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



Short, summer

Just a short post today. 

It is sweltering hot in Spain; days to swim in the sea, a time to do just the necessary things

So: just this dyptich, that I quickly composed from the files of collages I once made...

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

***

Regina

Backgrounds

 

 

 

 

 

Hi!

 

Not much happening in my corner of Spain.

 

Though we do have the Moors and Christian

 festival currently,with its closing part tonight,

I once again did not go to watch it.

 

Somehow celebrating these fights of ages ago by way of a reenactment does not appeal to me.

Especially in this time where history seems to repeat itself throughout our Western world, I prefer not to celebrate it, how beautiful and wonderful this spectacle may be...

 

On a different note:

the storyboard above has been composed of details of some recent work by me. They are backgrounds at this stage,

I just started painting without any objective in mind, simply enjoying 'what if?'

 

We are supposed to paint clouds this time,

 but despite the fact that I love to look at skies, I feel no need to paint them.

 But that may come later,

this time just background details

 

***

Enjoy your Sunday, thanks for reading

 

Regina

 

Liberty...

 

...

 

Can hardly see you now



On being inspired

 

Hi!

 

 

Restless Mind

digital collage

 

This is not a time for making art... Not for me, now all things 'summer' are needing my attention.

 

The yard is in full bloom, with our Jacaranda tree in a leading role with its purple-blueish flowers, so lovely!

Reminds me to take pictures today, because very soon it will be over again. Furthermore we have two old rose plants, one in a old fashioned pink color (which I absolutely do not like), the other one bright red. Both plants have been trimmed heavily by me and that seems to do the trick: fully in bloom for the first time since we live here.

 

The garden is a big mess on the backside of our house. We are making new terrasses and a summer house there, where we can have dinners in a comfy setting. It could also be a place for painting, when the weather is too hot inside. But first the mess, inevitable.

 

Our son has been visiting and of course that means quality time with him. Not a time to sit in my studio all alone like a hermit (which I normally love...)

 

But like always there is Inspiration galore!

I found two very inspiring paintings when I was preparing our painting theme of Nothing. The first one was with asemic writing and the second one I was attracted to by its colorscheme.

 

So yesterday, in a lost moment, I managed to combine these pics and compose the above digitial collage.

 

I have called it Restless Mind

for that is somewhat how I feel these days...

 

Thanks for reading, enjoy your day,

 

Regina

 



Playful

 

Just some playing today:

 

 

I chose a picture of the Roman Theatre in Cartagena,

 

 

and laid over this picture a detail of a mural

...

 

 

then the playing started: filters and layers in my favorite editing program

and there it is: Cartagena digital collage

 

Enjoy the beautiful spring weather!

 

Regina



From paper to digital

Hi!

 

(click)

 

A quiet day in the studio. This week I finished three paintings!

 

Two of them are of someone's grandchildren and

 the third is our painting club's topic: a nude

 

I was not too eager to paint in a naturalistic way, but in the end I am happy with the results. I will show a pic in a near future post, promised.

 

Meanwhile I played a little with my huge collection of pictures and chose three of my paper collages to work with. Mixing these in Photoshop resulted in the above digital collage. Please let me know in a comment if you are interested to see the source images...

 

Now out and about for lunch in one of the many fish-restaurants in our lovely neighborhood.

 

Enjoy your Sunday!

 

Regina

Passion

 

 

Hi!

 

 This week I started a new painting. As I have written before, we try to follow a theme.

 This has its downside, but on the other hand: we can just neglect the theme and paint as we wish. However, I have noticed that following this theme can bring up surprising things !

 

That was the case with me and this month's theme: Passion

 

During about two decades I have been very passionate about fabrics, making art quilts, dying and stamping, you name it. Should one have asked what my passion was in those years this would definitely have been the answer.

 

After our  move to Spain I have hardly worked with fabrics and

I really don't know where and when my passion went...

So I did some serious soul-searching about this phenomenon

 and in the end succeeded to come up with this:

 

I am passionate about traveling, preferably with our motorhome;

about colours, not the pastel and timid ones, but mostly colourful though occasionaly

 toned down by working a short period in just neutrals; I am passionate about taking pictures and working these into digital collages... this week I explained this to a woman and afterwards she said: so it is just digital, not physical? No, it is nothing in fact, strange come to think of it...

