Making cards

 

Hi!

 

 

We returned home from our two month Europe trip several weeks ago. Once more it has been a wonderful experience!

 

 

 

 

We first visited a part of Spain that we had read about, but heard of no-one we knew who ever visited it. The countryside reminded us somewhat of South Carolina, albeit that it is mainly used for growing 'arroz bomba', the kind of rice that is being used for the famous 'paella'. This Ebro delta was a superb start...

 

Then came the Pyrenees and we spent two weeks in France before we arrived in the Netherlands (needless to say I love France!). Visited our children, relatives and some friends, which of course is always very good and fun.

 

Then came Germany, the region right across the eastern border of Holland. Went to a huge campershow in Dusseldorf. Lovely weather throughout the weeks, I don't remember a sunny summer in northern Europe like this.

 

To make a long story short, it was wonderful and I will certainly get back to it every now and then.

 

But today is for ART!!!

 

 

Recently I stopped singing in a choir, so instead of our rehearsal morning I decided to claim this extra time for art experimenting.

 

I started right away when we came back and it seems to be working:

 

Currently (or should I say finally?) I started with Gelli printing. A way of printing that I wanted to try since a long time, but never did.

The good thing is that there is a lot of info to be found on the internet. So I made a durable gelliplate myself, discovered the superb blog of Linda Germain and others and started.

 

 

Made a series of postcards this weekend that turned out pretty cool (IMHO)!

 

It is a start; it feels so good to be back again!

 

Thanks for your patience during my absence, and thanks for reading this post,

 

Regina

A break

 

It's that time of the year.

Hot summer nights, days on the beach and hardly any creative action...

 

 

 

So we take the time to explore new horizons and getting inspired while traveling in our second home

 

From earlier I know it may be difficult to post on a regular basis, so for this I apologize in advance. Hope to see you back soon, enjoy summer!

 

Thanks for visiting,

 

Regina

It's not easy!

 

 

Because the monthly subject 'Not your normal flower' was ready, I took two unused canvases to last week's painting session

 

My mood was restless, I had not been willing to look extensively for a new subject nor did I want to spend too much time thinking how to start...

 

I set up my easel and just flung some colors down on both canvases. Spreading it out with a palette knife and working in rectangles and squares (I really don't know why) 

 

 

Only recently have I started to use just red, yellow; blue, plus black and white of course. In my box there are the most beautiful colors that are ready to use, but I want to learn!

The above result is horrible in my opinion, I especially hated the color green and the yellow on the right top corner

 



so after watching some Youtube lessons of Jane Davies, I followed her instructions of mixing your own Celadon color

 

I put this on the places I did not like...

 



 

on the second canvas the same green, though it did not disturb me in the same way as the bigger painting 

 

 

These are the results today. And like so often I do not know how to proceed. So I guess I leave them sitting in my studio and have a look at it every now and then until an 'Aha' brilliant idea comes up.

 

Painting is not easy, indeed...

 

Thanks for visiting!

 

Regina

Hi! It is 'Martes'

 

 

 

This week's dyptich is composed of two pictures I made last Sunday.

In our coastal village we have some lovely beach clubs and we were having dinner in one of them. From a former visit I remembered there was a huge poster on a frame of a saddhu. When I first saw it I had no possibilities to make a photograph, but this time I took my camera

 

The dinner was to celebrate father's day (without kids, for they live abroad). My husband is of Indian ancestry and though I never went to India myself, I have a keen interest in various topics 'India', it intrigues me, hence the saddhu choice.

 

In the same beach club there are several 'rangoli', painted in white on the concrete floor. Rangoli is an art form, originating in India, in which patterns are created on the floor in living rooms or courtyards. Its purpose is mainly decoration (Wikipedia)

 

 

The food was excellent, as was the service!

All in all this was a very successful Father's Day,in a relaxed beachy atmosphere...

 

Thanks for now,

 

Regina

 



Flowerish

Good morning!

