Morning Mosaic #13 - Step by Step

Still going strong with my morning mosaics, although recently I am skipping days here and there simply to catch enough sleep in the morning. I still enjoy doing them, that's for sure, I just have to be practical about what is doable right now. Daily morning art is becoming a bit of a relative term lately, but so be it.

Anyway, here is Mosaic number thirteen in eight 30 minute increments:

There's something very satisfying about doing these diamond shapes and the way they seem to move off the page. No matter what colour combination I choose they always seem to work out.
Also: if they actually did move they would be a wonderful way to put someone in a trance! ;-)

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day.

More from the Second Leuchtturm (a journal)

If there is one constant in my life it is the journal. Whatever else happens, whatever else I do, the journal always continues. It's become so entwined with my life that I cannot ever imagine not keeping one. In fact, if I skip it for too long I just start to feel icky. :-)

The last journal I filled up was another Leuchtturm 1917 notebook. I showed you some pages of it in an earlier post and today I'd like to give you another peek. Hope you enjoy.

Hope you are doing something that gives this crazy life a little consistency and wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

Sea of Ice

I am a great lover of winter, but I live in a place where the winters are mostly mild with an exception here and there. A few weeks ago we had such an exception when the temperatures were extremely low and the wind was an ice cold torture from the east. I loved it!

What's more: the Wadden Sea started to freeze. The water there is pretty shallow so it freezes more easily than the North Sea on the other side of the island. It gave some spectacular views that I'd like to share with you today.

These pictures were taken on the day the thaw set in. That means that all the ice started to move. It was a beautiful sight to behold, so I took a little video for you as well. Do put on the sound, because not only can you hear the birds telling us spring is on the way, you can also hear the ice move!

As I am writing this post we are several weeks ahead and all the ice is gone again. This freezing sea water happens maybe once every five to six years, so it may be a while yet before it happens again. I'm gad I got to enjoy it though.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy weekend!

PS For those of you who receive my posts by e-mail: you have to go to the blog to be able to see the video. 

Morning Mosaic #12 - Step by step

Slowly but steadily I am catching up on the morning mosaics I have done so far as part of my daily morning art practice. As I am writing this I have just finished number fifteen.

My morning art has become a bit like my journaling. I try to do it every day, but it's okay if I skip sometimes, since I know I will get back to it the minute I can. When you are forming a habit that is a lot harder to do, but now it's just ingrained in my system, so I feel way more relaxed around my daily art than I did in the beginning. And like journaling I miss it when I don't do it and feel like I have missed weeks when it's usually only a day or so. It now no longer really feels like something that requires discipline, it's just something I do.

Anyway, here is mosaic number twelve, done in nine sittings in the early morning, usually right after getting up and right before breakfast.

This is one of those paintings where I think the way it looks halfway is probably more interesting than the end result. I really like images six and seven. But I have a hard time leaving anything white when I do these and I do like the final version as well. I think it would make a great wall made of small tiles, or a huge blanket made of pieces of soft fabric. :-)

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my morning art process and I wish you all a wonderful and artsy day!

Getting to know a new box of pencils

Every year at my work there is an end of year bonus. I put most of it in a savings account to pay for trips and vacations (and repairs and unexpected expenses of course), but I always try to invest in some sort of art material as well.

After having gotten the full collection of Faber Castell Polychromos coloured pencils a few years ago and loving them, I decided that this time I would invest in their watercolour pencils, the Albrecht Dürer brand. They are exactly the same colour range but water soluble, so they are perfect to combine.

That's a 120 pencils!

Good quality (and rather pricey) art materials fresh out of the box are both breathtakingly beautiful and somewhat intimidating. I am a big believer of getting the good stuff and using it, even if you don't make masterpieces, but that doesn't mean that I don't have to swallow a few times as well before I pick up such pristine supplies and put them to paper.

The best way to get over this and get to know the colour range is simply to play with them, swatch colours and make some art. I decided to use sections of the box in the order they came in and do some colour gradients. In pattern form of course!

These were done in an old Moleskine watercolourbook, A4 size. It took quite some time to finish these, since you colour first and then wash them with a brush and water to really make the colours come alive. It means I had to go over every square or triangle twice!

I don't know if you are familiar with them, but these pencils remind me a little of the Caran D'Ache Neocolor II crayons in the way they respond to the water. They are more intense and therefore actually a bit less like watercolour than the watercolour pencils I already owned, but I sure do like them. I like the velvety finish they have and how pigmented they are and also how well they dissolve in water.

By doing these gradients I also get a good peek at the range of colour in the box and also: colour in general just makes me happy.

All in all I am very content with my new purchase and I'm sure I will enjoy this box for many years to come.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!