A weekend getaway - some paintings and a video

While I'm on a real vacation I am showing you pictures and impressions of a weekend getaway I got to have on the island of Schiermonnikoog a few weeks ago. In the last three posts I showed you the pictures I took during the several walks across the island and today I thought I'd show you some art.

I didn't make a travel journal or anything like that. I just took my regular journal and wrote and I will add some of the pictures from my previous posts to it. But...I did continue with my morning paintings and since I was on a trip I thought I would let them be scenes from the trip itself. I used my photographs as a reference.

So every morning in my apartment (all three mornings I was there) I sat down at the kitchen table and painted. Here's are the results:

This is the beach pavillion near 'my' building on the first night. I love how this one turned out.

The lighthouse with a quirky perspective. ;-)

A bridge over water. This one I found 'meh'.

My morning paintings are usually from my imagination. I like painting flowers and mandala's and such. The only realistic thing I usually do are portraits and those I do pretty well. But landscapes are a whole different animal and I have no idea how people do them.

This did inspire me to go to youtube and learn and to buy a book on watercolour with special attention for landscapes. I want to know how to render those different green textures. You know...in case I go on other trips, or want to paint my own island. ;-)

I didn't really take any pictures on day 4. I basically just packed and cleaned in the morning and traveled all day. But...before I left I did make a little video from the op of a dune and I thought I'd share it with you as a goodbye to a wonderful weekend getaway.

The building you see at the end of the video is the building I stayed in. Location, location! ;-)

Well, with that we end our weekend trip. When this gets published I will be on my way home from my real vacation, so you can expect more slideshows very soon. That's a strange idea, because as I am writing this my vacation is still one week away. Don't you just love technology? ;-)

I hope you enjoyed walking with me on another island and I wish you all a wonderful and artsy day!

A weekend getaway - day three

While my vacation is progressing I am showing you pictures of my last trip, a weekend getaway to the island of Schiermonnikoog, where I went a few weeks ago.

On the third day of my weekend trip (Sunday) I went on one very long walk around the island. Well, the part that has paths on it that is. It's more to the east of the island and it has a feeling of incredible space as you will see in some of the pics I took. For the most part this day was a bit more grey, but at least it stayed dry and that's what really matters!

Here's an impression of one long Schiermonnikoog walk:

Don't you just love those wooden bridges?

I know the above pictures give the idea that the place was deserted, but there were quite a lot of people out and about. I just waited time and again until they were out of sight. I don't like people in my landscape pictures. Especially on the bridges this took some patience, because there were a lot of cyclists and every time I thought 'yes, now!' another one would come around the bend. ;-)

After that long walk I rested for a little bit in the apartment and then I went for a last visit to the seaside near my building. There I shot these two pics: 

That last one is my absolute favorite of the entire trip. I think it would look really cool if I had it printed in a very big size and framed it. I also wish I was an accomplished oil painter, because I feel this scene begs to be painted by someone who's really good at ultra realistic paintings. You know, somebody who's not me.

I did paint a little though, because my morning painting practice continued, but that's for next post. For now I wish you a wonderful and artsy day.

A weekend getaway - day two

While I am on vacation for free in my sisters house I am showing you a photographic impression of my weekend getaway to the island of Schiermonnikoog a couple of weeks ago.

Today we'll focus on the second day I was there (Saturday). I went on two walks, carefully avoiding the rain showers that fell down from time to time. In hindsight it is quite amazing I hardly got soaked, except on the first day when I went grocery shopping. The good thing about the weather was that when it was dry the skies were just amazing and the sun was extra appreciated, haha.

Here's some of my favorite pics of the second day.

"Tell it to the wind."

As you can see the island has two lighthouses. Well, it used to. The red one is still functioning as a lighthouse and the grey/white one is a remnant of the past when it was a lighthouse too.

In the forest you could really tell that there have been some heavy storms in the past few years. Walking around the pines was a bit creepy, everything was creaking and leaning into each other. I had this feeling that if I were to push one they would all fall down domino style. ;-)

All in all a very enjoyable second day though. I hope you enjoyed it with me and I wish you a wonderful and artsy day.

A weekend getaway - day one

So, as you are reading this I am actually on vacation! I'll tell you all about it when it get back with a slideshow and all, as usual. For now I'll just say that I'm staying at my sister's house again, but she moved houses, so it's a whole new place! Looking forward to explore and relax.

Usually when I'm away I take a blog break, but it just so happens that I went on a weekend getaway two weeks ago as well and I figured I would use my time away from home to show you some pictures from that trip. All prepublished of course, I'm not going near a computer for almost two weeks, haha.

The thing was that with the assistant being sick and later having to euthanize him I had had some pretty stressful months and I just really felt like I needed to get away from things just to take a breather. I just couldn't wait for my actual vacation. So I took a last minute weekend trip to one of the other islands, Schiermonnikoog. It was so last minute that I booked on a Wednesday and left on a Friday.

Turns out, it was just what I needed. I always thought a weekend was a bit short for a vacation, but now I've done it I'm definitely going to do it more often.

I did not bring my camera, but I did bring my phone, so I still got to shoot some nice pics. So today I'll show you the highlights of the first day (Friday).

These are the sluices in Lauwersoog, where I had to take the ferry to Schiermonnikoog.

They have two ferries, all to themselves. Our island only has one. I'm not jealous.

The apartment was amazing. Very cosy. It had a fire place, but I was too chicken to turn it on. I'm not good at playing with fire.
The couch was huge! I mean I sat on it fully stretched out and then there was still an entire couch left. It could comfortably have fit six people.

Did I mention the apartment had an ocean view and was right at the beach and dunes? This was the view from the windows:

That was a bonus of the entire trip. I could sit on that couch for hours and just look outside.
But of course I did go outside myself too.

The weather was very changeable that weekend, but I still managed to put in quite a few walking hours. Here are some pics from that first afternoon and night.

Most of those were taken in the early evening. The sky was so amazing that I swear I took like a hundred photographs within an hour or so. All those clouds were just begging for it. ;-)

And that's all for the first day of my weekend getaway. Next post we move on to day two.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day. 

Pages from the Spiral Book (the journal)

As I'm writing this I just finished the journal I only recently introduced to you, The Spiral Book. But I still have at least one more post beside this one to show you from it, so blogwise I'm not done with it yet. ;-)

Here are some page spreads from this journal, a journal that I really enjoyed working in.

A lot of these page were done around the time I had to say goodbye to my sweet assistant so they have special memories attached for me. Even the drawing of the sailboat. That was done the day after when a sweet friend kept me company and we sat on the dyke around the town and sketched together. Its always special to me how such warmth can accompany such sorrow. That's what makes life precious and it's good to keep a journal if only to become aware of things like that.

The doodle drawings I already showed you in a previous post, but now you can see how they are mixed into the journal. I enjoy doing whatever I feel like doing on my pages and often it's just writing, but there's always room for art too, if I want it.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!