House instead of creative work

When I left the dentist yesterday at 11:30 AM, I was in no mood to go to the Designers'Open. So I just went to my favourite Starbucks and had a Double Chocolate Muffin and a Chocolate Mocha for Breakfast. Yes, the dentist had given me the okay to eat and thanks to the pain killer I was reasonably well. So I waited until the shops opened, bought some pain killers specifically for my toothproblem and some black photo boards to be the background when I take new pictures of my new and old artwork. After that I did take a stroll through the park near the monument of the battle of the nations and then walked home over Leipzigs Southern Graveyard, which is amazing and calm and relaxing and beautiful. After that I did some of the housework that I hadn't had the energy for during the last weeks and then I finished the scarf for my friend and watched dvds.

What did you do on your Sunday?

Sunday Morning Toothache

Here I am on Sunday morning wide awake at 5:30 AM, due to the early shift of the last weeks and what's much worse: toothache. And that on a day when I wanted to sleep in. Nevertheless thanks to swing music my mood is fine. I just invested in some good swing music by Tony Bennett and Michael Bublé and enjoy it thoroughly. It just fits. Anyway, so before I get to see all of those fantastic creative people today at the Designers' Open and the Grassimesse, I have to go to a dentist. I checked it at midnight and I know where I have to go to.

It's in the details, isn't it?

In architecture and in life. This doorhandle belongs to the castle gate of castle Wolkenburg. For my life I found out that swing is best as the musical background for my artistic work, doesn't matter if it's photography, drawing, knitting (christmas is coming ;)* or other creative work. I do it best with some swing, I've created a playlist containing Tony Bennett, Robbie Williams, Michael Bublé, Michael Andrew & Swingerhead, Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers and Frank Sinatra. This music has style and the kind of humor I like.

I wish you all a magical weekend.

* The groan you heard were my old friends "Oh no, she's knitting, that means even more scarves for christmas. Gee, I don't have space for the new one."**
** Good thing they don't read this blog.

Etsy Handmade Portraits: Yokoo

One of those fabulous etsy Handmade Portraits.

Getting as restless as the mighty sea

Would you have asked me a week ago if I would like to move to another city, I would've said no. But the tide has finally changed enough to see what's happening with me and I just realized that I'm getting restless again. I want to move on to another town. I've been back to Leipzig for almost 2 years now (only one week missing) and I have the impression that two years is for me the point when I get restless and want to move on. It has been this way in Stralsund and Villingen and it is so in Leipzig too. I don't know yet if it is because I'm a wanderer or if I just haven't found the place where I belong. I thought that I belong in Leipzig, but now I don't think so anymore.

You see my motto is: "The world is big and colorful and I want to see a lot of it." Therefore I think it is only natural that I want to live in different cities.

This feeling of restlessness is the reason that I show you those pictures from my Ireland vacation in 2009. I took them at the port of Doolin when we waited for the ferry to Kilronin on Inishmore (Aran Islands). It was a wonderful day, it was a wonderful vacation.

Can't contain natures beauty

See, these are the pictures I love to create. This one I took at Leipzigs graveyard north.

I've been to another old graveyard in Leipzig yesterday and I took some nice pictures. While I strolled over the grounds I thought about my life and my choice of profession. I'm an engineer with an emphasis on knowledge and information transfer, that's what I studied. I'm a project leader for knowledge transferring events, that's what I was trained for at my first real job and I'm good at it.

What makes me happy is creating things and so I'm wondering if I should have gone into craftsmanship. Maybe I should have become a cabinet maker and then trained to become a restorer of old furniture? (A classmate of mine did so.) While walking over the graveyard I realized I could still make that switch! But I also realized not too long ago, that I really don't want to go back to school, be it university or vocational school. A few weeks back I checked out Leipzigs famous art university because I thought about studying photography there. However when I read up on the curriculum and organization of the course I realized that I would have 3 years of basic studies and only then get to develop my own personal style. And no, this isn't what I want. Learning stuff that I neither like nor need for my art just to pass the tests, just to get an degree? I've gone through that more often than I can count. I won't do this again. Period.

However I will take evening classes, just for the fun of learning something new in the field I'm currently interested in. And those fields are changing quite often. ;)

Have you thought about your choice of profession lately? Has it been the right choice for you? Would you like to switch and if you do what to?

I wish you all a wonderful new week. Make the best of it.

Yarn Bombing at the Neusiedler Lake, Austria - Strickgraffiti

This was the first time I encountered this in real life. I had seen some of this in the Photodiarist blog before. There are Yarn Bombers in Leipzig too and I will show you some pics of Leipzig soon. I found those yarn bombings in Leipzig only after I had seen those in Austria.

