Photography Friday (and announcing a little blog break)

It's hard to imagine that just a few weeks ago I was so low on energy I could hardly walk around the ponds. Now I'm feeling so much better, of course I'm enjoying my walks more than ever. Nothing like being limited in your health to make you appreciate it when it returns.

Naturally I had to bring my camera with me on my first 'real' walk since getting sick. And of course now I have to share some of the pics with you, so you can tag along. Enjoy!

I know I'm most fortunate to live a place that offers such sights on a daily basis. And still I like to roam other places from time to time. Especially places that look a little like mine, but are still different.

Over the past few years I have taken vacations to the other  Dutch Wadden Sea Islands and the coming week I will visit the last one on that list, namely Texel. It's the island that is to the west of mine and it's the biggest island of the five inhabited ones. I will be staying in an appartment in one of their coastal towns, and I'm very curious. I have only been to Texel once for one day, so there is still much left to explore.

Of course I will bring my camera. Of course I will bring my journal. And of course I will be sure to have a full report for you when I get back to the blog. That will be in about ten days. No doubt I'll treat you to some slideshows and journal pages. So be prepared for some vacation rambling when I get back.

Until then I wish you all a wonderful and artsy time!

Fifty little paintings in a row

Well, I have reached a little milestone a short while ago: I did my fiftieth morning painting! Fifty little paintings in a row, who would have thought I could do that? I was pretty proud of myself I can tell you.

Meanwhile I have done more paintings already, but here are the morning paintings right untill number fifty.

#43 - "Garden"

#44 - "Fast Flowers"

#45 - "Sarah 2"

#46 - "Tree Silhouettes"

#47 - "Simple Flowers"

#48 - "Mail Order Catalogue Girl"

#49 - "Branch"

#50 - "Mail Order Catalogue Girl"

As you can see the last few paintings I have been experimenting with a coloured background - sometimes decorated with white or beige paint marker - and then drawing with black paint on top of that. I think it's good practice for brush movements to learn to get the brush to do exactly what I want. I am really enjoying this drawing with a paint brush and I like the effect also. And black gouache is just so beautiful.

I love how these morning paintings have no real consistency in them, I just follow whatever I feel like doing at the moment and when I'm tired of that I start to do something else.

No rules, just paint. That seems to be the motto of these paintings and it's working well for me.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day.

From the Canson Book

It's time for a peek in my journal again.

I'm enjoying the Canson Book very much. The compact book makes it possible for me to write on the couch! That may not seem like a big thing, but the last journal Flora was so big I could only write sitting at a table. So this is quite nice. ;-)

For those of you who enquired about the status of my flu: I'm doing much better, thank you. Last week I worked half days because my energy level was still very low, but now I feel back to almost normal. Still coughing a little here and there, but indeed very little. And I can walk again without feeling like I'm running a marathon. So good to feel a bit like myself again. 

I hope you're all doing well and are enjoying something artsy and/or expressive this weekend. Have a good time my blogsy people.

Scenes from the Midori

I'm still very much in love with my Midori Traveler's Notebook. It's becoming a real work horse for me. I use it as my calendar/planner and to do list, an idea book for artsy stuff and just as a general notebook.
I've also recently added some loose pieces of paper and notecards in the back with a clip so that I can make sketches or do journal writing on the go and then add those later to my journal. That way I don't have to bring both my journal and my midori with me everywhere.

So just because I love this book so much, here are some scenes from my Midori.

I love how it holds everything I need on the go together and I also still really like the size of it and the beautiful leather of the cover that gets more and more scratched as I take it everywhere. ;-)

I really feel like I found my ideal all in one planner/notebook.

I suppose this post can only be appreciated by fellow stationery or planner addicts, but I happen to know that there are plenty of those among my blogsy people, so this one is for you. ;-)

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

Morning Paintings

Before we get to this post let me just say thank you to everyone who responded to my previous post about snail mail. You all make me so happy! I had a whole lot of takers, so now there is an actual sort of waiting list for my next bunch of art cards. I'll keep you posted.

Now it's time for a new batch of morning paintings. Yes, I'm still painting every day, but I did have a little break when I had the flu. I'm not superwoman after all, haha. Also I'm less strict about having to paint early in the morning. I'm trying to loosen up about that, I need my sleep, so sometimes my morning paintings are actually done in the afternoon, so maybe I should rechristen them into 'daily paintings' even though the majority of them is still done in the morning.

As you know last time I finished my first sketchbook of 32 paintings and now you will get to see the first lot in a brand new sketchbook. Except...it's not an actual sketchbook. Instead I chose an A5 size photoalbum / scrapbook. The reason is that this book has protective thin sheets of paper in between the actual pages, which means that the paintings can't rub off on each other. I thought this was a rather brilliant idea of myself. ;-) The paper is not ideal, but it's thick and sturdy and it can take a lot of paint, so I'm not complaining.

Anyway, here are ten more morning/daily paintings!

#33 - "Morning Paintings" - the opening page of a new sketchbook

#34 - "Heart of hearts"

#35 - "Imaginary Girl"

#36 -  "All the colours in my paintbox"

#37 - "Flower Landscape"

#38 - "Sick Days"

#39 - "Abstract"

#40 - "Sarah" - after a cd-cover of Sarah McLachlan

#41 - "Corinne"- after a cd-cover of Corinne Bailey Rae

#42 - "Abstract"

Of all my paintings so far I'm most proud of the one of Corinne Bailey Rae. I really like how that one turned out. But I don't always have time for such an elaborate painting and also I don't always feel like it. Sometimes I just want to push paint around and sometimes I'm just happy to be able to fill a page at all. One can't be wonderfully inspired and accomplished every darn day! ;-)

But... I still enjoy this thing so I will keep doing it for a while yet. If I ever get tired of it you'll be the first to know. Promise.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!