, but not quite as regularly as I used to.

Thank you for following "Made in Germany", commenting and sharing your memories of Germany or something German. I really enjoyed writing and posting about Germany every Monday.

View from the castle

2011-12-24T13:55:00.001-08:00

Cookie Recipes

2011-12-20T13:59:00.000-08:00

After I had posted about baking cookies, several of you have asked whether I would share the recipes - of course I would. I have to warn you, though - since these cookie recipes are from Germany, the measurement is metric. You can get the packs of vanilla sugar at some grocery stores (they usually come in six packs) or at Cost Plus World Market. Hopefully that works for you.

The MIL cookies (mother-in-law cookies)

You will need:

375 g flour

125 g marzipan

30 g cocoa

250 g sugar

1 pack vanilla sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

2 eggs

250 g butter

250 g almond meal (Trader Joe's works perfectly)

Mix all the ingredients together and knead a dough. Roll in logs. Cool in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Slice the log(s) in quarter inch slices and bake at 350 F for 25 to 30 minutes.

Vanillekipferl (vanilla crescents)

You will need:

200 g flour

80 g sugar

2 packs vanilla sugar

50 g almond meal

salt

125 g cold butter

1 egg

60 g powdered sugar

Mix all the ingredients except for the powdered sugar together and knead a dough. Cover the dough and cool in the fridge for approx. one hour. Roll the dough into thin logs and cut in ca. 7 cm (3 inches) long pieces. Shape into crescents and bake at 350 F for 15 minutes. When out of the oven put them face down in the powdered sugar when still hot (the flavor is even better if you mix a pack of vanilla sugar with the powdered sugar). Let cool.

ENJOY !

Made in Germany 39

2011-12-19T01:00:00.000-08:00

Germany is full of lovely trees. We have many many forests all over the country, but what I really love are the lone trees. Especially in the winter they can be stunning when you see just the branches against the sky. Sure, I do love trees with all their leaves on, when the wind rustles through them and they give shade on a hot and sunny day. However, the mood of the silhouette of a winter tree is unique, it has a touch of melancholy.

The picture of this tree was taken on the Schwäbische Alb, a very hilly region close to Tübingen where I lived before moving to the States. I used to go up there on the weekends for long hikes in all seasons. Winter was my favorite one (no, I was never afraid to drive in the snow).

I used Kim Klassen's texture "wonderfulmagic_stars" for this photo.

Baking Cookies

2011-12-18T12:23:00.000-08:00

One of the nicest activities during the Christmas season for me is baking cookies with my daughter. Usually we don't get around to make more than two sorts - the MIL cookies and Vanillekipferl - but those are the important "must haves" in this house.

The MIL cookies - I received this recipe from my mother-in-law when I first met her right after Christmas in 1996 when we visited her in freezing cold Erfurt - have lots of marzipan, almond meal, cocoa and of course flour, butter and sugar.

They're super easy to make - throw everything together for the dough, roll it in a log, put it in the fridge for 30 minutes and then slice and bake it.

Here you can see Kaefer slicing the dough log:

And this is what the cookies look like when they come out of the oven - they don't look very interesting, but I tell you, they're YUMMY.

Those Vanillekipferl were a must when I was a kid, and my mom's Vanillekipferl tasted a bit better than the ones Kaefer and I bake, although we use her recipe. They're rather delicate, and when they come out of the oven you immediately have to put them face down into a mixture of powdered and vanilla sugar. At this stage they can easily break.

Here they are - the yummiest cookies ever. I'm so glad I have this recipe - it reminds me so much of my mom, and how we used to bake together when I was a child. Those are some of the most precious memories I have of her.

What are your favorite cookies to bake for this special season?

The Beauty of Fog

2011-12-15T13:08:00.000-08:00

My friend J. and I finally got together again to hike in our favorite State Park. She is my hiking buddy whom I told you about here. This year we didn't get together very often, so the more we treasured yesterday's hike.

We started out in the fog, climbed up the hill in the fog. There was absolutely no view, we saw the trail for only a couple hundred yards and it seemed to us that we were almost alone up here (later on we met a few people, though). At the end of the trail there is a beautiful lake where we usually have our picnic. When we arrived there after a 90 minute climb it looked like this:

Then the fog started to lift...

... and revealed the beauty of this place.

All these photos are SOOC.

This was what we saw.

And it was beautiful.

Vision and Verb

2011-12-13T08:00:00.001-08:00

It's my turn at Vision and Verb today where I write about one of my morning passions - Sudoku.

Please come and visit.

Made in Germany 38 - Christmas Market

2011-12-12T01:00:00.000-08:00

The third weekend in Advent - which we just had - is the date for the Christmas market in Tübingen. From Friday afternoon to Sunday evening the narrow lanes in the ancient city center are full with booths, heavenly smells of wonderful food and drinks, Christmas music and happy faces. It is one of the events before Christmas that I was most looking forward to.

I wrote about the Tübingen Christmas market back in November 2010, and I will post this again today. I think it captures the mood perfectly:

And I remembered the third weekend in December back in Tübingen, Germany, where I spent twenty years of my life. It's a medieval university town with its typical old buildings that look like they're straight out of a fairy tale by the Grimm Brothers. Narrow lanes wind among those houses and cars are not allowed within the city center. It's a huge pedestrian zone that makes wandering the old alleys so peaceful.

This is the setting for one of the most beautiful traditions of the town: the Christmas Market. It's nothing like its big siblings in Nürnberg, Stuttgart or München and so many other cities. First, it only takes place from Friday to Sunday and not weeks and weeks and weeks. Second, it's not commercial. There are tons of local artists who sell their work, school classes who raise funds for their annual end-of-the-year trip, small local environmental groups who fight for preservation, neighborhoods who try to raise awareness and money for the disabled - the list could go on and on.

So that's the eye-candy. The next is the food - just one word: delicious. The food is mainly local specialities, the best time to eat "Bubaspitzle mit Sauerkraut" (a thin rolled kind of potato pasta with sauerkraut and sometimes bacon), one of my fondest memories in the food department. There was a guy with a complicated portable special oven who made Swiss Raclette that was to die for. Of course there was Glühwein (mulled wine), very welcome in the cold. None of the food or the drink was allowed in any kind of plastic or paper container, everything had to be re-usable! So you bought a beautiful mug with the words "Tübinger Weihnachtsmarkt" written on it and this could be refilled at any booth that offered Glühwein or juice punch (I still have half a dozen of those mugs - each year has a different color). Most of the plates were eatable - envision big sturdy waffles for apple strudel! No trash!

Throughout the market you could listen to music. Children were singing, little choirs stood at the fountain in the market square, someone played the violin, another one the bagpipe, and again another one the flute. There was a cantata concert in the main church. There were jugglers and clowns. It was a very festive atmosphere.

We felt like community, we were community. People spending three days in the cold in order to help someone else. To serve others. To share stories. To entertain children and their stressed parents. To bring smiles on the cold faces, red cheeks from the mulled wine.

That third weekend in December, no matter whether the sun was shining, it was raining or snowing, was spent in the streets among those medieval buildings. It was freezing cold - always. But everyone was there. Community.

Rosehips in Winter

2011-12-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

Last winter while driving along scenic Highway 12 in Utah from Capitol Reef National Park to Bryce Canyon National Park, I saw these frozen rosehips at the side of the road. I thought it might make a good pre-Christmas image.

Usually I only use one texture when I alter photos, two at the most. For this one, though, I tried using three textures and also played with blending modes I usually tend to avoid.

These are all Bonnie's textures.

