New year, new chances!

 

 

I wish you all the best for the new year...

 

whatever your wishes are, that they may come true!

 

Regina

Melancholy

This collage was made by me last week. I started with the piece of paper that contained the man, looking (at some far away distance?) Full of thought, it seems to me, full of melancholic feelings maybe... Anyhow, that's how the collage started. Then came the door, no words necessary to describe these, their beauty is obvious, yes I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but still...

The partial circular mosaic got a place too, here it was the tender colour, combined with the motives and material that made me choose this part.And then I finished it with some text and it is so funny while making this work, I noticed that even the text fragment seems to fit into the whole: son savoir?, plaisir a ses...?, did these thoughts evoke the melancholy in his eyes?

 

On the village square of our little Spanish village, right in front of the cathedral with also has these big impressive doors, a group of old men is gathering every day. When I pass them, they are always talking in a lively way, talking about 'their world' I assume. In my fantasy they have been sitting on the benches year after year, at least since they did not have to work anymore. Next time I will pay attention to the look in their eyes, but I do not expect much melancholy here, cause after these two months here, I have come to know the people as practical, of a no nonsense kind of friendliness...

 

talking about influences...

 

 

 

Influences 3

collage, 7.5 x 11"

 

recycled magazine on paper, glued and varnished

 

Have a great pre X-mas weekend!

 

Regina

Influences

It's been a long time since I have been writing so many letters...

 

Though the e-mail replaced the postman (except for Christmas cards),

I have been writing many letters to friends and family all over the world lately.

 

It was the right time for that, for catching up. In these writings I talk about our impressions, of the new country, our home in the mountains, the view at the Mediteranean at a 5 mile distance, but also about the friendly people we already met.

 

Somehow these new impressions and the colours that surround me 'soak' into my collages,

hence this series:

 

 

 

 

Influences 2

 

paper collage, appr. 8.5 x 11 "

recycled magazines on paper, glue, varnish

 

As always thanks for visiting

Regina



The sea...

 

 

While washing the dishes this morning

 

I looked outside the ktichen window,

 

and saw this stunning sea...

 

the huge rock on the right is the

 

Penon d'Ifach,

 

it is located in the sea right in front the bay of Calpe. It is one of the area's National Parks.

 

 

The water was like silver, there was smoke in the valley of the chimneys in the

 

farmhouses, it was such a great view, I just had to share it.

 

Thanks for visiting!

New collage

 

Influences 1

 

collage, 7.5 x 10.5"

 

 

So, after a long time I finally had the inspiration and chance to make some collages!

As I am usually working in a spontaneous manner, this recent work is reflecting my new environment in Spain. The house could be a finca, the countryside on the right and top, including the colours, are almost similar to what I see on a daily basis since we are living here in Benissa. However, I have not seen ladies riding a donkey until today...

 

Enjoy your Sunday!

 

Regina

 



Making a home

 

Our Mason jars we bought in the USA

came out of the boxes,

 

 

 

then I found some lovely Ivy along the coastal road. I try to grow plants out of the cutlings,

 

so have put them in the waterfilled jars.

 

Now hopefully the roots can form,

while they make me feel at home,

 

love the color of this glass,

love ivy,

 

already feel a bit at home...

 

 

Happy Sunday,

 

Regina

Grand Case

Many delicious hours were spent here...

so my sweet memories of this lovely fisherman's village on the

French side of St. Martin led to this collage

...

 

 

 

Grand Case

 

paper (recycled tourist brochure, magazines)

appr. 7 x 11"

 

Happy to be playing again...

Regina

 

 

 

 



Benissa in pastel

This morning I had some shopping to do in the village, so after I parked my car

I walked to the village square;

 

this is what I saw on my way, come walk with me!

 

 

just a look to the right: surprise..!

 

it was a sunny, colorful walk today

 

 

my footsteps resonated in this alley,

must be difficult to enter the houses unseen...