 

 

It was not supposed to be a simple, customary flower

but more flower-like, making you think of flowers

So I came up with this... 

 

 

First I painted the background

 

 

and then drew some lines with my Sharpie

 

 

 

and like so often I tend to like the details more

 than the whole painting

 

This soft pastel like colorscheme is very unlike me, but I want to learn, I am learning

 

It will stay like this for a while...

 

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Regina

Martes!

Hi!

Martes de nuevo  (again it is Tuesday)

(you can click the image for a better view) 

Temperatures are on the rise, I really needed to cool down a bit here in Spain.

What could be better than to show the above dyptich? No warm summer colours this time and with a little bit of imagination one can almost feel the cold from the Athabaska glacier on the left...

We visited the Icefield Parkway in Alberta (Canada) back in 2009. It was our first summer trip with our newly purchased motorhome and we were traveling together with our eldest son, who had joined us in Seattle. We drove from Jasper to Banff and had a fantastic time. In fact it was the Icefields Parkway that made it very special: as a natural park the whole area was pure nature, no houses, no bill boards, just some traffic signs where necessary. 

A landscape that is hard to find these days (imho)...

The picture on the right is of the Athabaska falls, it is said not to be the widest or tallest, but the most powerfull!

There is a lot of info on these sites

https://icefieldsparkway.com/ 

https://icefieldsparkway.com/maps

Ah: Lake Louise, Peyto Lake, Johnston Canyon and so much more,

...sweet memories...

Have a lovely day!

Regina

The old ruin...

Some time ago I discovered this old ruin

in a neighboring village...

 

 

this is the view of it, seen from the road



 

 

places like this can ignite in me fantasies

of times gone by, of times when life was

hard, but overseeable

...

 

I decided to enter the plot and was surprised how easy

it was to get to the old finca

 



 

as for me remnants of buildings like this will remain untouched

forever, for me they represent pure beauty

 



 

for how could one ever recreate a picture like this?



 

 

the weathered door led into a small, secluded patio

 



 

that I want to investigate another time...

 

but for today this was it: my world of fantasy

so very close...

 

Am I the only one who has a crush for ruins like this?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Regina



Martes!

 

 

Hi there!

 

 

 

Another week has passed by, time seems to run from Tuesday to Martes...

 

Above is a close-up view of one of the lavender plants in our garden. We have several of them, some of these already very old.

 

When we came to live here, the plants had been neglected and I remember going to the garden centre and asking whether it would be possible to prune them (I had no idea!):

"Oh no, you have to buy new ones, old plants can by no way be pruned".

 Now for me this is the right attitude to become suspicious and we thought: why not try it first? Of course we can always buy new ones in case our actions become disastrous.

And so we did: the plants were pruned by my DH and until today they seem to have appreciated his treatment. They flourish as never before!

 

The second little photo is of a fisherman's boat that we discovered at a very secluded little bay in our village. It is called Pirate Bay and with some fantasy you can imagine that various illegal things can happen there. In the past, but also these days with more and more immigrants from North Africa crossing the Mediterranean...

 

The only possible handicap is that there is no road close by, just a small canyon with abundant shrubs and woodland. Such a canyon is called a 'barranc' in Spanish

Barranc de la Viuda

 

  Cala Llebeig aka Pirate Bay

 

 You see what I mean?

 

with just a little fantasy...

 

Thanks for visiting today,

 

Regina



New painting and collage

Humor

was the painting subject that was chosen this time

 

Humor, mostly spoken words;

 but how to paint it in acrylic? that was the question

 

we discussed and discussed and in the end it was deducted to:

 

if it makes one smile a little

 

 

I found an illustrator whose work made me smile,

her name is Sara-Jane Szikora

 

and I made my own version of 'Self raising flower'

I now consider it finished!

 

 

One of my goals is to be able to paint without an example;

there is still a long way to go!

 

 This probably made me compose the digital collage above.

