Maj Carita

Colours of Nature II

I love to take a walk along the wine on our local sunny hill. There is a small wineyard, making the most exquisite white wine. I am sure the wineberg snail would taste delicious with the Durlacher wine, if that is the kind of thing you like to eat! I prefer to admire their beautiful colours.

[OK - this is not the kind of wineberg snail you would normally eat, it is really tiny, probably not worth the trouble!]

This picture was taken with the Panasonic DMC FZ18 , which can go up very close ... Sometimes I nudge the very thing I want to make a photo of with the lense, before I am happy. Hurrah for modern technology, it enables me to see things I would not percieve otherwise... especially after I started carrying a pair of reading glasses in my purse... which I occasionally need, but often refuse to use...
 
The most simple picture might hold a million colours... at least if you sample it in Photoshop ;)

[Do check out my other posts on the subject, I am doing a series of "Colours of Nature" posts]

The colours of nature

Can you believe these colours?

We may not percieve all the colours of nature when we look. They merge to a harmonious whole.
These are the colours of a simple lettuce - or should I say a sample of colours, there are more.

I am training myself to become a better (amateur) photographer.
I got myself a little Panasonic Digitalkamera DMC-TZ 7 which I carry everywhere. It's a point and shoot, but a nice one. It is small and light enough, that I WILL take it with me. No more thinking: "OH, I wish I had a camera right now!" - I have! It also enables me to train my eye on a daily basis.

To learn more about photography, I signed up for a class in october. I will be carrying our trusty Panasonic DMC FZ18 , and learn to use more of it's many features, and get the grips properly on the manual functions.

For inspiration, I like to visit a couple of great photo blogs:

shuttersisters and thepioneerwoman

but there are lots of fantastic photography out there, just look at flickr!

[Do check out my other posts on the subject, I am doing a series of "Colours of Nature" posts]

Times of change

So many thoughts of change are coming up in this house, that I have started a journal to keep track of them. Untill now, I only kept a studio log. The more personal journals I kept years ago, were mostly in written form. I found it difficult to keep an artists journal, where I explored my feelings and thoughts visually. But it seems to be working for me now!

I like to cut words from a newspaper as the occasional prompt for my journaling.
And as you can see, I love layering.
My techniques vary from monoprint, to nature print, to stamping, to drawing, and collaging and mostly in combination.

Disintegration revealed

Seth of the Altered Page has now listed links to the final results of the collaboration Disintegration.

Go here to visit!

My scrap of paper has been long in the making! I hung it out on the clothes line in april, it stormed, rained and snowed in march, and the sun bleached almost all of the colour to off white in may.
What I got left on the braille paper was some dirt from when the wind tore my bundle off the line and chased it around in the yard. And a set of very nice marks from the clothes pins.

I used the small scrap with marks on together with rice paper that I dyed and aged by hand. In the pale blue paper I burnt little holes with a heat tool.
The button with  "x" on it ( I decided it should be an x instead of a cross) is really from a nurses costume, or maybe it was a pin. It is old, made of porcelain and I found it at a flee market.

Secret revealed!

This is a very special collaboration hosted by Jeriann and Julie. They also enlisted Lisa as secret agent.
For many month's people all over the world have been creating and thinking how to best express our gratitude towards Michelle Ward for her generousity, and show her our love at a difficult time (she lost her sister Shannon a year ago).
These pages are my contribution.

Gates of Perception

Michelle has opened the "Gates of Perception" for us, in her challenges at the Street Team Crusade.

She has shown a lot of possible directions for creativity.

Opening the back door you discover a mirror, and a mirrored text. It is my letter of gratitude to Michelle.

HCIMW? How Cool Is Michelle Ward!

Go here to see the whole book!

Springtime in Mom's garden

Three and a half week in Denmark.
Not so long, when you are visiting loved ones.
And a lifetime, when you look at the garden.

I really get my Mom, who spends most of summer "bottoms up", weeding and planting in her garden.
It is such a joy and a calming experience to hear the bird song and see the little ones come out of their nests and learn to fly.

One day I may get a garden of my own... Just a little one?!

They say it's all happening at the Zoo...

I have just returned from a wonderful time in Berlin.
It might have been a more "true" picture of Berlin to show all the graffiti; but so much of it is great street art, that I decided to go back another time, graffiti hunting with my camera.
This time, I travelled six hours north, and my sister Nina travelled seven hours south, and we met up in Berlin. We wanted some well deserved sister time. And we wanted to go to flee markets, which were fun, but not a big revelation.
We stayed in the middle of Prenzlauer Berg, which is on the east side of where the wall was. A former noble area, so the houses are grand, but very dilapidated...
I Loved the atmosphere! People seemed very laid back (a joker claimed it was due to the high unemployment...!) And most friendly, which I am sorry to say is a rare commodity.
There are cafés and restaurants all over the place, many of them with good homemade food, and not expensive.

One of the highlights for me, was visiting Berlin Zoo. At least I enjoyed those animals, that were kept in a sensible way, and seemed happy enough. The two on the left, above, were in neighboring "gardens", and spend a good time sniffing and greating each other. An unlikely couple, don't you think?

My next venture is back to Denmark for a while, so I shall not be posting here untill late june.
Kisses and good bye for now!

Last news from the clothes line

Fifth of february I put my contribution to Seth's challenge "Disintegration" up on my clothes line.
My neighbor was asking questions, and my husband said "Art project"... Nor more explanation needed!

My bundle quickly went through changes.
First, a violent storm ripped it off the clothes line and sent it dancing around in the back yard. The light blue monoprinted piece of paper: gone, the tag: gone; I wonder what the person thinks, who finds a tag reading "05.02. 2009 Disintegration"!
The string is still attached to the clothes line (I will have to cut it off at some time).

Then I secured the leftover piece of braille paper with clothes pegs.
Snow and rain in abondance altered my piece, bled the colour away and bleached the paper, and left nice marks where the pegs have been.

Next step is to create some art with this piece of paper.
It is lying on my desk, all ready to be used.

The spirit of Artfest

Bee Shay hosted an ATC swap at Artfest 2009. She did an enormous job of gathering and distributing the contributions of a lot of participants... I seems to have seen somewhere, over 120 people participating?
Here are some samples from the swap, I show some of the backs of the ATC cards as well, they were just so beautifully made!
We all recieved such a beautiful little box for the ATCs, a handmade labour of love!

  [Artwork shown without permission]

When I found out I could not go to Artfest, Bee Shay promised to mail me the ATCs, but first she would take them to Artfest, to catch some of the spirit! Don't you love that!!!
And so I get to share in the incredible spirit of Artfest, in my own way.

Thank you so much, Bee Shay!

Journalfest in Port Townsend

I just got this in the mail! My heart jumped with joy - look at all the creativity and care Teesha put into this package of confirmation. When I unwrapped it, small bits of ephemera fell out in my hand...
I LOVE surprises like that! I can't wait for october now!!!
Want to join the fun? Go here and check it out.