Anyway, more on this topic here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarn_bombing

I think this yarn bombing is a fabulous idea. What do you think about it?

Are there some yarn bombers where you live? If so want to share some pictures? Post them on your blog, comment here and I'll link to your post.

I got it back... finally

My joy of cooking new dishes, trying out new tastes and food.

The last few months I couldn't for the life of me be bothered to actually cook out of joy. It was a boring task that every now and then just had to be done. Whenever I bought veggies they tended to rot away in my fridges veggie box.
However in those last two weeks I started to crave new tastes, different tastes. This lead to some foolish behaviour yesterday, I bought pudding (Grießpudding) which contained wheat. The foolishness? I'm allergic to cereals. To top that off I'm also allergic to sugar, I learned that because I ate a lot of chocolate this week (without fructose-glucose-syrup, that stuff is the devil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM ) and my skin showed almost immediately signs of inflammation. Not good, in fact this is very bad.
However this very morning when I woke up of 11 hours of blissful sleep, I felt that I finally want to cook again. So I start into this day with an extra yummy and fluffy omelette made of four eggs (including the yolks, cause the contain all the good stuff, or have you ever heard of a chick/biddie with high cholesterol?), 3 small Roma-tomatoes, some freshly grounded salt and pepper and most importantly much of Baharat I love this spice mixture.

So, I will actually start trying out new stuff in the kitchen again. Especially since I've got a new kitchen toy since yesterday evening, thanks to my dad. I now own a ... wait for it, wait for it ... a (are your seatbelts fastened?! hold tight) CAN OPENER. Yes, I've lived in my very own flat for nearly a year now without a can opener. Since I hardly ever eat canned food, I didn't need one. And the few times I wanted some canned food, I've bought the version with the built-in can opener. Well, yesterday evening when I went grocery shopping with my dad* I had the idea for a Sauerkraut-soup with coconut milk** and when I stood in front of the shelf with Sauerkraut and saw the cans without a built-in can opener it dawn on me that I don't own this very tool. Well, I asked my dad if he would buy me one and so he did. So there you have it, thanks to my dad I'm now proud owner of a can opener.*** What was the latest kitchen tool you bought/got/organised?

Therefore this weekend I will do a bit of cooking. Especially now that I have fresh veggies in my fridge and need to balance the pudding out. Also I will follow Leo Babautas advice and put a maximum of 3 things on my To-Do-List, that way I won't feel overwhelmed by it and have a feeling of accomplishment. I'm also trying to instill one new habit (beauty care) at the moment. Have you stumbled upon Zen Habits so far? If so did you like it? I really like it and Leos advice is really helpful.

The pic above is from the Darss National Park. It is the area of the old harbor of Prerow, most of it has silted up and there is this huge reed area now with occassional brooks like this. I really enjoyed the walk trough this area, it was so calming and just plain beautiful.

I hope you'll have a wonderful, magical weekend filled with laughter, joy and comfy moments. It's up to you so make it the weekend you like. If you feel like it, why don't you tell me what you would like to do during this weekend?

* I don't own a car, so I usually go with my dad on the big weekly grocery shopping spree. ****
** No, there isn't a recipe yet, as far as I know. I just thought it would be an interesting combination. I bought the coconut milk last week.
*** Just in case you are wondering, I bought the Sauerkraut in a glass with screw cap. The glass is better for the environment. ;-)
**** Actually I have decided that I won't buy a car for myself. I want to live in big cities and there I have public transport. And should I actually need a car there is carsharing. It has many advantages: small starting investment, no insurance or taxes amounts that drive you mad, only parking space search when you use the car, reducing the carbo footprint for yourself and therefore doing something for the environment and the climate, nearly no parking fees, no costs for fixing stuff, no storage fee for the tires, no worrying about the tire change in Spring and Fall and most importantly choosing the car size and features every single time you use one according to your needs/plans. I dare say it is perfect for people who live in big cities.*****
***** No, I don't get payed by them to write this.

Random Sky: Leipzig 19-10-11 - Sunset from my windows

I didn't have any energy left as I got home. But I got to enjoy this show provided by nature. Life is beautiful. Have a great day.

A desert?

Nope, it's the northern beach of the Darss. Have a great day.

The Queen

Playing with details

The early bird catches the worm. Well, the next two weeks I'm an early bird. No sleeping in for me. 

These are some detail shots of a house that I went by on Saturday. I played a bit with frame as you can see. What do you think of them?

