Last post in 2013.

Yet another year has gone, and as usual, we have been celebrating the last week. Our celebration has been going for 5 days and that's enough. Family and friends have been visiting, a lot of cooking and not least eating. Right now I feel like a well filled sausage. 2014 has to include morning walks again.

2013 has offered a lot of magical mornings for me, photographed and filed.

I'm lucky enough to have a view, from our house, to watch the sunrise, and each time I find it beautiful I try to photograph it. Above is a collage of a few of my photos. The colors are so beautiful, and to watch the sky dressed in these colors is truly magic.
I can't see the sunset though, but in the coming year I'll try to catch some sunsets too. Either by driving to the ocean or to climb the mountains.

I wish you all a happy new year, may all your dreams come true!

Not much painting these days.

Not much creative work at all.

The exception is photographing beautiful sunrises, and yesterday my dinner table chairs got new upolstery. It's a great releaf to have done that. They were used a bit too long and desperately needed to be fixed.

My mother returned home from Spain for Christmas yesterday, so the family is full once more. I'm not quite ready yet, monday will be the the day for polishing all the doorknobs. A hundred years old brass doorknobs need to be polished at least once a year, and Christmas is a very good occation to get it done. It's so beautiful with them shining in all the soft lights.

The gifts are bought, not wrapped. No coocies made, and won't be either. I am the one eating them and I certainly don't need it. Looking forward to a new year with lots of painting and other creative stuff. In the meantime, I'm photographing sunrises.

This is my post # 499, so I just have to write one more in 2013 to round it off, so to speak. I wish you all a merry Christmas, and I'll be back before the end of the year.

Busy days.

I've had alot to catch up after finishing class.

It seems Christmas always comes a month too soon each year. This year my mother returns from Spain and she'll spend Christmas eve with us. I've finally washed the house and everything is ready to start decorating. I have not baught any gifts yet, but I've done all the thinking, so it should be pretty easy to catch up on that too.
Last couple of days we've had a huge storm going, and I heard in the news today several houses had lost their roofs. We've been lucky, this storm came from north west and we don't feel it too much because of a hill. Would have been much worse for us if it came from east.

I made this girl as I tried to draw and paint leaves. I'm happy with the result and it was a good idea to make the background only within the design. I'm not good at backgrounds, and felt this was a great way of doing it. I'm sure I'll do more of this, it's so fun doing them.
Today will be a relaxing day for me, we had some friends over yesterday and I cooked so much onion soup that today will be leftovers.
Enjoy your day too.

Don't throw away your leftovers.

I did something the other day,

and I want to share the idea with you all. I don't know about you, but when I paint I always keep a sheet of paper to try out my mixed paint before adding it to my painting. Many, many times I've seen some beautiful combinations of color and some great "designs" in these sheets. Now I got the idea to put them to "use". I have this little cutting tool, squared, and I remove the bottom lid to be able to see excactly what I cut. My squares are sized 3.5 by 3.5 cms. and when cut, they actually look like small art pieces. I could have added some details to them, but I want them clean so that the inspiration comes from the colors only.

If I find there are too many white spots on them I'll use the leftover paint on my brush to add in, instead of washing it out in the water. I have glued mine down in my sketchbook, but they can be used in many different ways. As small reminders to a friend, to decorate a postcard or as pure inspiration as I did. And I'm sure there are many more ways to use them too.

I made three rows, so in these two pics you see the same row twice. My nine squares are mostly done using twinks, and they are so pretty. I'm that kind of person that get inspired from colors, so to look at these beauties most often result in new ideas. Also it's possible to discover new color combos this way. I never think of any of this while painting, it just happens and then it's fun to look for the best squares later on. I'm sure I will start a new journal for these squares only, what a beautiful journal that will be when filled.

Just a little idea from me to you.


One day later I found my quote journal and I've written on right pages only. Just as if I was waiting for this idea to show up. Now, my squares are glued in there. Yay! This gives me a lot of inspiration in one journal, both quotes and lovely colors.

Each left side in my journal has room for six pieces, and they are stunning to look at. Below is my latest page, don't they look great? I even held back from painting in all the white and it's just so amazing. My journal has a pocket in it so I save my squares in there until I find it's time to play again.

Oh how fun this is, I can already feel the joy of filling in my journal with these little bits of "leftovers". Amazing to see, can be useful and pure joy when doing it. Can a girl wish for more?