"Soft Swirls", blending mode overlay at 75%

"Dear John Letter", blending mode difference at 33%

hue/saturation adjustments

contrast adjustment

"Acrylic as Texture", blending mode color burn at 23%

Warming photo filter (LBA)

final levels adjustment

Most times I shy away from this kind of exaggerated color, but for this photo I wanted to achieve something like this and really had to step outside my comfort zone. In the end, I had a lot of fun and actually quite like the result.

I'm linking this to Bonnie's Photo Art Friday, one of my favorite photo challenges.

WOYWW - Donna's Book

2011-12-07T06:57:00.000-08:00

I know, I know... I haven't been at Julia's WOYWW for quite a while. The reason is I have been very busy and I knew that I wouldn't have the time to visit back many WOYWWers and I just thought that wasn't okay - so I decided to have a break altogether. Today, however, I have to post for WOYWW because something landed on my table that I thought some of you would be interested in.

It is Donna's book.

Donna and I had the idea of doing some kind of "swap", and she sent me this lovely altered book which, I think, shows her style and her wonderful, unique, fun and fascinating art.

Yes, it is indeed for me.

There is so much to discover on the cover - little trinkets and keys and stamps and...

Inside the book was full of little bags and pockets, fun pages that I could even further open up, beautiful papers that look handmade and so much more.

Beautiful things in one of those pockets.

This is such a wonderful gift!

Donna, thank you so much - this is very precious to me.

I love, love, love my book.

December 6th - Nikolaus

2011-12-06T14:07:00.000-08:00

Today, December 6th, is Nikolaus in Germany. The evening before, thousands of children have put out a boot, hoping for Nikolaus to come by and fill it up. Nikolaus is pretty reliable and fills those boots with sweets and sometimes even more.

Kaefer - although a teenager now - still sticks to that tradition. She put out her rain boot yesterday - and it was filled this morning with orange fuzzy knee high socks, green fuzzy gloves and some chocolate.

When we first moved to this neighborhood, I introduced our tradition to my neighbors, bringing them a little something that they find in the morning of December 6th at their front door, when they go to get their paper. This year I decorated and filled up Starbucks frappuccino bottles (I never could just throw them away).

At Cost Plus World Market you can get typical German Christmas candy at this time (mainly chocolate and marzipan) and that is what I filled into these bottles. Some of our neighbors go the extra mile and "play" Nikolaus as well - this morning we found homemade peanut brittle, a Santa ornament and a bird ornament at our front door.

And there was something else. A tiny package, wrapped in red tissue paper and it had my name on it.

It was from Kaefer. She had made these cute owl earrings and pendant out of clay especially for me.

I feel so blessed. My heart is singing.

Made in Germany 37 - Christmas in Erfurt

2011-12-05T01:00:00.000-08:00

Baby, it's cold outside!

And it was.

This photo of the Dom in Erfurt (East Germany) was taken in December 1996, one of the coldest winter in Germany. Temperature's lows were at -25 C (-13 F). The Geek and I were dating at that time, and we had gone to Erfurt for me to meet his mom who was then living there. We both loved the light at the Dom and decided to venture outside despite the cold and take some photos.

We stayed there for about 20 minutes and took pictures - then our fingers were numb and the batteries in our cameras weak. Time to go home and warm up with some hot chocolate and rum.

The weather stayed like this for about two or three weeks until it "warmed up" a little bit. When we left Erfurt after a couple of days, the windshield of our car froze over repeatedly and we had to stop every 10 kilometers or so (6 miles) to clean it up. Such a drag!!! But we were young and very much in love - for us it was an adventure.

Another Morning Walk

2011-12-03T16:10:00.000-08:00

Jo and I had another one of our early morning walks yesterday. There was no fog and the light of the morning sun was just beautiful and warm.

It takes less than an hour to walk around the lake, but we always stop and watch birds, I take pictures, we talk to the people - it's more like 90 minutes for us. We talk a lot during those walks as well - most times it's about our kids (she has a daughter in Kaefer's age), the school but also life in general, friends and sometimes politics - then we vent like mad.

But most we enjoy the nature around us.

The color of these leaves was stunning - and I guess most of them will be gone when we walk here the next time.

Of course we watched birds -

this snowy egret

a black crowned night heron, exactly at the same place where we discovered him (her?) last time

this cute kingfisher whom we heard first before we saw him (their call is very distinct)

and a downy woodpecker who chipped away happily.

I love Friday mornings with Jo, walking around the lake.

One of my favorite 90 minutes during the week.

BTW, most of these photos are SOOC - the light was so gorgeous that they didn't need any post-processing. I only cropped a few of them.

Leaves, Leaves Everywhere

2011-12-01T12:20:00.000-08:00

I tried something new here and used a filter > texture, blending mode multiply at 43%, some levels and hue/saturation adjustment. For Bonnie's Photo Art Friday.

We are having some pretty strong winds here, the air is warmer than over the past few days, the sun is shining out of an incredibly blue sky and there was no fog this morning.

I live in a neighborhood full of lovely deciduous trees. The wind has blown their leaves everywhere, and they cover my yard.

There are leaves in my empty pots,

hanging from the old redwood fence,

lying on some old wood,

fallen to the ground,

cuddling in the abalone shell,

resting on the ivy,

and keeping fresh in the little fountain.

Are there still many leaves in the trees where you live or did you already have the first snow?

Made in Germany 36 - Advent in the Streets

2011-11-28T07:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we celebrated the First of Advent.

Advent is a time that is quite important in Germany. Families have an advent wreath in their homes, and each Sunday a further candle will be lit until all four candles a glowing their beautiful warm light. The towns and cities are decorated festively. Some really go the extra mile, some have more basic little lights like this one here, in the Unterstadt ("lower town") of Tübingen. Christmas markets are making their appearances, the small local ones often much more beautiful than the big ones in Nürnberg or München. Children walk the streets singing Christmas carols. If we're lucky, there's even some snow to further add to this special atmosphere. There is Glühwein (spiced mulled wine) and gingerbread.

Wishing all of you a wonderful Advent.

The Creative Fruit of Black Friday

2011-11-26T14:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm not a big shopper. Crowds in malls make me scream and run. Long lines at the checkout can sometimes be interesting if there are nice people around you can talk to, however, most of the time it's just a drag. So it comes as no surprise that I comfortably spent Black Friday at home with my family. The Geek was doing his college homework, Kaefer created with clay and I made Christmas ornaments.

I found the paper mache stars at Michaels - with a huge sticker on the back that would hardly come off, why the heck do they do crap like this? -, gessoed them, covered them in sheet music (Händel's flute sonatas), put a thin glaze on top of that and then painted the girl angels. I'm learning to paint faces (via Christy Tomlinson's "The She Art Workshop No. 2") and tried it out here after I had practiced on paper. Hm, not quite sure about it. I think the girls all got their very own characteristic faces, but they are far from perfect.

See those eyes? I had a hard time painting them, and you can clearly see that they aren't good. Same here with the braid-girl:

However, despite their imperfections I grew fond of these girl angels. This one is my favorite:

whereas Kaefer favors this one:

She said she likes the bun.

I was thinking of selling some of them in my Etsy shop, but I am very uncertain because of their obvious imperfections. What do you think?

Linking to Art Every Day Month.

Tuscan Grapes

2011-11-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

Bonnie asked for this week's Photo Art Friday that we show an edited photo that has been sitting around in our archives and never got any attention. For this, I chose the photo above - and I have no idea how I edited it because at that time (a couple years ago) I never wrote down the recipe. Since the original photo is a slide that I had scanned I suspect that I edited it in Lightroom.