Post 555: Perfection and Yogi Tea

Most of us photobloggers only present the best pics we have made. I'm often wowed at the prowess of each of you. 

And I'm sure that for every pic posted there are countless misses.* When you photograph with a digital camera, getting rid of crappy pictures is really easy, photographing with an analog camera you are often stuck with the bad pics because most of the time the perfect pic is on the same piece of film as the miss.

As I'm a bit different, I have also posted some of the misses. Not so much because I wanted to show the world that it is okay to fail, but because I held the drilled in believe that my photography isn't good enough anyway. Same goes for my drawings.

Have you ever heard of Yogi Tea? They produce ayurvedic infusions.** The fun part is that on the little piece of paper at the other end of the string of every teabag, they have printed a small aphorism. Which makes it fun to play little mind games*** and it's always fun to drink some of the tea.

Now, if you have followed my blog(s) closely, you know that I'm right in the middle of a huge self changing process, growing up, coming into my own, call it what you like. Funnily enough the universe, life or the Flying Spaghetti Monster support my moving into the artistic direction. And so does Yogi Tea, whenever I'm not sure of my artistic prowess and therefore if I have any right to call myself an artist I seem to draw a teabag that says in one way or another that I should forget what happened in the past (that I believed I'm not qualified to be an artist) and to move on and look forward. See that's why I love Yogi Tea (and my little mind games).

I now know and believe that I AM A GOOD ARTIST. I SURE HAVE WHAT IT TAKES.

What means all of this for this website of mine? From now on you will find even better pictures here on this blog, mainly photographies and some drawings. There will be even better products in my shop and I will eventually take on assignments in my chosen skill fields. 
I will also get some stuff I need such as a charging cable, a logo, a good scanner, a good printer (if only I knew which one) and a Canon EOS 600D and maybe a vacuum cleaner. ;) One thing at a time.

For now I wish you a wonderful Sunday and hope you enjoy the pictures of the park around the Silver Lake in Leipzigs south.

* Even so, I often fall into the mindtrap to think that everyone else is a better photographer than I am. That every single pic of this person is a study of perfection. Even though I know that's not true.
** I recommend the Classic.
*** Last week I wasn't sure if it was right to have bought the shoes. So I "asked" my teabags and I drew "Who treads softly goes far", therefore my shoes were the right choice. XD

First traces of winter

The current temperature in Leipzig is 0°C or 32°F. However on the first glance outside you'd think it is warm with the sun shining brilliantly and the green woods and the moon (first pic). The second glance reveals that it is really cold: hoarfrost. Brrr, Baby it's getting cold outside. However looking again, on third glance you realize it is still a really beautiful day.

In any case seeing this hoarfrost and feeling the cold when I ventilated my studio, made me switch my wardrobe from summer to winter. Getting out my sweaters and stuff. And I even slept with my thick planket this night. Which was nice and comfy. Last but not least I turned on the heating.

What are you doing this weekend?

Mine is chock-full with things to do. One very important thing is recovery time for my muscles. Meaning I will eat a lot of fish, do some yoga, trink tons of magnesium and use other muscles than the ones I need to walk. Meaning I will use my bike instead of walking or using the bus. I will also take some pictures* at another nice graveyard in Leipzig, I've been planning to do so for months now. But I think tomorrow would be fantastic to do so. In any case there is some creative** and Starbucks time planned too.

Make your weekend magical.

* Lomographic and digital, there is still a nearly filled film in my Lomo with pics from my Austria vacation...
** read: drawing time

Enjoying the calm

Changing the perspective

Makes you seeing things differently. With my new job and the knowledge I gained in my previous job (I prefer work with a real outcome, virtual stuff is just not my thing) I find that I actually like logistics. When I studied engineering I didn't really like logistic, I'm more a hands-on-person though. Well, I'll give it more time anyway on my new job. I just finished the training and start out on my own this afternoon. So if I truly like it and rock the job, I won't know for another 2 or 3 weeks.

This pic above shows an anchorage point for a rowboat at the Neusiedler Lake in Austria.

Have a great day.

The Veiled Vine

We've seen these veils a lot, the goal is to fight of the starlings who are quite fond of the grapes.

The open door to a new chapter of (my) life

Well the door that I will go through at this very moment when this post is posted isn't as beautiful as the one above. The one above leads into a house in the Park Sanssouci and therefore into utter beauty. However my door leads to fitness, a new experience and ...

Have a nice day everyone.

