From where do you get your inspiration ?

Quite often I'm asked this question.

It's a complex thing this. I think I was born a crafter, as long as I remember I have made things. I even can remember when I was three years old and saw some ladies crocheting and I stood in a distanse and practised the movement with my hand. One of the ladies said that it was important to practis in an early age. They probably had great fun, me standing there.

Another memory is how I used old schoolbooks (notebooks)filled with writing and filled all the loops with colour trying to make patterns. I really loved it if I could make a flower or a house or other things. Very exiting.
All these books are thrown away and that's really sad, I would have loved to have them today.

Another thing is that I don't allow myself "dull time" which means I always try to do something I like doing. If I'm in need of quietness I read or I walk in nearby woods, in the mountains or by the sea. Always trying to keep the spirit up.
My curiousity also help me moving on, whenever I see something new to me I wonder whether I can do it and I'll have to try and that leads to variety.

I strongly believe in variety because when one "thread" is close to empty I just follow another one. And when doing other things new ideas are coming to me. I've always been thinking of writing down my ideas so that I can go back and look for new things when needed but I never did. It seem new ideas are coming anyway.



(Sandra and I made these. Mine is called "watermusic" and Sandra called hers "space" I think they are quite inspiring. Sandra is 8 years old.) By the way, Sandra always asks me why I don't write Laila 53 years on my things. I'm laughing, what to say to that question? Well that's another issue.


But, what inspires me the most are colours. I have a lot of pens, watercolours, crayons and yarns. A glance at these things is what it takes to start the movement most of the time.

For many years I used to study all kinds of advertising stuff which came in my mailbox, just to learn about colours and my own reactions to them. Very interesting ting to do and I learned a lot about my own attractions towards colours. That's why I know that the colours are the main thing to inspire me.
And that's why I don't live in a "white house"(!) all my walls are coloured.
Every time I enter a "white minimalistic home" I don't feel the least inspired. That doesn't mean that those homes are not good or anything it's just that we are different as persons. I'm a colourful person!

That's what inspire me, what kind of stuff inspires you?

Have a nice day everyone!

Some Aboriginal-like paintings.

(or perhaps I should say dottings)

I've been trying a new tecnique.



These two blue ones was the first I made. I've used a white and a black pen and a little of a glitterpen. Ordinary pens won't show colour at this strong coloured paper. Most of them turn black or brownish grey. Best to use white or black or as I did, glitterpens.

The bookmark has several different colours made by glitterpens. The text says Good Book. While doing this bookmark some great new ideas came to me and I will try them soon.
When finished I felt like trying some more, and decided to make a painting (watercolours) showing the surroundings in where I live. I have seen a few original paintings and wanted to try it myself.

I did some sketching and started to paint.
And this is how it looked when the painting was done.



This is the point when all the fun starts.

First thing I did was to line out the frame, and then I started to dot. All the white ones first. One has to consentrate, all the dots as even as possible and the space between them even too. No rules here, so as good as one can manage. My next image shows the painting when all the white work was done.

Isn't it amazing how the white colour can lift an ordinary painting not to mention a dull painting. I think it's the light in the white colour that does that job. I can assure you, this is a very exiting way of doing things. I could have stopped now and let the painting be as it was but I wanted to do a "real" one.



I've used a lot of symbols to tell about my surroundings. I've even invented some new ones. In the sky I've made a lot of stars and a couple of 'copters. Well there IS a lot of 'copters nowadays. If you want the whole story just search for Aboriginale symboles and you'll find my story. I have to add that my use of symbols is how I understand them it's not nessesary the right way to use them.

What did I learn from this?

The first thing I learned was: always have a timer when doing this! Suddenly my husband was back from work and no dinner ready for him....Ouch.
It's so fun and also timeconsuming, but it's sooo relaxing. I don't need to meditate
nor do I need morning pages. This is a much more fun way of doing it.(just remember the timer though)
Next time I skip the symbols or I invent some new that feels more like me and now. I also learned that when dotting a coloured space the colour of the dots better be a little darker than the space itself. The more even the colours are the less the dots shows off. That's what I've learnt today.
What have you learnt today?