Nevertheless, when I found this edited photo I couldn't resist to tweak it a little bit more, this time using PSE. I added the word, played around with levels and hue/saturation, and then added one of Bonnie's textures "notes to myself", blending mode linear burn at 57%.

This was the original photo, SOOC:

The photo was taken in Tuscany, near the medieval town of San Gimignano.

Giving Thanks

2011-11-24T14:24:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

I am so grateful for you, my readers and blogging buddies.

Without you, this site would be a bit lonely.

I hope those of you who are living in the US have a wonderful Thanksgiving with the people you love, delicious food and a lot that you can be grateful for.

Vision and Verb - Gratitude

2011-11-22T09:37:00.000-08:00

Today I'm writing at Vision and Verb about gratitude - please come and join me.

Made in Germany 35 - Erntedankfest

2011-11-21T01:00:00.000-08:00

Erntedankfest - Thanks for the Harvest.

The German term for what comes closest to the American Thanksgiving.

However, it is a completely different celebration. Most people don't celebrate it.

It's pretty much celebrated only in church, on the first Sunday in October. The churches are festively decorated with lots of harvest products, with the bread in the center - as in this picture in a small church on the isle of Sylt in the very North of Germany. The words on the bread mean "our daily bread". Well, you know we Germans eat tons of bread!

I wish we would show our thankfulness for a good harvest, for well filled pantries and refrigerators more like the Americans do, with a celebration that is not limited to the churches but is brought into every family. Or, to stay in the picture, where we break the bread and say thanks.

Wishing you all here in the States a lovely Thanksgiving week.

Rosehips

2011-11-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

A week ago a friend of mine brought me some roses, rosehips and hydrangea beautifully put together. I was so touched by this little gesture, that I wanted to keep it forever and therefore took a whole bunch of pictures. When I looked at the photos on my computer I thought that it must be a lot of fun to play with them - and so I did, using my favorite technique which is adding texture.

Here's the "recipe":

levels adjustment

hue/saturation adjustment

Bonnie's texture "Bonjour ma douce", darker color at 100%

Bonnie's texture "Dersert Canvas", saturation at 100%

hue/saturation adjustment

levels adjustment.

I like the monochromatic look of it - first time that I try this.

I'm linking this to Photo Art Friday, which always challenges me to try something new. It's a good challenge.

This is also today's Art Every Day Month.

Early Morning Walk

2011-11-17T17:41:00.000-08:00

Early this morning, Jo and I walked around our beautiful lake. It was a crisp morning, sunny though, but you could feel that a weather change was in the air. It was very quiet, not many people were out that early and the lake was perfectly still.

Then we saw a beautiful Great Egret, patiently standing on a log in the water waiting for some fish. He completely ignored us.

On a branch above him we discovered this Black Crowned Night Heron.

I love this buckeye, the shape of the tree is so beautiful.

I think we disturbed this little duck in her morning meditation.

When we were almost done, we saw this beautiful Great Egret, only a few feet away from us.

It was a wonderful walk.

How did you start your day?

Snowmen in the Forest

2011-11-15T16:22:00.000-08:00

Finally I've started to make Christmas cards - I'm always late in making them because I love to dwell in the rich colors of autumn. But I thought with December quickly approaching I should get into the right spirit - I also have to prepare my Holiday cards class, so why not get started now?

I like snowmen, so making a card with a bunch of snowmen seemed to be the right choice.

The snowmen were actually lined up on one stamp that I bought several years ago. I stamped them on a piece of white cardstock, colored them in and then cut them out. I wanted a few standing out from the background and adhered them to the card with foam tape. Here's a close-up:

Trees, snowmen, glitter - simple, but quite a cute image. I didn't want to do any words on it, so I just left it without any message.

I'm linking this to Art Every Day Month as today's contribution.

Made in Germany 34 - Medieval Rooftops

2011-11-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

The view from the castle over the rooftops of the medieval town center of Tübingen. Behind the castle, Hohentübingen, the long Schloßberg (castle mountain) stretched out at which very end I lived. On Saturday mornings I often walked into the town center and sometimes I took the shortcut through the castle. I always enjoyed this beautiful view over the rooftops of Tübingen. To the right, just outside the picture, was the river Neckar (remember where we did the punting). The big church you can see is the Stiftskirche, the main Protestant church in Tübingen, a Gothic era church. On weekends you can climb up to the tower - this is actually where the Geek and I had our first kiss!! Quite romantic, isn't it?

Gratitude Week 2

2011-11-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

The second week of Thirty Days of Thanks has already gone by. It's quite amazing how fast time passes when you have a lot to do AND enjoying it!!

This week - obviously still under the impression of the book about the Siege of Leningrad that I read - I'm full of gratitude that we are living in a country where we have everything, especially food and heat when we need it. However, I cringe when I see how many people in this rich country do NOT have enough to eat and depend on food banks (thanks to the food banks and all the people who work there and donate food and money). It breaks my heart how many children are among them. And my gratitude is even bigger then.

On Thursday evening - as on every other Thursday evening - I met with my German friends. We are a rather big group who calls itself "der Stammtisch" - Stammtisch is the big table in a neighborhood pub in Germany where the regular locals meet for their beer and some chat. Our group, however, does not meet in a pub (because pubs like that do not exist in the US), but every time at someone else's house and everybody brings something to eat. Last Thursday we all met at our house, and we had a wonderful time together. Every time we laugh a lot, talk about serious stuff and then laugh some more. It is never sentimental, and thankfully no-one in this group compares the US to Germany as it unfortunately happens in so many other groups. It is such a joy to talk in our own language when we can exactly express what we want to say and not look for adequate words which in the end aren't that adequate anyway. I feel comfortable among these Germans and Swiss; I have found my place here and am more than thankful for these friends, these people I love to spend time with.

At the end of every day I write into my regular journal what I am thankful for. So this week I made a gratitude journal for my shop - for someone who wants to start a gratitude journal and would love a book like this one, an altered composition book in beautiful autumn colors. It even comes with its own matching bookmark. I enjoyed making this journal, it was pure pleasure.

I am linking this to Art Every Day Month.

Results from Painting Class

2011-11-11T12:32:00.000-08:00

A week ago I had my last mixed media painting class, when we showed our finished or almost-finished pieces. It was so interesting to see all the different works and that tremendous talent!!! The class was so much fun, I learned a lot and I'm a bit sad that it is already over. Those six weeks went by way too fast.

My first finished piece "Día de los muertos" I had already shown here. These two pieces that I'm showing you today are based on the two watercolors I showed you here. I'm not quite sure whether either of them is already finished.

The Mermaid's Dream, 7.5"x7.5" mixed media painting

In both paintings I wanted the area where I sprinkled salt into the wet watercolor uncovered, but most of the rest got covered by strips of tissue paper that I had painted in class. I added photos (printed out on regular copy paper), torn book pages and stamps. I quite like the result, but I feel that especially the "sleeping child" is still unfinished. It will help to step away from it for a bit, and then when I come back to it I hope to see what else needs to be done.

Sleeping Child, 7"x7" mixed media painting

This is today's contribution to Art Every Day Month, and I'm also linking to Paint Party Friday. I haven't joined PPF for a few weeks because of lack of time - I wouldn't have had the time to visit you. This weekend, however, looks much better.

Art Every Day Month 10

2011-11-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

It's time for Photo Art Friday, and I tried something new again.