So I don't know whether digital collaging fits in this 'passion thing'.
And finally: I am passionate about making things, beautiful things (I know,... the eye of the beholder...)

 

The picture above is a detail of my new painting. It is an attempt to paint one of my digital collages, the one you can see here

It is difficult to get the effect. At this stage I am not happy at all with the results, but that may change, it happened before.
At least it is a combination what I am passsionate about now

Happy painting, beautifying!

Regina

Brochures from the past

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

 

 And that creativity and artistic activity may be

 a big part of the new year.

 That's my wish for all of you.

 The world needs more handmade things, art, whatever, at least the world does not need more screen time, imho

 

 

 

In 2012 we made our last motorhome trip in the USA

 and like the years before I gathered much tourist brochures and summer festival material. Many of these were turned into collages and the above digital one is, again, made up by layering in Photoshop one of these paper collages.

 

It says: connect with the unexpected. Wise words if you want to grow, as a human but also as an artist. Don't we often hear a variation of this: what if?

 

Food for thought, plenty, always,

 

Regina

 



Paper to digital

Playtime in the studio!

 

 Though I am no expert at all, I thought it would be nice to give you a peek inside my digital collage 'kitchen'.

 

 

 

For the above digital collage I used the paper collage below.

This is clearly visible, isn't it?

The paper collage was made by me some years ago when we were living on a Caribbean island...

 

 

 

This paper collage speaks to me, because it embodies

some very specific Caribbean ingredients:

 the ocean and sea, the coastal shores as can be seen while

sailing and from an airplane, and of course its colours

 

To change the paper one into the first, digital collage I layered it three times 'over itself' in PS; the second time I rotated the picture because I also wanted to have yellow in the lower right corner.
For each layer I changed the blending mode and when I was satisfied a boost filter and my 'signature' (turquoise native indian sign below right) were added.

 

The digital one shows that layers add so much more depth than the with the paper one.

 

However, I must say I love them equally much...

 

Thanks for reading and yes,
if you liked this post I would love your comment

 

Regina



I'm pretty sure...

I have not posted this picture board on this blog yet,

 

so while the weather is dark en cold in big parts of the world,

 

I bring some merry, Caribbean pleasure!

 

 

 

 paper, paint, collage

 

 

Till next time!

 

Regina

Swallows

 

 

Hi!

 

Though the swallows in Spain have moved to warmer surroundings now, I had to think of them today...

 

We sing a lovely English ballad with our choir that mentions these birds and like often I keep humming the songs during the day after our meeting.

 

And then I browsed my picture gallery and came across a picture I made some years ago in a Starbucks coffeeshop in the USA. Some playing with Photoshop gave this result. Layers of a USA map, the swallow picture and one of flying birds over a lake in  Upstate New York.

 

Happy to have made at least something nice today!

 

Till next time, thanks for visiting,

 

Regina

The beach, the sea

 

 

Hi!

 

You take: a Photo editing programm, pictures of a coconut tree, a country-guitar player and the Caribbean Sea

 

and there you have it: reflection of a grey Monday in Spain

 

Regina

Digital collage

It has been a quiet week for me. I have installed my serger after a long period of inactivity in that field; in fact I don't even sew as much as I used to do. With so many charity shops in the area that offer cloths that often are almost new, and also a shopping center not too far away, there seems to be no need to sew fashion myself. But, there must be a very large fabric store in an old factory in one of the other villages, and now that I have the address it is one of my goals for next week.

Other than one would expect, there is no fabric being sold at the many markets here, just upholstery stuff. So you will understand that I am happy to now know at least one address at least and hopefully I will not be disappointed...

 

But with the serger I made two duvet covers with fabric that was in my stock, and I felt happy that I managed to get the pretty complicated machine working again...

 

Then I have been painting, of course.

This time the subject is Africa, a very broad area with lots of painting possibilities. I chose a mask, surrounded with Kuba cloth, The painting is almost finished, but there are some challenges ahead, I will show this work asap

 

 

 

And since only text is not 'done' these days, I made the above digital collage this evening.

 It is composed by layering two images. First a detail of one of my paintings, on that the second picture which shows a wooden bird standing in our windowsill. If you look closely you will discover our neighbor's house on the other side of the street! I love how the yellow bird, which is a reflection of the brown one has taken over the colour of the underlying painting.

