Street Festival at Leipzigs "Kö" on June 1st

The "Kö" is the Könneritzstreet in Leipzig's west and there will be a street festival at the afternoon of June 1st this year. The big news:

I will take part with a stall and offering my (printed) postcard-sets, ornamental drawings and photographies there!

Exciting, eh? Well at least it is for me. And there'll be a whole lot of work during the next few weeks. I'll have to draw a lot and decide which drawings and photos to print, etc.

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?

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

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

Watercolors - such fun

Postcard 36/366

A few weeks back at the illustration workshop I got to try Gouache colors, I didn't like them as I told you before. Instead I had a strong feeling that watercolors would be just my cup of tea. After I tried them today I know that I absolutely LOVE them. It's such fun to use them. I love that I can be inaccurate when using them and it just looks great.

Postcard 37/366

Those three cards are the first time since art class in school that I used watercolors (that has been at least 16 years since) and I just love those cards.

Postcard 38/366

The ultimate park and some drawings

What a combination: the glamour of Sanssouci Park and the postcards I drew yesterday.

Postcard 16/366

Postcard 17/366 - My favourite

Postcard 18/366

Postcard 19/366

Postcard 20/366 - drawn with Copic Multiliner

Enjoy your weekend.

Illustration Friday: Fluid

Postcard 14/366

What a creative day! I've been enjoying drawing all throughout the day and just a few minutes ago, I've finished my first ever illustration on a topic, for Illustration Friday. As it says on their website: "Illustration Friday is a weekly creative outlet/participatory art exhibit for illustrators and artists of all skill levels". I wanted to take part for a few weeks now, but didn't. This weeks topic is "fluid" and I thought it is a perfect fit for my stuff.

Postcard 15/366

Nevertheless I've wanted to do something special and came up with the "Fluid Fountain".

"Fluid Fountain"

It was fun to draw this.

4th of January = Ouch

Yesterday was a really bad day for me. I went to my dentist 3 times, because my gums were trying to kill me. The postcard describes yesterday pretty good. Pain, sleep and Totoro. Today is a wee bit better, mainly because I now have strong enough pain meds and can watch "My neighbor Totoro" as often as I like, because I picked up the DVD on my way home from my last dentists visit.
Today I went to my dentist only once and as it looks I'll do so tomorrow again. I also ordered "The Dr Who" Series 4 and 5 from the UK today, but it won't be here before the weekend. Somehow Dr. Who isn't available in Germany. Good thing that we have the European Community and therefore no customs (duty) between the countries anymore. Hehe.

Tomorrow I'll try the film scan for the first time at my new scanner, hopefully it works out well. I have one film with really awesome pics left from my vacation in Austria and I really want to show them to you in good quality (without striations).

New Product: Starting with Holiday Cards - PK 84

And this is another of my holiday- and K-inspired postcards.

You like it, then you can buy it here: San's Visual Art - DaWanda-Shop

New Product: Starting with Holiday Cards - PK 83

My friend K recently complained that my art is too pointy and sharp, since I felt that I had gotten into a creative rut I tried to get rounder and this is what I came up with. Since the holiday season is right ahead of us, I chose dark green and (what should have been) a dark red*.

You like it, then you can buy it here: San's Visual Art - DaWanda-Shop

* Yeah, I know it isn't dark at all.

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:

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.