 The picture of the acrylic painting was layered 4 times over itself, in each layer adjusting the filters and highlighting another part of the first picture

 

Two versions of  'self raising flower'

by me

 

Thanks for visiting,

 

Regina



Martes...

Good Morning!

 

 

 

Now Pentecost weekend is over we can enjoy a relatively quiet period until the 'Moors and Christians' reenactments will take place in our village.

 

 

This revival of the historic war and fights between muslims and Christians is an annual event that is celebrated throughout Spain and in almost every Spanish town and village. Needless to say that it attracts lots of tourists and other visitors.

 

 

I will try to get back to these festivities in a future post, but today it it just Martes (Tuesday)!

 

The left picture is of a painting I made a couple of years ago. It is one of an ongoing series on the subject of New Mexico. Around this time 9 years ago we discovered a Roadtrek mobile home for sale through the internet from an old man in New Mexico.

We went to Santa Fe for a weekend (from St. Maarten!) where we met the owner and decided on buying it after we had spent a few exciting nights in it (among which one night in a Native American settlement near Santa Fe). We were totally content with the camper, and so we made the deal...

 

To celebrate, the lovely man took us for dinner to the casino in Santa Fe, where I saw a stunning painting like this in one of the corridors.

 

Most adobe houses in New Mexico are terra cotta - earth coloured and you sometimes have to look really well to discover them in the arid landscape. So my version of the houses is a little more 'me, eg. colourfull!

 

The second photograph is a detail of the woodish seedshells of our Jacaranda tree. Nothing to do with New Mexico, but I show it because at the moment it is showing its lovely purple-blue flowers. I just gather the woodish seedshells in autumn, put these in a bowl and let them show their beauty as is, at least I think they are beautiful!

 

This is it for today, my little story of the how and why. I hope you enjoyed it.

 

Have a great 'Martes',

 

Regina

Tuesday - Martes!

Hello,

 

Way back, when living in the Caribbean, I made a habit of composing storyboards on a regular base.

They were posted as a series called Tropical Thursday.

 

At that time I enjoyed making these very much and I am getting back to it now, here..!

But: because I am living in Spain now and my Spanish is still improving every day (if I may say so), I call this new series:

 

Martes! (which means Tuesday, of course)

Here comes the first one:

 

Martes 1

 

It has been composed by two pictures that tell a little story:

 

One of the beloved conch shell with a silk flower in it, an idea I once discovered at an hotel on the isle of St. Eustatius. I still use this decoration item in our house...

 

and the other part is a detail of a painted brown bag that I used as a gift wrap packaging. Should I receive a present wrapped like this, I would consider the packaging a gift itself

 

I hope you enjoy this first storyboard,

 

Enjoy this Tuesday, next week another one...

 

Regina

Clutch (recycled art)

For a long time I have rejected the idea of recycling art.

 I mean how could I possibly 'destroy' something I have been working on with all my heart and soul???

 

Then there comes a moment that you realise it is stocked up somewhere in forgotten places, while the purpose of it is to be seen...

 

 This is one of my former textile works that has been put away at the time, because there does not seem to be enough walls in this house to show my beauties and ultimately it resulted in my latest steps:

 

recycling!

 

 

I liked the idea of using it for a clutch

 

This is the front

 

(the metal thingies - don't know the English word- are taken from a commercially bought one that had its closure broken. The straps of my clutch can be taken off)

 

 

The inside. Closures made with velcron

 



and the back

 



 

The remainder of the quilted panel

 

Not sure what it will be turned into, for now I have put it away... (hah, again)

 

What do you think? Do you like my clutch??

Your feedback is highly appreciated!

 

Thanks for visiting,

 

Regina

 

 

 



Dots, dots, dots

 

Maybe you know I am a huge fan of dots...