Just a little playing here in Spain

 

Thanks for visiting and a happy weekend,

 

Regina

Doing nothing

HI!

There was a time when I made things like this...

I collaged on cardboard in a favorite colourscheme and just

fixed the nine parts together with copper wire.

I long for that creativity, to get it back into my life

Need to browse through my inspiration picture file more to

feel that need to create, more than it exists these days...

The above work has been hanging on our Spanish veranda

 during some years now and I feel

now it is time to replace it by something new,

or something completely different maybe

We'll see, I keep you posted!

Enjoy your Sunday,

Regina

New digital collage

 

La belle Epoque

digital collage

 

Sometimes, when there is some time left between activities, I use that time for playing on the computer.

While browsing my inspiration picture map, I came across this shell picture. It is beautiful as is, but I layered and blended it with a picture of a brochure of a well-known Saint Martin restaurant in Marigot (FWI) and this is the result: a digital collage like I have made many before, in my colours and my style.

 I could as well have named it Mostly Turquoise Shell, don't you think?

 

Ah, whatever, I am glad that not all my digital collage skills have left.

Note to self: keep on playing (exercising)Regien...

 

 

Have a playful day!

 

Regina

Winter

 

 

Hello!

 

 

Winter in Spain means a grey, sometimes silvery Mediterranean...

 

Half of the restaurants and terraces in our village are closed in this time of the year. But that does certainly not mean that it feels like a dead place, oh not at all.

 

This morning I walked to the village centre which is about ten minutes from our home, I posted the Christmascards and after that went to a few of the charity shops. They are an addiction for me, since living in this beautiful country.And this time they again had some treasures for me, one persons trash is another's treasure it is called I remember.

 

For quite some time I have been searching the internet for a bootpattern, a modern kind of spat. I had seen a lady with a really gorgeous pair last winter and when I asked her how and where, she answered: Oh, yes, my aunt made these..! Because I am a maker and really believe people can make everything they want, my search started. But as far as the pattern was concerned to no avail. There came in this morning's surprise: there was a pair of old, worn boots that had exactly the form I want, so I bought them and will now take them apart to make my own pattern. I will see which parts I can recycle!

 

The other find was a tiny necklace, composed of cotton string with dangling metal circular charms attached. They will have a future life in a selfdesigned tribal necklace and maybe even in the spats.

Happy me on a Monday morning!

 

The digital collage above is a detail of a painting I started yesterday. The topic is Winter, of all topics. I have to say I hate everything cold and slippery, snow, ice, rain etc. and that is one of the reasons we moved to Spain... So my interpretation of winter will not be traditional and for now the painting consists of a big iceblue part with a warm and to me lovely heart. We will see whether I can get on the canvas what's in my head...

 

I'll keep you posted, bye for now,

 

Regina

Dots...

 

 

There is not much happening here in our little Spanish fisherman's village on the Medittarenean coast. Now the weather is moving into more 'fallish' temperatures, there is more enthusiasm with me to make long walks and also spend more time inside the house.

 

I look back on a September month with, for me finally, a lot of blogging. It feels as a good decision to make my rentree in the blogosphere, all be it alone for my own pleasure, to record my creative/artistic accomplishments and more general things that take place. And I am more than happy and grateful that a handful of faithful followers have made comments on my posts, thank you so much!

 

Today I started my new painting of the sailing ship, it is in its first stages and will require lots of more paint until I will show it here, but it will come soon I guess.

 

That's it for now, as I already told, not much news but just a little hello from  me here with some details of a photocollage full of dots that I recently made

 

As always, thanks for visiting my blog,

 

Regina

Playing with pictures

 

Yesterday I showed a picture of an old branch that I saw during my walk.

 

Looking in my pictures library for a future post about my painting exercises, I was inspired to play a little with some of these pictures. Here they are:

 

 

Yesterday's branch after rotation

 

 

detail of a painting that I will show soon...

 

 

...combined into this digital collage

 I love the visible texture of the canvas!

 

Thanks for visiting, enjoy the weekend!

 

Regina

Dilemma

we see the need
and don't want to look
away

but is there a solution
of this huge human drama?

DILEMMA
digital collage