Perfect composition

I think this picture truly has it. And I'll strive for this perfect composition and beauty this week too. It is going to be a fun week, I start out in a new job that I approach not as a job but as a new experience and paid (primal) fitness training. Which is fun. (and healthy ;)

However I will also move onwards with San's Visual Art this week. I will attend an artists meeting tonight, which is something I'm truly excited about. I will also work on my logo during this week. And naturally I will work on my artistic skillset, at my easel and my MacBook Pro. Oh and tomorrow night I'll attend yoga class, I hadn't during the last weeks due to vacation and illness. Now my body is telling me to go, go, GO to yoga class. ;)

Have a wonderful week everyone and make the best of it. Most importantly:

LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE!

At a salt lake

Make this day magical, make it count, enjoy it with your loved ones, do something fun.

Have a great day.

Magic instead of obstacles

Another hint on how we should approach life, love and art: to look for magic instead of obstacles. It seems that I get thrown tons of wisdom at me through the movies that I watch recently. This one came from "My big fat greek summer" a movie from and with Nia Vardalos. In which "Irv" played by Richard Dreyfuss says to Nia:

"Georgia, you are looking for obstacles rather than looking for magic."

And you know what? I realized that was/is true for myself too. Now, I always loved magic and I often wished it was part of my life. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of it, in the way the clouds billow up to fantastic shapes, in flukes or stories. A few weeks back I decided to make my whole life into a piece of art, to make it kinda into an old glamorous movie. However I always found reasons to stall this. I don't have the kind of clothes, I don't have the kind of flat, I don't have this, I don't have that. So instead of looking for the magic in every part of my life, I looked and realized the obstacles to get the life that I want for myself. Now, I'll start looking for the magic in my life and if there are obstacles coming up in my way I will overcome them!!

This picture taken in the "Ozeaneum" in Stralsund symbolizes this overcoming of obstacles for me. To be abled to dive in this huge tank the divers/humankind had to overcome lots of obstacles and now there was created this magical moment that I preserved for time with this picture.

Floating weightless in this magical space created by so many different people.

How amazing.

Have a magical Saturday everyone.

An artists studio

is the workplace of an artist. In Germany it is called an "Atelier". Personally I'm always imagening a loft with either huge windows and/or skylights and wanted it desperately. Well in british English a studio means a flat with one room for living and sleeping, no extra bedroom.* Now I figured it out, I'm an artist, I live in a studio, therefore it is an artists studio = Atelier. Wohoo. I've got an Atelier.** XD

Now let me introduce you to my new and incredible academy and field easel Ars Nova 41.

It comes as this pretty small and lightly storagable package. And it is made of oiled elm wood ! I never knew what elm wood is used for, nevertheless had seen anything made of it. I have to admit it looks quite nice to me.

Those little details, including the rubber feet and that it has a safe stand and therefore can take a bit of pressure, are the very reasons why I decided to buy this middle priced easel instead of the easel I had chosen first (and was costing almost 50 € less).

The first setup was a bit tricky, as I have never used an easel before. The reason I wanted an easel in the first place was that I want to draw while standing. Which is definitely different from drawing while sitting at a table. Because there is nothing except my muscles to support my arms while drawing at an easel. Therefore it needs some getting used to.

See here my first "vertical" drawing at my easel. It felt quite unusual.

The funny thing is, when I drew for the second time on the easel it felt like coming home, as if it is truly meant to be that I use this tool. What an amazing feeling. So the second thoughts of buying an easel and then such an expensive one have vanished. And I just found out that I can also use it horizontally, just in case I want write a letter standing up. Which I definitely will do this weekend!

Yep, I can safely say I LOVE my new easel.


*In Germany you count all of the rooms (without kitchen and bath), in GB the number of the bedrooms.
** Yes, I am a nutcase. ;)

Rest in Peace: Steve Jobs 1955-2011

I'm utterly shocked that Steve Jobs has died. While I never met him, I still think he was an amazing person. I'm feeling truly sad for his family and friends and co-workers.

I use my MacBook Pro every day and I'm thankful that he had the vision to build something this amazing.

THANK YOU STEVE JOBS and everyone at Apple.

"Don't you disappoint love"

It is quite surprising of what you can learn from old movies. I got a little lesson yesterday evening through "If a man answers".* In one scene the mother tells the daughter:

"If you come to love and say to it: If you're so wonderful. Please me, satisfy me, fulfil me. Then you probably will be disappointed. It all depends what you yourself bring to it. Don't you disappoint love."