 

I have used this basic design element abundantly in my art and still feel its attraction today

 

(If you search the label Design Elements in the category cloud in the side bar, you can see former posts about this subject)

 

It appears I am in very good company with regard to this:

 

Brenda Holzke is an artist working mainly with clay and showing the same love for

 shape, rhythm and even colors

in a limited color scheme

 

 Another artist that I have been admiring for a long time is

Shane Drinkwater

This image of a very simple work of art took my breath away the first time I saw it

In fact it was this work that triggered me to find out why I love dots so much...

 

and even now I still don't have the one and only answer, 

for it can be found in many fields of life, with as many possible meanings

 

Drinkwater is an Australian and his work seems to be influenced by the Aboriginals

 

 

And finally the works of Karine Leger

 

 

this is a painting that you can hear people think:

a child can do this...

However, after having painted for some years now, I know how deceptively difficult it is to create like this!

 

 

the same for this

 

 

ceramic plate, also made by Karine Leger

dots, rhythm and a little bit of color

 

I Love it!



Walking in the fields

Now the weather is still good for walking and nature is in full bloom, we joined the monthly walk of our 'Coffee, Chatting and Stroll' group (KKK in Dutch, not to be mistaken by the US meaning)

 

This time the walk started in the neighbor village of Benitatchell

in the Costa Blanca, of course...

 

 

one of the few buildings we came by, is this new finca style house

 that is almost finished

The trees here are mainly pine trees and they are protected now, after lots of them were cut down due to intensive building activities some twenty years ago

 

 

the roadside and borders of wine fields are full with flowers at this time of the year

 

 

the pink variety of this little, lovely flower of which I don't know its name

 

 

this one is much bigger, but quite as beautiful

 



 

Benitatchell is a very old village, on this picture seen from the backside

 



 

the size of the bigger pink flower can be seen above

 



 

almost at the end of the walk...

 

Except for a few cars, nobody else was seen. How lucky we are, here in the Costa Blanca, in Spain

 

PS though absolutely not art related, I thought you might like to get a glimpse of the environment we live in. This all is at a few miles distance from the Mediterranaen!

 

Thanks for visiting today,

 

Regina



Irma (...not La Douce)

Last month we visited the Caribbean. We started on the island where we have been living 7 years, the island where I started my blog in 2008.

 

As you probably know, St. Maarten/St.Martin was severely hit by hurricane Irma on September 6th, 2017. Although we have been following the newspapers and social media ever since, seeing the effects was really shocking..!

 

For once I will address a post on this blog to the aftermath.

 Seeing the island struggle to rebuild was quite difficult. Knowing that lots of people and businesses are still waiting for the payments of the insurance companies before they can start renovating the roofs and other damaged parts. Many people lost their jobs due to the demolished hotels, few tourists are visiting the island that, except for its beaches, now has little more to offer. Knowing that there are just a few months left before another hurricane season starts, makes everything extra hard.

 

 

view from our apartment

 

Oyster Pond, once a very popular nautical area. Docks complety destroyed, hardly any yacht in harbor now, since there seem to be several ships on the bottom and thus sailing is difficult and dangerous. Moreover, no facilities are left...

 

 

Front Street in Philipsburg

At the time of our visit, I guess only 20-30 percent of the shops were open

This is an area close to the harbor where in high season up to 9 cruiseships came ashore. But, who needs diamonds seeing this?

 

 

Driving along the eastern coastway, we passed Coralita Beach and these cars

give a good impression of nature's powers

 

 

Marigot. Capital of the French part of the island

All shops and businesses at the waterfront completely destroyed,

so very sad to witness

 

and finally Orient Beach.

Once the most popular beach for both tourists and

people of this island. Lovely shops and restaurants, everything to welcome and pamper the people who came here to have a good time.

 

 

Before taking up my blogging regime, I felt the urge to tell you about these very recent experiences.



 

We have been talking to many survivors and can only just a little bit imagine how horrendous the passing of this hurricane must have been.

 

However, we have also seen the resilience of the people. The determination to rebuild and make St. Maarten/St. Martin once again a favorite destination to travel to.

 

Next time something else, more art related

 

Thanks for reading, see you soon,

 

Regina