In Ann Baldwin's fantastic book "Creative Paint Workshop for Mixed-Media Artists" I saw her working with photos of which she used the negative. Luckily, on one page she explains how to get that negative look, because I had no clue but liked the look a lot (CTRL+i on a PC, or in PSE go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Invert). So I took a photo from a sunset in Bandon, OR and inverted it:

This is wonderful to use in a mixed-media piece (print it out on regular copy paper so that you can mess around with it). But I thought, there must be more that you can do to a picture like this. And I started to play around.

First I used Jerry's texture "Photo-Tints-Orange" (color burn at 100%), copied that (color burn at 50%) and then added Bonnie's texture "Acceptance" (darker color at 75%). Adjustment Layer for hue/saturation and I was done. I very seldom work with color burn or darker color blending modes etc., but I'm getting the hang of it - sure, the photos are exaggerated, but I do like the transformation.

At Bonnie's Photo Art Friday you can find many more super-talented photographers. I also link this to Art Every Day Month where you can find a whole bunch of wonderful artists.

More Journals

2011-11-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

Currently I'm creating a bunch of journals, small ones and bigger ones. The basis is always a composition book. I usually start with some papers and from there I see where it will take me.

Here are two mini journals that I just made. The different papers come from the same daisy d's paper pack (that I bought several years ago).

I like this small size for a journal because you can take it pretty much everywhere. It even fits in the back pockets of your jeans. Or in your purse - it's smaller than an iPhone.

I'm linking this to Art Every Day Month for day 8.

Made in Germany 33 - Bavarian Autumn (AEDM)

2011-11-07T04:00:00.000-08:00

Ramsau - scanned slide with Bonnie's texture "Blue Me Away"

Bavaria - it took me 33 weeks to finally show a picture taken in Bavaria. Many foreign tourists who come to Germany have two or three places they want to see here: Bavaria, the Mosel and Rhine valley and Berlin. There are certain pictures that people have in mind about Bavaria involving Dirndl and Lederhosen. It must be quite disappointing to see that most Bavarians do not wear Dirndl and Lederhosen. You find women wearing a Dirndl who work in Bavarian restaurants and of course in the Biergarten and at Oktoberfest (which takes place at the end of September). The nice thing about a Dirndl? It's definitely NOT a fashion for slim women! You need "Holz vor der Hütte" (wood in front of the cabin) if you want to wear a Dirndl correctly - now you may figure out what that means! If you don't want to write it in the comments, you can email me here.

This is the church in the small village of Ramsau in the Bavarian Alps in October - many years ago, sometime in the last century (1992?). I was staying in a hotel above the village where I attended a conference. Every morning I went out for my walk, climbed up the hills and took pictures. I remember having the first snow of the season there - as you can still see on that impressive mountain.

I'm linking this to Art Every Day Month.

Art Every Day Month (AEDM)

2011-11-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

Well, it's already the sixth day of November, but I have decided it's still okay to join Art Every Day Month (AEDM). I have absolutely no idea whether I will be able to post some art here every day, but at least I will try.

Today I can show you a journal that I made out of a regular composition book. During back-to-school, composition books are always on sale and I stock up on them at that time. They're just ideal to get altered into a journal or notebook.

I like the little bird - it's a template I created some time ago and that I use over and over again. The paper is from a paper pack by Daisy D's, and on the back and the inside are coordinating papers of this same pack. You might have already guessed it - the journal is in my Etsy shop now.

Gratitude

2011-11-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

For the month of November I have joined Deborah's 30 Days of Thanks. For a long time I have thought about keeping a gratitude journal, but somehow I never got around to actually do that. Thanks to Deb, I finally found the motivation for doing so. Every evening I write into my regular journal what I am thankful for that day. It is such a good way to end the day before bed.

This has been the first week, and my biggest reason for gratitude is my family - my wonderful husband and my beautiful daughter. With either of them life wouldn't be as beautiful and full of joy and laughter as it is. I love my husband's odd sense of humor, his geekiness and the red shirts he prefers to wear. My daughter has a similar sense of humor and shares my husband's love for math and science. She is the biggest gift in my life, a miracle that I marvel about every single day (even when I'm mad at her). These two people are the center of my life.

I am thankful for another gorgeous autumn week here on the North Coast. I enjoy the still warm rays of sunshine and still hang out in my hammock whenever possible, covered with two blankets and the cat beside me. Oh, the cat, Geeda - after Ginger, "my" other neighborhood cat, had passed away last year's summer, I really missed a cat in my yard who would come to greet me in the morning and snuggle up in the afternoon. When Geeda suddenly turned up this April, she took this place of the visiting neighborhood cat. I actually think, if I let her she would move right in. I am so happy and thankful that this little white "monster" is part of my life (on her terms, of course).

This week I read a book about the Siege of Leningrad, and I thought how much we take for granted that we have food every day and don't have to go hungry. And I mean decent food - organically grown, cattle raised and kept under human conditions - at least that's the food I buy. I'm grateful that I have the means and the choice to do so. Healthy food is important to me, I want to feed my family good stuff, and I enjoy cooking. I hate throwing food away, so we also have leftovers in this house - you can make delicious meals out of them. I'm thankful for our dinners every evening and the breakfast on the weekends when we gather around the table, eat, talk and laugh. It's one of my highlights of the day.

I'm thankful for Deb's 30 Days of Thanks as a kick in my butt to finally get me started on my gratitude journal.

Fishing for the Sun (Photo Art Friday)

2011-11-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

Bonnie asked us for this week's Photo Art Friday to challenge ourselves with a new technique, effect etc. that we haven't done before and even might be slightly out of our comfort zone.

I always wanted to try merging two photos of mine and create a new one (I used to do that when I still took slides - just put two slides into one frame and got them developed this way. I think we used to call this "sandwich photo"). So this week's challenge was the right thing to finally get me motivated to actually try this - and then add some texture as well and play with blending modes I usually avoid.

My original photo was this one:

I "sandwiched" it with this one,

blending mode Overlay at 75%.

I added Bonnie's texture "Tangled Tendrils", blending mode Hue at 55%;

Bonnie's texture "Mauve Magic", blending mode Hard Light at 60%.

Some levels and hue/saturation adjustments.

As a last step I added the text.

This is what it looks like:

Not a masterpiece, but I quite like it.

Día de los Muertos

2011-11-01T06:18:00.000-07:00

Día de los Muertos, 7.5"x7.5" mixed media painting

Over the years I've got to know more and more about Día de los Muertos. And I started to like it a lot.

During my mixed media painting class I created this painting/collage of my interpretation of Día de los Muertos. There are torn papers that I painted myself, a cut up photo that I took a few weeks ago in the cemetery of Tomales and a torn book page with a poem. A few stamps are the final touches.

I'm also writing at Vision and Verb today - about Day of the Dead. Please come on over.

Haunted Neighborhood

2011-10-31T13:38:00.000-07:00

The houses in our historic district are usually heavily decorated for Halloween. I took a walk around those streets this morning - many owners were still busy decorating and getting ready for the crowds tonight (they get hundreds of trick-or-treaters).

There were huge spiders,

sinister folks

and flying witches.

Gravesites in front of the houses

and rather spooky companions.

I liked Farmer Eric:

and all the beautiful pumpkins.

This one didn't feel so good...

Some of the fall decoration blew me away:

And then I discovered this - my favorite:

On my way back home I saw this friendly ghost

and realized that our neighborhood had been taken over by vultures.

Happy Halloween from our house to yours!

Made in Germany 32 - Cemetery

2011-10-31T04:00:00.000-07:00

Since we don't have Halloween in Germany (although it has been getting more popular in the last few years), I decided to post an image of a cemetery for today's Made in Germany - it's at least related.

