It's not easy!

 

 

Because the monthly subject 'Not your normal flower' was ready, I took two unused canvases to last week's painting session

 

My mood was restless, I had not been willing to look extensively for a new subject nor did I want to spend too much time thinking how to start...

 

I set up my easel and just flung some colors down on both canvases. Spreading it out with a palette knife and working in rectangles and squares (I really don't know why) 

 

 

Only recently have I started to use just red, yellow; blue, plus black and white of course. In my box there are the most beautiful colors that are ready to use, but I want to learn!

The above result is horrible in my opinion, I especially hated the color green and the yellow on the right top corner

 



so after watching some Youtube lessons of Jane Davies, I followed her instructions of mixing your own Celadon color

 

I put this on the places I did not like...

 



 

on the second canvas the same green, though it did not disturb me in the same way as the bigger painting 

 

 

These are the results today. And like so often I do not know how to proceed. So I guess I leave them sitting in my studio and have a look at it every now and then until an 'Aha' brilliant idea comes up.

 

Painting is not easy, indeed...

 

Thanks for visiting!

 

Regina

Hi! It is 'Martes'

 

 

 

This week's dyptich is composed of two pictures I made last Sunday.

In our coastal village we have some lovely beach clubs and we were having dinner in one of them. From a former visit I remembered there was a huge poster on a frame of a saddhu. When I first saw it I had no possibilities to make a photograph, but this time I took my camera

 

The dinner was to celebrate father's day (without kids, for they live abroad). My husband is of Indian ancestry and though I never went to India myself, I have a keen interest in various topics 'India', it intrigues me, hence the saddhu choice.

 

In the same beach club there are several 'rangoli', painted in white on the concrete floor. Rangoli is an art form, originating in India, in which patterns are created on the floor in living rooms or courtyards. Its purpose is mainly decoration (Wikipedia)

 

 

The food was excellent, as was the service!

All in all this was a very successful Father's Day,in a relaxed beachy atmosphere...

 

Thanks for now,

 

Regina

 



Flowerish

Good morning!

 

 

It was not supposed to be a simple, customary flower

but more flower-like, making you think of flowers

So I came up with this... 

 

 

First I painted the background

 

 

and then drew some lines with my Sharpie

 

 

 

and like so often I tend to like the details more

 than the whole painting

 

This soft pastel like colorscheme is very unlike me, but I want to learn, I am learning

 

It will stay like this for a while...

 

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Regina

Martes!

Hi!

Martes de nuevo  (again it is Tuesday)

(you can click the image for a better view) 

Temperatures are on the rise, I really needed to cool down a bit here in Spain.

What could be better than to show the above dyptich? No warm summer colours this time and with a little bit of imagination one can almost feel the cold from the Athabaska glacier on the left...

We visited the Icefield Parkway in Alberta (Canada) back in 2009. It was our first summer trip with our newly purchased motorhome and we were traveling together with our eldest son, who had joined us in Seattle. We drove from Jasper to Banff and had a fantastic time. In fact it was the Icefields Parkway that made it very special: as a natural park the whole area was pure nature, no houses, no bill boards, just some traffic signs where necessary. 

A landscape that is hard to find these days (imho)...

The picture on the right is of the Athabaska falls, it is said not to be the widest or tallest, but the most powerfull!

There is a lot of info on these sites

https://icefieldsparkway.com/ 

https://icefieldsparkway.com/maps

Ah: Lake Louise, Peyto Lake, Johnston Canyon and so much more,

...sweet memories...

Have a lovely day!

Regina

The old ruin...

Some time ago I discovered this old ruin

in a neighboring village...

 

 

this is the view of it, seen from the road



 

 

places like this can ignite in me fantasies

of times gone by, of times when life was

hard, but overseeable

...

 

I decided to enter the plot and was surprised how easy

it was to get to the old finca

 



 

as for me remnants of buildings like this will remain untouched

forever, for me they represent pure beauty

 



 

for how could one ever recreate a picture like this?



 

 

the weathered door led into a small, secluded patio

 



 

that I want to investigate another time...

 

but for today this was it: my world of fantasy

so very close...

 

Am I the only one who has a crush for ruins like this?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Regina



Martes!

 

 

Hi there!

 

 

 

Another week has passed by, time seems to run from Tuesday to Martes...

 

Above is a close-up view of one of the lavender plants in our garden. We have several of them, some of these already very old.

 

When we came to live here, the plants had been neglected and I remember going to the garden centre and asking whether it would be possible to prune them (I had no idea!):

"Oh no, you have to buy new ones, old plants can by no way be pruned".

 Now for me this is the right attitude to become suspicious and we thought: why not try it first? Of course we can always buy new ones in case our actions become disastrous.

And so we did: the plants were pruned by my DH and until today they seem to have appreciated his treatment. They flourish as never before!

 

The second little photo is of a fisherman's boat that we discovered at a very secluded little bay in our village. It is called Pirate Bay and with some fantasy you can imagine that various illegal things can happen there. In the past, but also these days with more and more immigrants from North Africa crossing the Mediterranean...

 

The only possible handicap is that there is no road close by, just a small canyon with abundant shrubs and woodland. Such a canyon is called a 'barranc' in Spanish

Barranc de la Viuda

 

  Cala Llebeig aka Pirate Bay

 

 You see what I mean?

 

with just a little fantasy...

 

Thanks for visiting today,

 

Regina



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