 

 

my absolute favorite, such beauty, and to be able to witness it on a November day

 

 

mandarinas galore, nobody takes them from the trees,

they are everywhere around

(notice the downside of the balcony, with the tiles I wrote about in yesterday's post)

 

 

I so enjoyed my little stroll! Then came home and had some sunbathing on our terrace,

again, in November!

Feeling truly blessed...

 

See ya!

Regina



Spanish village

 

Today I want to show you some pictures of the village where we live, Benissa. It is an old and very traditional village, very Spanish too, and I love that!

 

 

these tiles you can see on the bottom of the little balconies, aren't they lovely?

the people in the village take great pride in keeping their houses neat and orderly...

 

 

while walking through the village, you come across many places like this

 

 

and very small, tiny streets, this is 'main' street!

 

So far this introduction of my new environment,

will be back soon with more, thanks for stopping by,

 

Regina



Patiently I waited

 

 

until my desktop computer was installed in our home

 

in Spain....



 

About a week ago the container with our furniture came driving along the small countryroad where our house is situated, between the olive and almond trees.

 

This week we have been very busy making this house our home, that is until we find something we want to buy. There's heaps for sale in the neighborhood, but we want to learn more about the various places, urbanisations, development plans and so on, so we take our time.

 

But since yesterday night, I am finally able to reduce the size of my pictures, so with that I am hopefully back to regular posting, there's a lot to catch up with.

 

The collage above I made yesterday, of ripped magazine pictures, plus some brown paper bag.

 

In a way it reflects my current situation: it is autumn in Spain, with cold evenings and nights, but sunshine mostly during the day. We live near a very traditional and lovely Spanish village that is surrounded by hills. And you may have noticed a change in my colour palette, the turquoise has disappeared, for the Mediteranean Sea is more silver greyish at this time of the year. But I expect that to return once winter is over...

 

For my followers: thanks for your patience during the time of hardly posting, I appreciate

your visit, as always

 

Regina

Barcelona

Today we will fetch our camper from Barcelona's harbour. After what has been a long 'voyage' it will finally be ours again and we will take it home.

We left the car over two months ago in the port of Jacksonville, Florida, after which it was shipped three weeks later to Europe. It got discharged from the huge ro-ro ship in a complete wrong city, at the other end of Spain. Then had to wait again, before it could be shipped to Barcelona.

We are very curious to see it's state and hope there will be little or no damage at all!

Because this collage has a certain olympic atmosphere to me, I decide d to show it in this post.

Enjoy the new week, thanks for coming by,

Regina

While I wait...

for our furniture and all my art materials

I collage, can one say that like this, like a verb?

Anyway, I make collages and love every minute of it!

Beautiful

...there is no other word for me to describe the valley

in front of our home in Spain...

with its view of the ever changing Mediteranean Sea in the distance,

the shepherd with his flock of sheep,

the sweet sscent of wild thyme that you can smell allover

in the weeks since we started living here, I've become quite fond also of the ruin of what once must have been a beautiful finca, expect many pictures in the near future!

Influences

Since we are living in this new country, I feel I am being influenced by it...

Different colors, different sensations and ah yes, different temperatures! In Spain it is also getting colder, not during the day, but at night it can be pretty cold and we have to make a fire in the woodburner:today'S collage reflects this influences, I think.
Thank you for visiting!

Getting back inspiration

and making collages again. Finally, por fin!

Ruin

Close to our new house there is this ruin, which once was a finca. This week we heard the shepherd and his flock of sheep walking in the neighborhood and were very surprised! 

the house and other buildings are too deteriorated to be restored and we understood from a neighbor that a permit to build new is not granted to the owners of the plot. Hopefully this will remain so, cause I love the place as it is. Quiet, unobstructed view over the valley and Mediterraenean. We feel so lucky to start our Spanish adventure here...

Almonds..

Our new home is situated in the mountains and we are surrounded by orange groves, almond- and olive trees. Our landlord lives in the village, but is working his land every day. He gave us a basket with these almonds and yesterday afternoon we 'shelled' some on the well outside. I liked the colors in this picture and for the time being I consider this my art!