Most cemeteries are beautiful peaceful places in Germany. Almost all of them have very old parts, and it is interesting to walk among those old gravesites and read the tombstones. Some of them are so old that you can't read what's written on them. Fortunately, despite the terrible history of my country, there are still Jewish cemeteries that have beautiful tombstones and seem to be a haven for wildlife. The tombstones are beautifully carved, like the one in the second picture.

When I still lived in Germany I often went to a cemetery to sit on a bench, listen to the birds and either read or write in my journal (or both). It was like entering another world, a world of quiet, calm and peace. It fed my soul. After one or two hours I felt renewed and very calm.

Do you like to visit cemeteries or do you think that's creepy?

.

Spider Cat

2011-10-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

When recently I took some pictures for my Etsy shop, Geeda got very interested in the orange spider fabric I used as a background. She hopped up on the chair I had draped the fabric over and stretched out...

looking curiously at what I was doing.

Then she had to explore the fabric for a little while, mainly using her claws.

Obviously that became boring,

and she lay down,

taking a nap.

It's a good life to be a cat in my backyard.

Photo Art Friday on Saturday

2011-10-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot about Photo Art Friday this week - the wonderful place on Bonnie's blog where photographers come together and show what art work they did in their photos.

This beautiful Celtic cross I found a couple of weeks ago in the cemetery of Tomales, a tiny place along Highway 1 between Point Reyes and Bodega Bay.

I did some levels and saturation adjustments first, then added Bonnie's texture "one life" to it (hard light at 72%), then copied it (multiply at 30%) and did another hue and saturation adjustment. At that point I really liked it, especially the warm colors.

This is the way it looked before:

Which one do you like better?

Big Mistake (WOYWW 125)

2011-10-25T21:53:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday when we show to the world what is on our work tables that we're working on. Julia had the fantastic idea of this weekly hop around the globe - you can find all the details on her blog, Stamping Ground.

Doesn't this canvas look awful?? I was working on it for days and then were quite happy how it turned out - until I tried to adhere the photo of Mama Owl to it that would have been the final touch. I used Modpodge which was a stupid choice in the first place because it's not strong enough for matte photo paper. When I used a brayer to flatten everything evenly, some of the Modpodge appeared on the photo - it looked awful. I tried to save it, but no such luck. So I ripped it off - of course it didn't come off completely!

The stuff to use for adhering matte photo paper is soft gel - and of course that was the one I did NOT have. So I stopped by the art supply store on my way to pick up Kaefer from school and then tried again to adhere the photo (newly printed of course!) to the canvas. Fortunately it worked this time. The last finish were those three metallic letters on the left and finally the canvas was finished. And I'm still happy with it.

Short Update on my Shop

2011-10-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

I just want to tell you about three new items in my Etsy shop that I just listed a few days ago.

Many of you probably remember the Great Horned Owls, and I also told you here that I created a photo book about this wonderful experience. Well, the photo book is now available in my shop.

But wait, there is more about those owls. I also made a wall calendar for 2012 with photos of the owls:

And for those who prefer the coast and photos of beautiful landscapes I made a 2012 wall calendar about the coastal Pacific Northwest:

You can see all the pictures of the calendars and a peek in the book in my Etsy shop - where I also offer mixed media paintings, mini journals, photo greeting cards and handmade cards. I'd love to see you there and of course I always appreciate your feedback!

Made in Germany 31: Currywurst mit Pommes

2011-10-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

Currywurst mit Pommes - sausage with a special tomato-curry sauce, served with french fries either with ketchup or mayonnaise or both - is the most famous German fast food. "Invented" by a clever Berliner woman, Hertha Heuwer, in 1949, this simple meal has become popular all over the country. You either hate it or you love it.

I belong to the "love" side. Whenever I'm in Germany I need my German version of junk food at least once. The "real" Currywurst is NOT a bratwurst as many might think, and the sauce has to be homemade (no ready made sauce that you can buy in a bottle). You don't eat it in a restaurant but at the Imbißbude - a kind of food cart or booth (see picture below). Curry 36 in Berlin-Kreuzberg (the biggest Turkish community in Germany!) is not a food cart but still a Imbißbude and it definitely serves one of the best Currywurst ever. Those in the picture above are ours that we ate in the summer of 2009 while we stayed in Berlin. As you can see we prefer mayo on our fries - yum!!! (I see many of you eye-rolling). This was the best Currywurst I have had so far! The other nice thing - you stand around those metal tables while eating them, and almost instantly you start talking to the other people standing there enjoying their Currywurst - so it's very social as well!

Top photo was taken at Curry 36, lower photo at Kurfürstendamm (Ku'damm) next to Gedächtniskirche.

Canadian Barn

2011-10-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

First, I thank all of you who read and commented on my last post - it does mean a lot to me, and your encouragement is highly appreciated. You are the best, and I feel lucky to have fantastic blogging buddies as you are. Thank you!!!

So, here is the Photo Art Friday challenge again - I found this not too long ago, and at the beginning I was a bit intimidated by all the great work that you can see there. But then I thought "oh what the heck" and just participated last week for the first time. It gives me a good excuse to play around with textures and my photos and just change things up a little bit. It is so much fun and when I'm editing in PSE I forget about time.

For this week I picked the photo of a barn that I took a year ago in British Columbia. We were staying with our relatives in Summerland and visited a winery nearby (excellent Riesling!) where we also had lunch. From the patio you had this beautiful view over the vineyards to the barn.

However, I think the photo looks a bit flat and I certainly didn't like the blue and black bins behind the barn. So convenient that we can just eliminate these things! This is what it looks like after I spiced it up a little bit:

I first did a levels adjustment and then added two Kim Klassen textures, "dusty rose" (multiply 63%) and "warm sun" (linear burn 50%) - that's it. I like the warmer colors and the "rusty" feeling.

I link this up to Photo Art Friday at Bonnie's blog. There are many other fascinating photos to see - come over and take a look!

What is holding me back?

2011-10-20T12:58:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of the year I chose "authentic" as my word for 2011. When I look back over the past ten months, nothing I wrote here was not me. Everything was plain, pure me - but to be honest, nothing was revealing. Most of the posts kept pretty much to the surface and didn't really touch what is deep within me. And I wonder why.

What is holding me back

to speak of my fears that lie within me and sometimes completely choke me up, so that I have difficulties to sleep?
to talk about my health issues that sometimes frustrate me so very much?
to tell you about the loss of our second daughter that still haunts me?
to admit that I still haven't made my peace with having only one child?
to vent even only once about my utter frustration with American politics?
to let you know about my fears that this Etsy adventure will be a complete failure?

Am I afraid to offend someone? To lose blogging buddies because I'm honest? Do I fear to receive hurtful comments? Or that people think I'm just ridiculous?

Does it really matter?
.

Just Plain Tired

2011-10-18T13:28:00.000-07:00

Do you have those days too? When you feel heavy, your legs are like lead and it's just exhausting to go through the day? I have a day like this today, and it drives me nuts. It reminds me very much of the time before my surgery, and I really don't want to go there again. I'm just plain tired, and I think I will give in and hang out in the hammock for 30 minutes. Hopefully, my energy will come back then. Not very exciting things on the horizon though - have to pick up Kaefer from school and then it's straight to the dentist for her appointment. Which for me means waiting... What do you usually do when you have to wait somewhere? I read a lot, and I hope I can do that this afternoon.

