Grey day !

After the hope of finally 'spring coming' yesterday, today the contrast ...... winter again , grey grey day..... 

So back to winter , and back to winter mood !

No 'light' picture  today but a 'heavy' one.... 

Strange though, the 'heavy' ones , I find normally more 'true' if that makes any sense ? 

Maybe the happy paintings don't have the depth? 

But also , I think sadness is easier to paint than happiness ( It looks for example more natural to paint a sad face, than a laughing one... the laughing does easily look strange on a painting, I wonder why ...)

'sad' mixed media on old book . 19x25cm.

Tomorrow, I am leaving for 2 days to go to the beach, so hopefully I will come back , full of inspiration.... 

( that is what the sea does  !  ) 

Shells...

First day of spring today .... Everybody seemed to be outside enjoying the day... 

Sun... air...light... beautiful spring smell... and a walk on the beach ! Perfect sunday.

On the beach, I find it always impossible not to collect the shells .

They are just soooo perfect  in shape and colour.

 ( But what do you do with them once at home ?) 

And Leonardo found this perfect old piece of wood, that I will paint on , when the school holidays are over.

Once back home I took a photo of the shells on the wood....

Shells. 20x17. ink, pencil and coffee on paper .


 and here also an older sketch:

Hands photographed and painted

Leo's hands. Mixed media on paper. 20x17cm.

I am still following my holidays task to 'have an idea each day' from something that surrounds me.

Since a long time, I wanted to take  regularly photos of my son's hands  to record the change from children's hands to men's hands...!

 But today was actually  the first time I did take a picture ( just took me 13 years...) It would than be nice one day to have all these hands in one frame ! Preferably in black and white. 

And as usual after taking the picture , I also made a little painting , that I might paint in big....

Artist doll...

Yesterday ( still on school holidays...) Leonardo started to create a 

new 'super-hero' out of an artist doll 

( We have quite a few here in the house !) I still have an old original one , from the time when I studied, in my studio, but I can't say, that I ever really used it... 

I like them, but don't find them helpful for drawings  ... A real model is there much more helpful or a photo ! 

So Leonardo started to wrap it up in newspaper, so it would get more body ! And it looked very inspiring .... 

I took a picture , played around in photoshop... and painted and remembered, that I had painted one the other day.... So maybe they ARE helpful ?

artist doll in photoshop...

busy busy busy . mixed media on paper 20x17cm.

My company. Collage and mixed media on paper .25x25cm.

Shoe model

In between 'serious paintings' a little bit of fun 
( and this is actually how the ideas come as well...) 

I received few days ago a new little shoe model as a present from a friend that I love. Today I took first a picture of 'the whole family', played with it a little bit on photoshop and printed it and drew on top of it.... So here the results : and it might become a 'serious big painting'....

                                           

Meditation

Now, this is the painting done after the sketch I showed yesterday.The support is a panel and on it, are old restaurant tablecloth ( I just remembered, that when I studied I use to paint on old hospital sheets ). I prepared the cloths with coffee and worked on it with paper torn of old books and  mixed media .

Meditation. Mixed media on cloth and panel. 60x90cm.

one picture

Today just one picture, that I have put  on redbubble as well ( I will have to connect redbubble with this blog I suppose ... the address is www.redbubble.com ) It has been the original sketch before the painting "meditation" and often the sketches are stronger in the idea than the ' real painting' at the end. It has generally more freedom , because first of all it is not a copy as the painting done after the sketch.

Meditation Idea No1 Collage and acrylic on paper (25x25cm.)

my boats

Today few of my boats, 

Some I had on my 'travel' exhibition in 2008 , but even after the show, I still painted a few.... 

And probably still will, as I always think : "I have to paint it" when I see a boat...

Specially the rusty ones !

So here a few examples:

Port. Encaustic + oil on linen. 82x92cm.

'Reise'. Mixed media on canvas. 80x80cm.

Red Sail . Mixed media and encaustic on linen . 77x77cm.

Red Boat. Mixed media on paper. 25x25cm.

'Frachter' Mixed media and rust on linen. 92x76cm.

With 36 Boxes to Australia. Mixed media on linen. 200 x 70 cm.

Boat. Encaustic on canvas. 50x50cm.

Rust Boats

Little work for holiday period ! 

I have done 8 of those rusty and blackboard boats for a wall in the restaurant. 

THE BOOK

Today I would like to show a little bit of 'the book' 

'The book ' is a sketchbook done from my friend Harriet, who lives in Berlin and who's art i really like

 ( she has a lot of humour and great skills ) and me here in Melbourne.

The whole idea started long time ago, when we decided to send each other a postcard once the month...