Pomme granate

This morning I found this fruit hanging in one of the bushes along our country road in Spain. I took it inside and placed it on a piece of rooftile I also discovered outside. Our container will arrive in about two weeks and in the meantime I try to make it cozy inside... The pomme granate fell down a few times, it cracked open and though I knew, its beauty surprised me once again. No human art yet, but art from nature is always there!

BACK! it seems...

Hello dear all,

It's been ages since I was able to post, in reality it was months ago, but I was seriously in doubt if I would ever be able to post again! There were problemwith s Blogger, who did not seem to understand that I suddenly wanted to work on a tablet, fwith rom a different location, a different country also. And there was a password conflict with our new family password and mine for blogging. However, fingers crossing but it looks like these nasty things suddenly have been solved now I'm in Spain!!

For that is where I am in the meantime, after an awsome vacation in the USA, a quick two week period on Sint Maarten (for the move), a similar quick 10 days in The Netherlands.

Since a week we are in this new country of us and tomorrow we will move into our new house. There'a lot of catching up to do, but fot now I just check if adding a picture also works and if so I will be back with posting regularly, I promise. I feel so happy now, till soon

hi!
we are in Georgia right now and heading to the coast. Tojmorrow it will be Sou6th Carolina and next week awe travel down the coast to Jackonville, where our motorhome will be shipped to Spain... After we'll be back on the island, it will be a few verybusy days with moving our stuff and then it is goodbye St.,Maarten! We enjoyed the states of Kentucky and Tennessee so much, and are somewhat embarrasses by the poverty we see in Georgia... The weather is not too goog, many thunderstorms at night, with the inevitable restless sleep, both of us. I am still sorry that I cannot post the way I would like to, but by now have let it go, later! Also I won't try to upload a pictuere, ssince I will likely be thrown out then... So far my update, thanks for visiting, grtz from a rainy Georgia!

Great Smoky Mountain NP, tomorrow

Hi all,

 along the country roads of Kentucky

 near the port of Paducah

in Helene Davis' studio in Paducah

I have had big troubles with posting from my tablet and now finally am able to use dh's laptop at the campground... We are having a great time again. Have had very hot days (and nights!), but by now temperatures have dropped and it is feeling better all over. We are in Sevierville, Tennessee, and about to visit the Great Smoky Mountain NP. Today was a day of buying groceries, doing the laundry and internetting. The coming days we will be out of reach of all these modern appliances, since we intend to stay at primitive campgrounds within the park. I also uploaded all pictures of our new camera, and will try to include some in this post. The bbq fire is on and there are shrimps on the menu, so I will stop here. Hope you all understand my very limited posting for the time being!

Thanks so much for visiting, till next time

Regina

A quick hello!

just to let you know that I'm still alive...

We traveled Ohio, Kentucky and are in Tennessee now. Have been to Mammoth Cave, which was wonderful and cool! Like in many places the weather is hot, sticky hot. Nashville and Paducah were lovely places to visit, I've seen quite some quilts this trip: in the National Quilt Museum, at Helene Davis' studio and there was a Gee's Bend Quilt exhibit in Nashville! This was it for today, hope Panera's wifi will let me upload this post...

In Ohio!

It's been a week already since we left the island. Our motorhome had a few problems due to serious winter conditions, but everything is fine now and vacationing can really start! We're at a lovely, very quiet campground near Lake Erie in Ohio, tomorrow we will use for some outlet shopping. Then there's a national park at the program, I will report on that asap, hopefully with pictures. As always it takes a little struggling to write and publish a post!

Time to play

We are almost ready to leave for our vacation in our motorhome!

Today was hectic, what with all kind of last minute chores that needed attention, preparation of our house for the hurricane season etc. I sincerely hope, like I do every year but maybe this year even some more, that we will be spared disaster. Last week's 5.1 earthquake close to Sint Maarten was scary enough. Fingers crossing...