I want to share a Halloween card with you that I recently listed in my Etsy shop:

Usually I'm not a big fan of skulls and skeletons, but when I saw some scrapbook paper covered with these goofy looking skulls I couldn't resist. Making the card was mega-easy, and I don't know why exactly I like this one so very much. Perhaps because the skulls look so goofy and funny, not a bit scary. I was glad that I had this small wooden coffin and the skeletal hand to use as photo props - I enjoy putting some "spice" into my pictures like this. Taking photos of my items for Etsy is a completely new thing for me, and I enjoy learning about how to take pictures of my items to get people wanting to look at them. Thrift stores and yard sales are perfect places for finding photo props.

Okay, I'm going to the hammock now, hoping that Geeda hangs out there already and keeps me company.

Made in Germany 30 - Avenue of Trees

2011-10-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

We call this dirt road lined with big old trees a "Allee". When I looked up this word in a dictionary, it gave me the word "avenue" as a translation. I'm not quite sure whether this is the proper word, but I will use it here - and thinking of the Avenue of Giants here in Northern California it seems to be pretty fitting (with the little difference that the "giants" is a paved road...).

Unfortunately we don't have many roads like this left in Germany. There are a few ones that are paved, but more often than not the trees are felled so that the roads can be widened and people can drive faster in their cars. Yuck!!

However, there are a few left, and most of them are in the Eastern part of the country, and I just hope and pray that they can just remain this way. It is so incredible beautiful to see these roads leading to the horizon lined by those old old trees. It reminds me a lot of my childhood and somhow carefree days.

Then I started to play... Pixel Dust Photo Art has some amazing free textures that I love to use in my photos. I used two of her textures - "fanciful" and "dear John letter" textures - in this photo, played with levels and saturation and got this:

It looks way more like autumn, doesn't it?

I am linking this to Photo ART Friday - that's why Made in Germany is on my blog already on Sunday.

IA Weekly Challenge: Fear

2011-10-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

Fear - we all know about fear. But how to express that? How to show which fear? I have several fears - the fear of losing my family, of someone close to me dying, of sickness and no longer being able to lead the life I'm having now. The fear of becoming vulnerable by showing so much of myself here.

Then there are fears that are - well, avoidable. If I fear to get killed in a thunderstorm while being outside - I just stay inside during that time. Easy.

And there are those fears that are also fascinating. I have one of them. This:

Edited in Photoshop using two textures by Shadowhouse Creations.

Snakes.

I'm afraid of snakes. At the same time I find them deeply fascinating. In every zoo and reptile exhibition I go to watch the snakes. I've even touched snakes, held them in my hands. Still I'm not quite as brave as Kaefer who carries them around her neck.

This Burmese Python - and I'm not quite sure whether s/he is an albino snake or not - I saw in the San Diego Zoo. And I actually thought her/him cute - look at that sweet face! It's almost as if s/he wants to say something, like "I'm so lonely, I'd like a companion" or "why do people hate us?" Do snakes have feelings? Do they feel lonely or sad or happy? Are they intelligent?

They do give me goosebumps. Sometimes I dream of snakes, and those are downright nightmares. In my dreams they definitely represent my fears. But if I see one in the road - which sometimes happens - I drive around them. I wouldn't want to kill them.

You can find more about fear over at Inspiration Avenue.

More Painted Papers

2011-10-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

It's Friday, and this means Paint Party Friday and Sneak Peek Friday, where so many talented artists show what they are working on. It has turned into my favorite blogging day.

Last week in my mixed media painting class we painted on tissue paper - a lovely mess. I painted some more yesterday afternoon, taking advantage of the lovely weather and moving my studio outside, drying my papers in the sun.

We also made our own stamps (or used some foam stamps) and added prints to the tissue.

I think you can clearly see what my favorite colors are...

I will be off to the class in a few minutes, and I look so much forward to it. I enjoy the companionship of the women (and one man) there, the instructor is fantastic, and those are three hours I can make a mess and feel good about it. There is also so much inspiration in the classroom, laughter and just a plain good mood. What a wonderful way to start the way into the weekend.

WOYWW 123

2011-10-11T21:50:00.000-07:00

Hello to "What's on your worktable - Wednesday" that has been going on for more than two years now thanks to the Queen of Snoops, Julia of Stamping Ground.

I'm currently in the Halloween spirit making Halloween cards and starting to decorate the house with Kaefer. She is trying out several of my Halloween fabrics to find inspiration what she wants to be for that fun holiday. We'll be having a Halloween party on the Saturday before since the holiday itself is on a Monday - very inconvenient! Kaefer is also sewing Halloween costumes for her dolls.

These are the cards I made and they are now in my Etsy shop, waiting for buyers.

Geeda is hiding behind one of the cat-lanterns,

watching Kaefer wrapping herself in the Halloween fabric.

She put the purple fabric over a shimmering red one - quite fancy.

Vision and Verb: October

2011-10-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

Please come over to visit Vision and Verb for my musings about my favorite month.

Made in Germany 29 - Fish Traps

2011-10-10T01:00:00.000-07:00

About 20 years ago I spent a week in Schleswig-Holstein, the most Northern state in Germany. You can find many beautiful lakes in that area and, of course, the Baltic Sea. Schleswig is a little town with beautiful cottages and cobblestone streets - you feel a bit like in a fairy tale. And since I have always liked ports I spent some decent time in the fisher port, and got pretty hooked on this special kind of fish traps, called Fischreusen. They were drying in the breeze, waiting for the next trip out on the water for another catch.

IA Challenge: Owls

2011-10-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

"Owls" is this week's challenge at Inspiration Avenue - well, you would think after my wonderful adventure with the Great Horned Owls this spring I'd have enough photos to participate, right?

Right. I took a photo of Mama Owl - my favorite member of the owl family - and edited it in Photoshop Elements to give her a spooky touch. I actually didn't really do much - blurred the background (there is one of the owlets behind her), turned her eyes red and added some texture ("raised effect" by Shadowhouse Creations) - and here she is!

Just go to Inspiration Avenue to find a lot more of wonderful owls in any artistic way.

Playing with Watercolor

2011-10-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

A week ago I joined a mixed media painting class. We started out on watercolors, a medium I haven't worked with very often and don't have much experience. So I thought I just play around with it a little bit, and I had a lot of fun! In the above picture, I sprinkled salt into parts of the darker blue and love the effect - to me it looks a little bit like ice crystals.

Same here; and I also just flicked the brush with orange color a little bit to get the little splashes. Another effect I really like. Many of you probably think now "Oh come on, nothing new" - it sure is not, but I have re-discovered it and enjoy it. It always surprises me how much I actually forget. So many techniques I once learned and then they wander off in the very back of my mind and go dormant.

Here I used a white crayon and drew those swirls on drawing paper, then soaked the paper with water and balled it up. After I had flattened it out again I covered it with watercolor - really nice how the color seeps into the crevices. The wrinkled effect is also something I thoroughly like. I think though that it works better with darker colors.

Since it is Friday I'm linking this to Sneak Peek Friday and Paint Party Friday. If you want to see more amazing artwork, please visit these wonderful artists and get inspired.

WOYWW and Painting Class

2011-10-04T22:03:00.000-07:00

Another Wednesday and we're hopping around the world to have a peek at everybody's desk, thanks to Julia of Stamping Ground. It is fun to see what people are working on and find a lot of inspiration and make some friends as well (I especially like that part).

I'm thinking of making some Halloween cards since Halloween is my very favorite holiday. However, I'm a bit uninspired at the moment, and to get me started I printed out the images of a few cards I made a few years ago and sold very successfully in the scrapbook store I was working at. I still have some of these little ATC-sized cards/images that I would love to use.

