An Art Work A Day

These days I find myself totally relaxing and take a step away from all kinds of noises and bustles of my everyday life when grinding the ink and painting in this style. This is so my meditation. Life is quiet and therefore good right now. I do not want that much excitement right now.

Today I have had a very relaxing afternoon. Grinding the ink on the ink stone and painting this bird felt like meditation for me. I also like the calm that I feel I painted into this painting.
I hope you feel it too.

Freshly Caught Snack, SOLD
ink on shuen paper
approximately A4
$40 p&p worldwide included












A special thanks to Lj Maxx for the use of her photo as reference for this pose.
http://www.gather.com/viewImage.jsp?fileId=3096224744437206

I have had a very productive day today JIPPPIIIII and had some fun. This is a painting using chinese ink which I ground on my lovely ink stone (meditation for stressed out artists :-)). Using shuen paper which is medium absorbant I had some control but still the paper did it's magic. I was very happy myself with this one because I felt I mastered a bit more to use variations of keeping the brush dry or wet.

This one I will frame and put out on the guild exhibition next month if it is not sold before that.

Yesterday I practiced painting pandas in ink. I want to thank to somesai and her fantastic photos on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/somesay/ which she kindly allowed me to use for reference when practicing. I will definately practice more pandas. The shape seems easy, problem is how to show the white on white.

And here is a second mountain aquarelle as we call it here. This one I'll probably get framed and show on the local guild's Christmas exhibition if it is not sold by then.

When travelling over the Alps on my way to Pisa recently I was so amazed by the layer by layer by layer of the mountain ridges. Quite a bit of the mountains was over the clouds. That and the typical style in watercolours in Tuscany have inspired this series I am working on. On the other hand it is also my own style in blue mountainous landscapes ( previously in oils mainly) so you can say that these are multiinspired. I hope you will like them


Italian Alps1,


watercolour on watrecolour paper
size: 21x30cm ( A4) Fits standard photo frames
$0 p&p worldwide included.

Red Sun Sets,

$30 p&p worldwide included

Continuing to explore watercolours and ink on different kinds of paper.


Ready for take off,
watercolour on rice paper
size: approx 25x25cm
SOLD

Trees by the lake,

$30 p&p worldwide included

here are two versions of a painting I made on a very thin japanese batic paper I found in Florence. The second image is of it with light shining through it after I put it on a window. the first one is it laying on a white paper. The paper is incredibly absorbant and near totally see through - a very interesting surface to explore more. I relaly enjoyed the effects that can be created with this paper. The ink is from chinese ink stick grounded on my new proper ink stone.

Of course I took lots and lots of photos but to really do great photos inside these big buildings you need better cameras than my travel one.

Well one thing I kept reminding me was that I do need to buy those binoculars so that I can see properly the great paintings high high up on walls and on the ceilings like this part of the fresco in the ceiling of the building next to the duomo..

You might wonder, did I get any art done? Of course.

Naturally the conditions were not that suited for it but I worked on my art. Also yesterday when I returned. The results will be posted bit by bit as the theme in posts is suitable.

This first image is a watercolour painting on watercolour paper 20x30 cm in the series I have been working on.

This second image of the red birds was inspired by all things by a neat fridge magnet I bought in Florence. It is watercolours on rice paper. I am not into gold or expensive leather but I collect special fridge magnets or ear rings. Their sizes suits my wish to bit by bit going more minimalistic materially.

This last one is one I was very happy about but which I ruined last night trying to wet it and brush out the wrincles. I tried to do it as shown on tutorials but I must have done something wrong because the paper broke on all three papers I worked on. Well, I figured this means I need to play a bit with collages LOL soon if I keep doing this.

the lounge area where we went down to the breakfast room in the Contessina

Standing outside my hotel I had the central train station are behind me, the roads towards the markets and the old city to the right, In front of me I had a few street with a slightly more normal meaning a tiny tad less touristy area and to the left I did not know so I took off in that direction. On the map there seemed to be only a few things in that direction like a garden or something. What i found was Fortezza de Basso, an old fort which I wish I could have taken a better look inside of.

Walking around this fortress I found this lovely garden where I sat down.

I started by putting away my stuff at the Residence La Contessina Via Faenza 71n (my apartment). http://www.residenceinflorence.com/ Here you will see images of the place including my kitchen and my bed and get all the other info you could want about a place with lovely service and landlady.

With my small nylon backpack I then went out to explore. I totally love markets so since I could see one close by according to the map, I naturally headed in that direction. The first market stalls are always fun and I enjoyed myself a lot. The only thing that disappointed me after a while in Florence was that very little of things in the stalls were original crafts - 99 % was factory made so those selling rarely had had anything to do with production which I found a pity. Initially I had believed it to be one market place but after a few days I realised that most of the historical part of Florence had these stalls - lots of glass jewellery, leather and that special porcelaine was what you saw the most. Some also had handmade books kind of things. Besides from leather SHAWLS were what was sold everywhere. I must admit I ended up bringing home a few LOL - thinking LOL that I could use some as table cloths if I ended up not wearing them. had to do some shopping you know LOL and since I am not into leather and gold . . . .

There were also quite a few street artists around - most of them painted city or Tuscan landscapes in watercolour. This one spray painted. I also got a nice talk with one of the watercolour artists in this market area.

Strolling around I ended up passing the Duomo - The Saint Mary Cathedral - Duomo cattedrale di santa Maria del fiore (in Italian). http://www.duomofirenze.it/storia/storia_eng.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Cathedral

These two pages will tell you all about it much better than I can. Definately a place I will study much closer on a later trip. Then I will also walk to the top of either the dome or the tower on the side, 4oosomething steps at the top but a wonderful view I was told. I did the top of the St Peter church in Rome and The Doumo in Milano. Definately worth it.

I did not go inside this day but the next day. Just taking in and walking among all those incredible buildings was more than enough for a first day, travel weary too.

The street seller ladies were very busy here and I must admit that this lady was quite good at it and I ended up with a couple of things LOL.

I kept walking towards the river and stopped for dinner at la Piazza della Signora. For more info and better close ups of the famous statues here, use the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_della_Signoria

As you can see there is a mixtue of the old and the new.

Tuesday I left for Tuscany. I was so lucky with the weather and the flight. I had the most amazing views of the Alps as we flew over them. Fortunately I had a window seat on the plane :-).

The second photo is as we go in for landing in Pisa. I was amazed to see that there were so many challels crisscrossing the area, looking like roads from above. The landscape was very flat but with nice rolling hills around it lal the way as I took a bus to Florenze.

I had not booked a hotel in advance because I saw that there were lots and lots of them on the net and I did not know where I wanted to stay. Unfortunetely for me, the tourist office did not do reservations like I was used to in Roma and Milano so I had to start walking and asking. I also did not know that this was high season SO . . . everyone said, sorry no sinlge rooms but they had suites. In he end I ended up getting this appartment, (photo 3) for the first night. I just decided on the spur that i just wanted to settle down and go out to see the sights. It was kind of lovely to live decently the first night.

The fourth image is a watercolour on watercolour paper that I painted that night inspired by the Alps. I do intend to paint many more from those reference photos in the future. More on Florenze in my next post.

Loud visitor in my garden - Nøtteskrike (nut yeller directly translated from Norwegian LOL)

$ 100 p&p worldwide included

I will not be posting for a few days now. Hopefully I will have something interesting to show you closer to the weekend