Which was difficult already after the second month ...

( I am really bad in posting ...) 

Anyway this year we decided to work together on a sketchbook ! And to avoid the problem with the posting, we do it over the Internet !

The idea is to respond to each others work. 

Communication in another level.

We got so much into it, that it didn't happen once or twice the month, but every day !!!

It is a bit of a shame, that these paintings, drawings, mixed media  are stuck inside this book, it would be nice to see them  printed, but I suppose that is always the problem with an artist book .
A painting you can at least hang on the wall and enjoy !


And here a couple ( always two belonging together )  

Emu and love

Octopus 

'teatime'

Zeus and Europe Number 1

Because I showed the other day Zeus and Europe Number 2 , I would like to have the number 1 here as well... The painting was in my head again totally different from the result.....

Is that maybe the reason , why I am still painting ? To paint FOR ONCE the painting that I really have in my head ....

I will have to paint more of Europe and Zeus , or maybe  even some big drawings with charcoal. 

Zeus and Europe No 1 . Acrylic on panel . 120x 84 cm. 

THE Painting....

Edward Munch's Madonna is still one of my favourite paintings. 

The first time I saw it in Hamburg, I could just not walk away from it. 

This is such a 'true' painting.

I remember, that I promised myself, that I would always paint what I really feel ! 

( but this is easier said than done.)  

BUT I don't know if I can just 'use' his picture here on my side ...
What about copyrights ????
I think I need to do some more research , before I can just put his painting here !
Or I put it in and wait what happens...

Edvard Munch 'Madonna' 

My studio

Today just a picture of my studio.... I love to be there, I am looking every single day forward being there. And I miss every single day if I can't be there... ( Well,  I am also enjoying the holidays so far !) I would like to have a bigger space with many many tables ! But for the time , this studio is perfect !

The Copper Riders ( Kupferne Reiterinnen )

Still holidays... But maybe I could show  during these holidays a little bit of my work so far  on this blog. 

Today i would like to introduce my 'copper riders' . I still have to find my first 'Kuperne Reiterinnen" that I painted when I studied. But because that was still in the analog time , I do not have the photos here on the computer ( I don't even know where these photos could be with all these moving countries ...) 

I paint in different situations in my life a copper rider . So far , I have 6 . 

The first 2 were when I studied. 

the Number 3 was when I was pregnant and  I needed to be strong ( the first one here )

Number 4 is the dark red one, at a stage when I thought my life was just staying still ....

Number 5 is the rusty one... starting to get old and stiff , and quieter and without a fighting attitude anymore.

Number 6 the last one ( green ) is the one in the stage that I am now. Looking more in the past than into the future... Looking back instead of moving forward . 

                                       

                           

                

sunday - non painting day....

On the weekends, i never really get to paint as it is more of a family day. 

But I must say that than the mondays can be a little bit like starting from zero again. I like to have at least a new idea on sundays, so on monday I know already what to work with.... (Not tomorrow but... Because it is also school holidays, so I will be mainly a mother. ) But maybe this time I can manage to work every day a little bit towards a new theme or  new ideas ! Today my task was to get an idea from something that I normally wouldn't have a second look at .... And look what I found : 

        

And now the idea :

Ned Kellys armour

After I made yesterday the Ned Kelly painting and all the research about him, I still couldn't get him out of my head today. + I found this nice paper....

 I could imagine to really build this armour ! Maybe even out of paper and than paint it in rust ... 

Ned Kelly

Today was an easy 'painting day ' as I went to the studio with already an idea in my head.... Away from Greek Mythology ( I have to accept, that I am not there anymore ) and welcome to Australia !!! As I don't know anything really about the Aboriginal mythology, the only  'legend' coming into my head was Ned Kelly. I did a little bit of research about him .... I will read more about him, also to understand how they made him to such a legend .? But I must say , that I  really like his armour ! I made it out of rust . the background words ntelaxa.... nteeeee.... and so on is Santorini donkey language..... Because you see..... Santorini is still in my head.......

Zeus and Europe Number 2

I finished today Zeus and Europe number 2 .
I like it so far.
I like that it is not  immediately clear what the painting is about,  that she is riding on Zeus the bull.
Also that she isn't scared ! She might even be looking forward  to a new unknown and maybe exciting life . ...

I still don't really understand ...

As the title says, I still don't really understand what a blog is about and to whom I am writing, but I will just 'test the water' also trying to put a picture in.... Because THAT I know, this blog will be about art , paintings and about what it means to be an artist ...

a new start ....

For such a long time I refused to deal with the 'blog world' and today without a reason decided to be part of it....Wish me luck !