Perhaps some of you remember the mixed media painting I was working on last Wednesday. I finished it over the weekend and I'm quite happy with it. It's a little bit different from what I usually do. I really enjoyed creating it, especially the trees were a lot of fun. The little flowers are actually some cut up ribbon, and then I just added glitter to the center of them. So easy! Of course there had to be a little cat somewhere in the painting - can you see it? This morning I put it in my Etsy shop (not the cat, but the painting - with the cat!).

Last Friday I started a mixed media painting class through our local college (the community ed department) and I L-O-V-E it! The instructor is a wonderful, talented artist who started out with precision watercolor and now does mixed media - no more precision! It's messy and lots of fun. There are one man and about 10-15 women in the class, and I really like the cameradie among us. The class lasts for three hours - three hours that just fly by. One of the things we did was using a candle to draw on drawing paper with it; then wet the paper and crinkle it up and unwrapping it again; start painting with either watercolor or watered down acrylics, using different techniques that she (the instructor) had shown us. The wax of the candle serves as a resistant, as you can see here - I did the swirls with the candle. It's a super easy and fun technique. We will build our mixed media painting with all the little paintings we do right now. I can't wait for the next class. The entire class will be for six weeks - and we all have already agreed that this is way too short.

Made in Germany 28 - Punting

2011-10-03T01:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I promised to tell you more about punting in Tübingen.

Punting is most popular among the students of the university, but over the past decade or two it has also been discovered by the tourists. You can rent a punting boat, but you still need someone who knows how to punt - it's an art of its own. As far as I know, Tübingen is the only University town in Germany that practices punting and shares this tradition with Oxford and Cambridge in England.

Here are the punting boats lined up at the Neckarfront, the photo of which I showed you last week.

Most of the boats are owned by University organisations or students' associations. In order to enjoy a trip on a punting boat - and have a party at the same time - you need to know someone from those organisations, and someone who knows how to punt if you can't do it yourself.

The punter stands either at the top or the end of the boat, holding a very long thick stick that s/he sticks to the ground of the river (the Neckar is not very deep here) and thus thrusts the boat forward. It's physically demanding and not easy at all. Unexperienced punters often end up in the water...

A look into a punting boat: do you see those long boards in a pile? They will be turned into seats, and you will leisurely travel down the Neckar, sipping a glass of wine or some beer and eating whatever food people brought. Before you start out, however, you often have to scoop out water from the bottom of the boat.

You can have your trip during the day or, even better, in the evening. Very romantic.

(Sorry for the bad quality of the photo)

On a Thursday in May (I forgot which one) the fraternities and sororities hold the big punting race, "Stocherkahnrennen". It's the slowest and wettest race, with dozens of punting boats. They start out at the Hölderlinturm, go to the bridge and have to go around the pillar of the bridge (the so-called "Nadelöhr" - eye of the needle) which is the biggest challenge because when the first boats round that pillar they will find themselves in the crowd of the boats behind them and THAT can get pretty nasty and VERY wet - it's the most popular part of the race. There is not much space between the pillar and the island - so imagine those long boats in the big muddle! After that it's just speed - go down on the other side of the Neckar island and cross the finish line. The loosing punters have to drink a bottle of cod-liver oil and the winners have to host the following year's party.

Oh yes, the party. There's a HUGE party in the evening - I mean, HUGE.

By now you recognize this house - the Hölderlinturm in its autumn dress. And, of course, the punting boats. Start to the big race.

One of the most beautiful traditions in the little town of Tübingen.

Finally Back to Painting

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

After all the rush over the past two weeks I'm finally back to painting. I had two unfinished canvases sitting on my table and I started working on one of them yesterday and hope to finish it over the weekend.

Since ever I was a child I've been drawn to funky little houses - either on stamps or by drawing them or whatever. I wanted to create a happy little canvas and just started this 8x8 canvas with sky and green bottom, then added the house - and just went from there with whatever came to my mind. I particularly like the trees. I still want to work on the roof, it's too plain for me at the moment, and I also plan to put little blossoms in the grass.

The second canvas is a different story and I'm not sure where it will take me.

I tried something more abstract as a background for this one. I'm thinking of adding women silhouettes and then perhaps draw wings on them - I just don't know at the moment. For the background I have torn some models out of my favorite women's fashion catalogue from Sweden, painted Golden fluid acrylics on top of them (I like these acrylics for their transparency) and then added the circles and the torn paper strips that are out of the same catalogue (they match the skirt and the pants of the models).

This morning I'm off to a mixed media painting class at the college - I'm really looking forward to it, but I'm also a bit nervous. I expect to learn a LOT!!

I am linking to Paint Party Friday and Sneak Peek Friday - it's good to be back!

WOYWW 121

2011-09-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

Hello to the biggest snoop around the world, hosted by the Queen of Snoops, Julia at Stamping Ground. Every Wednesday we look at other artist's worktable, and I can tell you, it is a lot of fun and a source of inspiration.

This canvas has been sitting on my desk for two weeks now, pretty much in the same condition. Which translates to: I haven't worked on it. Not a bit. I haven't even thought about it. My mind was completely occupied with our garage sale that we had last Saturday, and I'm happy to say that it was a very successful one and we got rid of a lot of stuff. So all the work was worth it, but I neglected everything else, especially my blog and visiting other blogs and leaving comments. I don't even mention painting or doing anything creative. (But I sold a few of my handmade cards at the sale as well!!). After the garage sale I realized I hadn't taken any photo - that would have been a good one, a shot before and after. Oh well...

So I hope to get back into blogging and networking and painting and... I started this week with listing some of my handmade cards in my Etsy shop, so I did at least something. It's surprising how much I missed my blog and the blogging community. But - the sale is done, I will still list a few items on Craigslist, but that is done quickly. Hopefully someone buys them, otherwise they will go to my favorite charity. I so enjoy the space in our garage! By the way, the box of scrapbooking and craft supplies that I showed you last Wednesday is almost empty now - only a few items are left. That certainly was a big seller. To my utter surprise, the two boxes of GERMAN books were sold within the first ten minutes! And the guy who bought one box of vinyl records at my yard sale three or four years ago came back on Saturday and bought the second box! Returning customer!!

Alright, I've kept you long enough - now go and visit all the other artists and see what they are up to.

Made in Germany 27 - Tübingen Neckarfront

2011-09-26T01:00:00.000-07:00

Remember the Hölderlinturm that I showed you here last Monday? You can spot it at the left side of this photo. Here you can see the entire row of houses along the river Neckar that ends with the Hölderlinturm. These houses are mainly from the 15th and 16th century, most of them beautifully renovated inside. The biggest problem in these houses, since they are so close to the river, is the dampness which often shows in mold. It needs a lot of maintenance to live in these houses, but the location is just priceless. This "strip" is called the "Neckarfront" and behind the little wall you can see there is a narrow path that you can walk along. In summer or whenever the weather is warm and nice people hang out on the wall, eating ice cream and just enjoying life. The trees on the left side belong to the long island that divides the Neckar here and houses the Neckarallee, a long path lined by tall trees. It's especially beautiful in autumn when the leaves are turning. The boats in the background near the Hölderlinturm are punt boats - we did a lot of punting "back in the days". Punting is a tradition among the University's students and every May there is a big punting race that draws huge crowds and is a lot of fun.

I might tell you more about the punting next week!!

Little Witch

2011-09-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

A little girl who has dreamed about being a witch for Halloween fulfilled her dream.

She colored her hair green, put on the orange-blck striped dress, the fancy boots and the witch's hat with the little owl on the rim and ventured outside, accompanied by her faithful little friend, the black cat (who looks slightly scared).

It was so much fun to create this canvas!

It is now for sale in my Etsy shop.

