Leading the way

No, I didn't row them up. They just lay there when I walked down this path and I found it hilarious so I took the picture.

It's Friday and the weather is horrible. So I will go on with my Spring cleaning. Therefore I've decided to use up and throw out stuff from my pantry. I love teas, so I own quite a lot of them. This goes so far, that when I was flat-sharing I was forbidden to buy any new teas until I used some of mine up. ;-) As my current tea collection is threatening to take over a whole shelf, I've decided to use them up before I buy some new tea.

I will throw out quite a lot of my spices too, because the glasses are just collecting dust and I haven't used them in years. Which means they will have lost there taste anyway. And I won't become like some people, who have spices in their pantry that are more then ten years past their expiry-date.
Leipzig is awesome in so far that there is a spice shop in the city which sells all kinds of loose spices. So I will try out new spices over the next few months.

Do you Spring clean?

A red flower

A log in a sea of sand

Somehow this picture is right today.

Major Artistic Breakthrough

Goooooooood Morning. Yesterday evening at my watercolor class happened something that I didn't even know I waited for. What?

For the first time in my life I found that I liked my sketch and painting best of the class. Until yesterday I always had the feeling that almost everyone else is superior to me in almost all areas of my life.

So with that development I'm feeling much better and self-confident. Perfect timing.

Spring flowers

So since I'm painting tulips right now (scheduled posts are fun), I thought a few of my spring flower pictures from last spring would be welcome. Took this along the road.

Post 700 - Reaching the End of the Tunnel

This is Wolkenburg, Saxony, on a very sunny April day in 2011. Life can be magical if we let it be and recognize it.

A new week has started, giving us tons of possibilities.

For me the new week starts out with another watercolor class tonight. We will paint still lifes tonight. When our teacher (not Andreas) told us so last week I wasn't very keen on it, but I've changed my mind. After all I'm attending this class to broaden my knowledge and abilities, if I shut down every time I'm supposed to try something new, I won't evolve as an artist or person. Not a happy prospect.
So, tonight I'm going to buy tulips right before class, because I really wanted a tulip bouquet for months. I even bought a beautiful green vase a few months back, the poor thing is still waiting for its first bouquet. Me painting tulips, what a surprise.

What have you planned for this week? Are you trying new stuff.

The Pink in Green

Stralsund View

Enjoy your Sunday!

Wave patterns

As I've said, I've got a ton of great pictures waiting to be published. Another picture from last years Darss vacation.

The Empty Shell

When I went through the pictures on my cameras memory card, searching for some specific food pics, I found tons of beautiful pictures that I had forgotten about. This is one of those forgotten treasures. I took it last March during my Darss trip. I would love to go there today. The seaside is fantastic, as is the Kooks song "seaside".

I had a pretty awesome day yesterday and I hope for an awesome weekend too. The weather is certainly wonderful.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

LE Plagwitz - Art

Enjoy your Friday everyone.

Artistic Exuberance - Andreas Mattern

Intense listening.

Two weeks ago I went to a presentation on watercolor painting at my local artists supply. It was held by Andreas Mattern, a Berlin-based artist. The only word that comes to my mind when I think about his presentation: AWESOME. I truly loved every second of it.

Explaining something

He taught us so much in so little time (only 2 1/2 hours), starting with a little bit of material science (don't buy cheap! I learned that lesson: http://sans-visual-art.blogspot.de/2012/03/lukas-vs-winsor-newton-vs-schmincke.html) to some nifty tricks.

His point of view on some matter. His painting in the background is showing Cottbus.

In any case I've decided to definitely take a class with him. He obviously is an amazing teacher.

Creating

Brush use.

Creating a "Mary Poppins" sky, without even noticing it. 

In Dead Center - good or bad?

Postcard 71/366

Two versions of the same painting. Above you see the whole postcard, below only the painting and this dead center. Why I had to try this cut?

Well, the artist Andreas Mattern (he gave the amazing watercolor presentation at my artists supply, more about the presentation in tonights post) said that if only a certain part of a painting is good, than this part should become the whole painting.
So, what do you think? Holds this true for this postcard or not?

The picture part of postcard 71/366

Frankly I'm not sure in this occasion. Especially since the card doesn't tilt to the left side. It seems balanced to me.

LE Plagwitz - Murals

Leipzigs Plagwitz neighborhood is becoming the place for artists. And even I am pondering the possibility to move there. These murals are on two sides of an industrial building.

Plagwitz contains a lot of old industrial buildings (the Spinnerei is THE place for artists in Leipzig) which are turned into living and working spaces. I think I would love to live there.

Lukas vs Winsor & Newton vs Schmincke

Postcard 74/366

This weekend was filled to the brim with artwork. Especially my Sunday, I started with painting right after breakfast, then went to my usual coffee shop to enjoy my Sunday treat (Caffe Latte and nougat waffles), do some pondering and drawing, after that I went home and painted until sunset, after my dinner I immersed myself in the beauty of islamic architecture and ornaments.

During the painting I did get the chance to test three water color manufacturers against each other. Lukas, Winsor & Newton and Schmincke.