The above picture is the result of playing with PS. I have not been practising this for quite some time, but intend to take it up again as soon as possible in Spain. After getting back in the Caribbean we have a short period to move our stuff and then we will say goodbye to this island after having lived here for 7 years...

I hope to be able to post regularly during our travels, so long!

My first Tapas

picture: Hank Shaw

Some weeks ago, my sister in law and I were grocery shopping in one of the big supermarkets on the island. Because she is living on another island she admired all kinds of food she did not know and this is how we discovered little white fishes in the freezer department, named Smelts or Boquerones.

I was thinking: boquerones?? spanish?? could this be ansjovis, or sardine?

We both bought about a pound and once at home I immediately looked up the word boquerone. A wealth of recipes appeared! This week, as I am emptying the freezer because our long absence that is due, I rediscovered them and gave it a try with this recipe. It requires just a few ingredients, is easy, one only needs some time before they are ready to enjoy, but already now this is a favorite of us.

We are looking forward for more tapas of course and with my new Spanish cookbook that is guaranteed, but this one is our

No. 1!

Happy July 4th

HAPPY JULY 4th!

remembering past vacations and thinking 

of the next one about to begin 

 in your beautiful

country...

Regina

Goodbye Curacao (2)

In this post I told about my recent walk through Punda.

At the ferry I saw this man and I couldn't resist taking his picture, I'm sure you know why

Like places of public transport throughout the world, there was so much to see. But crossing the Annabaai does not take that long and I went ashore at Otrabanda, 'the other side' in Papiamentu.

I decides to visit one of the island's galleries that took a five minute walk, but once there it appeared that the gallery was not there anymore. All beauty I saw during my walk made up for this, however...

for I discovered some walls outside a restaurant that had 'poststamps' on it: all my favorites were present: Amsterdam, New York, India and also Spain! These pictures are a wealth for me, as I can and will use them in future digital collages. An unexpected treat!

One of the streets, needless to say I was thrilled...

and then this one!

and this guy, for me this looks like a 'he', but I know almost nothing about them, not even if they have a 'gender'... but I am always impressed by their preshistoric looks

by the time I got back, the bridge had been closed again

and I joined the many pedestrians that went to the Punda side.

Next time Westpunt,

thanks for visiting,

Regina

Goodbye Curacao!

It was time to say goodbye to collagues and family at Curacao, so we visited the island where we  have lived as a family some 30 years ago

 

and while DH was handing over business to his colleagues

I had a morning, a whole morning, to take a last stroll through Punda and Otrabanda...

 

... started at the central market, where this fisherman was cleaning his catch. Strange that I did not

feel any blockade to ask his permission for a picture. Maybe the fact that I was not afraid to speak Papiamentu was a bit of a help... anyhow, I was happy with his YES, of course!

shopping was a delight, so was walking through the small alleys

where you have to look up sometimes to discover real jewels...

In the distance is the bridge that crosses the Annabaai, thus connecting big parts of the island

This morning however, I decided to go by ferry, since the pontoon bridge had been opened to allow a ship to get into the harbour

 Close to the ferry station is this building, which houses the ambassy of Venezuela. This South American country is situated 'in front of' Curacao, though probably it is more correct to put it the other way around, but you get the idea!

the ferry just is used for passengers when the pontoon bridge is open, it is free and convenient.

And by leaving Punda by ferry, I conclude part I of my Willemstad, Curacao trip.

Will be back with more soon!

Enjoy your day and as always: thanks for visiting my blog!

Never Boring

  to me, never boring is a visit to the French village of Grand Case

On one side there is main street, Grand Case Promenade, with its quaint boutiques and many, many restaurants...

from where you can see this amazing view, the Caribbean Sea this is, oh yes!

nearly all houses in Grand Case were once built  along the beach, but most of these have been turned into restaurants over time

life seems easy here, what more could someone need but a hammock?

and a little terrace for a morning coffee and to watch the sunset at night...

'Don't worry, bout a thing

Cause everything s gonna be alright...'

For now I leave you with these words of the famous Bob Marley song in my mind

Thanks for visiting!