WOYWW 120

2011-09-20T21:57:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to "What's on your worktable Wednesday" created by the lovely Julia at Stamping Ground. Every Wednesday more than 100 people show to the world what is on their worktable (and sometimes the worktable doesn't have to be a table actually).

Well, today this is on my table:

which in itself doesn't make much sense.

We need the second picture:

We're having a garage sale this Saturday and I'm currently pricing all the craft and scrapbooking supplies that I have sorted out and hope to sell. Kaefer has gone through all her stuff and hopes to sell quite a lot. Even her old bike will go (hopefully). Honestly, I can't wait to see the stuff go and have more room to actually move around. I'm so tired of all the clutter. Everything that doesn't sell will go to the thrift store on Monday.

Wish me luck!

Made in Germany 26 - Hölderlin

2011-09-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took while I was living in Tübingen. It is the Hölderlinturm (tower of Hölderlin). The - supposedly mad - poet Friedrich Hölderlin spent 36 years of his life with the Zimmer family who gave him a room in this tower, until his death in June 1843, at the age of 73.

His poems have inspired many composers (among others Johannes Brahms) and also modern bands in Germany, Sweden and Finland. The language of his poems is not the easiest but it is extraordinary beautiful. Translating it into another language must be extremely difficult as it is with all poetry.

I found an English translation by David Constantine of Hölderlin's poem "Wohl geh ich täglich..." - the title of the translation is completely different.

'Another day'

Another day. I follow another path,

Enter the leafing woodland, visit the spring

Or the rocks where the roses bloom

Or search from a look-out, but nowhere

Love are you to be seen in the light of day

And down the wind go the words of our once so

Beneficent conversation...

Your beloved face has gone beyond my sight,

The music of your life is dying away

Beyond my hearing and all the songs

That worked a miracle of peace once on

My heart, where are they now? It was long ago,

So long and the youth I was has aged nor is

Even the earth that smiled at me then

The same. Farewell. Live with that word always.

For the soul goes from me to return to you

Day after day and my eyes shed tears that they

Cannot look over to where you are

And see you clearly ever again.

If you're interested in the German original, you can find it here.

Autumn Morning at the Lake

2011-09-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

Kaefer had a big cross country meet at the lake yesterday morning. They were the first group to run, so we arrived at the lake even before the sun had risen over the hill. The mist was still hanging over the lake, but you could see how the sky already cleared up. It was a perfect autumn morning, the kind I love.

When the sun climbed higher into the sky, he illuminated this bare tree and the surrounding trees on this little island. The lake itself was perfectly still.

It almost looked as if the water was on fire.

The ducks took flight from all those people who were there so untypically early.

And here's Kaefer (in blue) making the finish line.

The magic of the morning had gone by then.

Autumn Splendor

2011-09-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

I'm late this week for Inspiration Avenue's challenge, "Autumn Splendor". At first, of course, I thought about all the wonderful colors that autumn presents to us, like this crape myrtle in front of our house.

Or this beautiful sedum "Autumn Joy" in my backyard:

I thought of turning leaves, all those earthy colors.

But then I also thought of another side of autumn, the one that sets our table. I didn't have to get any further than into my backyard to find a richly set table.

Pumpkins...

peppers...

pears...

tomatoes...

Japanese eggplant...

our "volunteer" corn...

... and apples.

We also have a plum tree that this year was more than full with fruit. My friend Jo picked all of them, brought a whole lot to the food bank and made jam out of the rest.

Yummy!!!

The Warm Colors of Autumn

2011-09-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

In January I created this mixed media canvas for an Inspiration Avenue challenge. Today, I've put it in my Etsy shop for sale. It is still one of my favorite works - I just love the warm colors of autumn (I really don't know why I prefer the word "autumn" over "fall", perhaps it is more poetic. Is there a difference between the two words?).

I'm quite excited about the season change. Many trees in my neighborhood are turning leaves, it looks beautiful. The two crape myrtle in front of my house are glowing in a deep pink, it's marvelous. I simply love this stunning display of bold color.

I hope all of you - at least in the Northern hemisphere - enjoy the earthy colorful season.

WOYWW - I've Lost Count

2011-09-13T22:01:00.000-07:00

Hello dear WOYWWers, yes, it's me, obviously not a regular anymore. I haven't been here for the last few weeks (two? three? even more?). The reason is simple - I've set up and opened my Etsy shop and that obviously took all my energy. It's a quite fascinating adventure, pretty much work is involved, but I expected that and really like it. However, I did not expect to sell anything in the first few months, and I already sold a mixed media painting and one of the small journals! That came as a surprise - I am very happy about and deeply thankful for it.

But you're not here to hear me ramble but to see what's on my worktable - it's this:

I'm working on another girl, a little Halloween witch this time. She will get green hair and a typical witch's hat. Somehow I want to include a cat and perhaps an owl - or a crow. I'm thinking of working more on the background and to make it a little more "halloweenish".

Do you want to see what's on other worktables? Just visit Julia's Stamping Ground and find the "guide".

Antelope Canyon

2011-09-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

"Antelope Canyon No. 4"

I've decided to sell some of my photos as greeting cards in my Etsy shop.

I am starting with four pictures I took in Antelope Canyon a few years ago.

"Antelope Canyon No. 3"

Antelope Canyon is a fascinating slot canyon near Paige, Arizona. It's on Native American land which means you cannot just go there and enter the canyon. You have to pay an entrance fee and then wait for the Native American guide who will lead you to the canyon. The entrance to the canyon is so hidden that I wouldn't have found it without the Native American's help.

"Antelope Canyon No. 1"

The light in the canyon is incredible and paints the slickrock in fabulous warm yellow, orange and red shades. I was there during winter, so the sun never really shone into the canyon, but the sun light made the rock glow.

"Antelope Canyon No. 2"

It was unforgettable.

Made in Germany 25 - Warm September Light

2011-09-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

September is one of the most beautiful months in Germany. The weather usually is relatively stable with warm and golden Indian summer days. The days are noticeably shorter, the light is not as harsh as during summer. Fields seem to be golden - like this one in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. This East German state still has vast fields and a huge proportion of agriculture. Its beauty always warms my heart.

A Morning Walk

2011-09-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Jo and I walked around our lake. We do this at least once a week, right after our kids have left for school. Often we start our walk in the fog and finish it in brilliant sunshine. We almost always see wildlife, watch birds - it was during one of those walks that we discovered the owls' nest.

While we walked and talked (that's of course the other pleasant thing we do!) Jo bent down and lifted up this beautiful leave. While we both admired the colors and the beautiful pattern on it, it hit me that this week's challenge at Inspiration Avenue is "Patterns". So why not highlight nature's patterns? For me, nature is the most accomplished artist. So I took a few pictures of the leave before we left it where we found it.

This had opened my eyes, and we were both looking for more patterns. We did find a lot - here are our two other favorites. The first one is poison oak - isn't it interesting how something that can hurt you so much is so beautiful?

The other favorite was this tree bark - I just love it and I'm very tempted to incorporate it in some work or other. The colors were so rich and the texture so yummy - I could do an entire blog post just on this bark.

The Night of the Dancing Ghosts

2011-09-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love its quirkiness, the craziness, of course the ORANGE, the bats, spiders and ghosts. This is the first time that I attempted a Halloween themed mixed media painting. I was thinking of glittery ghosts who dance in the night. The glitter is really hard to see in this scan, but anyway, here it is - finished in a couple of days:

It is now available in my Etsy shop.

It's Friday - so I'm linking to the two wonderful bloghops Paint Party Friday and Sneak Peek Friday. Please take a peek - it's fabulous.