Which is true. Now switch "love" with "life" and you have an even greater and deeper truth. It dawned on me yesterday evening that I was always holding back, this goes especially for my creativity, my art and often my relationships. It's getting old to blame everything on my upbringing, however in this case it is right. I was always taught to not invest too much time, money (especially not money!), work, feelings or whatever. I guess it's a generation thing. You can get by with this philosophy, but I realized yesterday that I won't get where I want to go with this approach to life. As I've already told you in another post I have the goal to actually become a wellknown artist and live an amazing life, therefore from now on I really will put myself into it. With everything I've got. As the film mother says. So I will bring my time, my work, my humor, my exuberance, my brains, my feelings, my whole body and soul and heart to this life of mine.

That's the reason for this picture above. I finally can see the next few meters of my path. This pic is from my Darss-vacation in March.

So today, I will bring some filled in forms to where they belong, work on my artistic skillset and put up the easel that I bought yesterday**, go to an event that informs creative people to how the german artists social insurance works and just in general enjoy my life. Oh yes, I will also become a member of a local creative folks club. And I will start to inform myself about digital SLR cameras. I've decided I need a digital SLR, since my Ixus isn't good with low light situations. And I really want to take more night shots. Good thing I have tomorrow my next interview, this means I might soon be back to making money and therefore be abled to buy myself a good SLR soon. ;)

What will you bring to your love and life today? Where do you want to go with that life of yours?

* Hilarious and really lovely movie, definitely worth watching.
** I also bought all sorts of paper, a transport roll that stinks of plastic (yuk), some color pencils, a drawing board, a 2012 pocket calendar and a huge A2 black box. The shopping took me ages. Who'd have know it's so hard to decide upon an easel. Pics coming soon.

A certain calm - Park of Castle Halbturn

Confession: I love baroque. I love Art Nouveau. I love cubism. And while we're at it I love bacon too. Yum.

So the Castle Halbturn at the Neusiedler Lake in Austria is just my cup of tea. The big garden A.K.A. park, the lovely castle with its other buildings, the location, the view. I really enjoyed it to be there. Also I found that I have a thing for the interior design of the 1930s. There is an antique store in the castle and they had the most amazing stool there, but it was way too expensive at the moment for me.

Calm is a thing much needed in todays world, the same applies to humor. So in an attempt to combine calm and good humour I created the ZEN-POSTCARD-SET. I had the idea at the Neusiedler Lake. Might be that I even had it in the beautiful park of Castle Halbturn. So here it is:

TED talk: Sunni Brown "Doodlers, Unite!"

21 years of FREEDOM

Today is a very special day for us Germans. We celebrate the 21st Anniversary of our reunion. 21 years of freedom, that's more than half of my life. ;-)

I celebrate this day with sending out postcrossing cards all over the world (to Taiwan, Russia, Brazil and the UK to just name a few of the countries) just because I have the freedom to do so. And with posting this picture of an open iron door. This door is standing at the exact point where on August 19th in 1989 the first part of the Iron Curtain was taken down and East Germans seized the opportunity to become free people during the Pan-European Picnic at the border between Austria and Hungary. I've been to this place just a few days ago and it definitely moved me. I'm really grateful for the freedom that I enjoy now. The freedom to study what I want to study, the freedom to travel wherever I want to go to and to read whatever I want to read, the freedom to speak my mind, the freedom to be me and to live unharmed.

Even today, this freedom can't be taken for granted. There are still many countries in this world where personal freedom is still not possible. And I hope for the people in those countries that they will find the strength to fight peacefully (if possible) for their rights and succeed in it and become free people. We've seen tremendous changes this year with the Arab Spring. I'm really happy for the people who are now free and I cross my fingers for them to make the ongoing changes for the better in their countries peacefully.

PEACE and FREEDOM to all of HUMANITY.

Flourishing

I just love using the macro function on my IXUS. Enjoy your Sunday.

Yesterday was the birthday party of my friend D. He got one of my creative gift sets, well he kinda asked for it and I obliged because it is fun. For him I created a "relaxation set", it consisted of: a bottle of young wine (2011) from Austria, some tea candles, the current longplayer of Clueso and the ZEN-POSTCARD-SET by San's Visual Art. Since he liked the whole present very much I'm feeling quite satisfied. ;)

I also got presents from K and D, an A3 sketch block and a "gift certificate" for an art supply. Since the supply has a sale on, I will go shopping next week. There is a long list of stuff that I need such as A2 format paper, a pocket calendar for 2012, an A2 drawing board and an easel, at least 2 postcard blocks, some pens, a transport roll, a book about getting a gallery to represent me, etc, etc.