Postcard 93/366

In postcard 93 you can see colors from all three manufacturers. Lukas = turquoise, Winsor & Newton = blues, Schmincke = purple. Lukas (cobalt-)turpuoise misses the shine (and the cobalt hue), obviously the pigments aren't of the highest quality, which isn't that surprising considering that the colors cost only 1 third of the Schmincke or Winsor & Newton colors. I guess if you just start out and haven't used Schmincke or Winsor & Newton before, Lukas water colors are just fine. But I started out with Winsor & Newton and find that Lukas colors are inacceptable. I like water colors for their brightness and shine, if I wanted dim colors I would have gone for gouache.

Winsor & Newton vs. Schmincke? Well, I like Schmincke more, the colors have even more brilliance and my local artists supply sells the half pans of them too. However, they only sell full pans of Winsor & Newton, irritatingly most of the W & N paint-boxes are half pans. So when I run out of several colors in my sketchers box I'll switch to a Schmincke paint-box. After all the purple and gold hues are amazing, as you can see below in Postcard 92.

Postcard 92/366

Yesterday evening I started to truly experiment with watercolors and got totally excited about it.

Postcard 96/366

So this morning I booked a water color class at our local adult education center. It starts tonight and I'm quite excited about it.

Now, it's time to get down to my other business. Have a great new week everyone. Do you have any exciting plans?

Poppy's Vanity

Saturday, wonderful weather, Spring, lovely weekend plans, new watercolors to try (I've bought purple and gold(!) yesterday, since I currently absolutely adore the work of Gustav Klimt), fantastic and huge books about ornaments and Art Nouveau from the library to read. Ahhh, life can be so good.

Hopefully your weekend plans are lovely too. What have you planned?

From monochrome to colorful: an Epiphany

Postcard 62/366

For years I've been searching for the right word for these doodles that I do. During the last year the name search became even more pressing. Since yesterday an epiphany grew within me and finally revealed itself this morning:

these are ornaments.

Postcard 66/366

Finally I have the correct term for them! You can't imagine how elated I am about this.

Enjoy your weekend everyone. I certainly will, we've got fabulous weather and I'm brimming with ideas for San's Visual Art.

Postcard 73/366

Dreaming of open waters in the sun

It's Friday, Folks, and since this weekend will be fantastic weather in Leipzig, it's time for life's simple pleasures.

A stroll in one or all of the lovely parks, a bike ride around the Markkleeberger See (preferably without falling of the bike, which I did yesterday), cooking and enjoying great food, reading on a park bench in the sun, drawing on a park bench in the sun, pondering life on a park bench in the sun, going to a crafts market and meeting with friends there. Doing all this alone or with good friends.

Enjoy your Fridays and weekends.

Nature wins

Always.

We often think we have to safe nature from us. But as a matter of fact, we have to save nature FOR us. We need it to survive ourselves. We need the bees, the beasts, the plants, etc. WE NEED NATURE TO SURVIVE!

Nature will survive us, giving birth to new species almost daily. Life will find a way, no matter what.

Color Theory vs. Color Praxis

Theory: Mixing red and blue produces? Purple.

The practical test:

Postcard 43/366

Adding red to blue produces: coffee brown. In this case a coffee brown dolphin, no, this wasn't planned at all, neither the coffee brown nor the dolphin. "Just do it and then keep going!", produces quite interesting stuff.

In any case I've made some headway in my 366 project. Today I painted postcard 75/366. I'm ahead!!!

Postcard 75/366

Pattern Design by Nature on Ice Puddles

Ice Puddle Beauty II

A sunset at the Baltic Sea

Leucojum vernum

Have a great new week everyone!

Sometimes a change of perspective is all that is needed

A roadblock can seem very daunting.

But sometimes all you need to do is to stand up (for yourself), therefore change your perspective and suddenly the former roadblock has become a small drawback that is easily circumvented or jumped over.

Normally today would be my Offline-Day, but due to tomorrow I've decided to shift this Offline-Day to another day. Anyway, in about 1 1/2 hours I will get my first swimming lesson since 4th grade. I'm quite excited about it. Learning freestyle and turns and whatever. Afterwards I'm at my usual Sunday space, with coffee and waffles. Wohoo.

Enjoying the first real Spring day

My perfect Wingtips!

Yesterday came pretty close to my perfect Spring day. Wonderful sunshine, warm enough to lounge for lunch on a wooden park bench, before that enjoying a absolutely fantastic presentation on watercolor (more on that in another post) and some art supply shopping (I've got my A3 ringbound sketchbook, wohoo), enjoying a photographing party in Leipzigs Botanical Garden (pictures coming soon in other posts) and then taking a nap in the sunshine at home with my window wide open, closing the day with a long chat with my friend Chris. Yes, definitely a wonderful day.

My unhealthy but tasty lunch. It's been a spur of the moment decision.

Enjoying the sun and getting some Vitamin D produced after the lunch.

Mind you I only exposed my calves for a few minutes, it was still too cold without the trousers. In any case I wasn't the only one enjoying the sun. There are three benches on both long sides of the Apothecary Garden and on each bench in the sun we launched and enjoyed the sun. The Spring birds were singing too, so I listened to them instead of music. It was quite lovely.

Today it's drab again, but since I have a lot on my agenda for today, that's fine.

Enjoy your Saturday.