Here you are, this is my painting called " Where I live"

ENJOY and a very nice weekend to you all!

Remember the grey page in my journal?

I'll give you my version.

Let me start by saying that today it's one year since I started blogging. It's incredible I just wanted to see if I could do it and now I'm deep into it.
It has been a year with lots to learn and a very fun year too.

Now back to my spread. The grey page I had so much fun making and new things popping up all the time. There could be several ways to solve this task but this was my choice. When finished I stood back to study it for a while and saw some very different images that could have been done. What I learnt was to have a look in a distance before deciding what to do.

Now I'm curiouse, what did you see? Did you spot any of my images?

The other page became a try to make a collage but I feel it's more like scrapping. It was fun to make though and finding all the different things to use. Almost like a treasure hunt in my own home.
Some buttons from past times (mother of pearls) and the one that pops up. Anyone who remembre these? I think I've used them when I was a little girl.

The initials with flowers are originally made for embroidering but I felt they were suitable to this page and it's atmosphere. Back in those days they did mark everything this way. ( don't think they ever heard the expression: time is money. he, he, he) Mostly the work they did was delicate and well done.

Well, thats about it just want to wish you all a joyful day and tomorrow I'll show you some Aboriginal-like things I've made.

My journal again...

This is very facinating.

My first picture today shows a righthand side page. This is how it looked when I started to work on it. (painting already done) The colours on my photo are not good at this first image but what I wanted you to see is how the background looks like before I start my work. It is quite interesting to compare the finished result to the starting point. When you see my choices you can go back and consider whether you would have chosen differently.

Ofcourse, I can see things more clearly since I have the pages in person but when I show off a page before working on it I think it's possible for you to see what's in it. Hope you enjoy the possibility.
If I'm not wrong you might as well learn something from it. That would make me happy.

Please, use some seconds to figure out what you actually see in this page before looking at the next photo.





This was a very interesting spread to make.

In the lefthand side page I would keep a picture already in that page. The coalabears are so beautiful animals, and I wondered if I could work it well into the rest.
Well, to be correct the rest was worked into the existing picture. I'll have to try this over again and perhaps do a little planning before I start. As you see I couldn't resist making a little fun. ( quite typical me) It wasn't easy to incorporate existing picture to the rest. Perhaps another image could be easier.
I will definetly try over again some other time.

Now, lets have a look at the page that you've already seen. Did you see the "church"? I'm quite sure you saw the cross. The image was very clear so I had no choice other than make this. And the Pukumani Pole, very strange. In 2005 I spent my summer holiday in Australia and I visited the Australian museum. These Poles facinated me a lot back then and I had a close look at several at the museum. And now it showed up again.
If we compare that Pole to our headstones we see a huge differens. How colourful the native Australians are. (or perhaps have been) I'll give you a link here to have a look at the Poles.
The Pole that I made is just imagination, I had a look in the museum and I have used some of the patterns I saw there. For all I know my Pole tells that this person has been the King all over Australia. Just to avoid any problem I repeat, my Pole is pure imagination.
I tried to give the "church" some windows but it was impossible. Each time I tried something went wrong so I gave in. I'm very pleased with the result though, the whole page seems airy and clean. Couldn't do it any better I think. What do you think?



Best wishes to all of you.

Art Journaling, I'm on my way....

Some more pages from my journal.

Just want to show you my progress in journaling. If you have any comments, tips or good ideas they are very welcome.
If any of you think that I leave too much space in my pages, I have to tell you a little secret. When the photos are done I write in some more text, in norwegian.




The left side page does already have some norwegian text. It's about not beeing satisfied, that I'll have to mix the colours before using the credit card. Things like that.
This page didn't inspire me at all so the only thing I came up with was this doodling.
The other side though, inspired and thought me a lot. The first thing I learnt was that even if a page don't look that inspiring ( or destroyed) much can be done to rescue it. I could have repaint it but my aim is to do the most of what I have and that leads me to be even more creative. I didn't think much of this page at the beginning but it came out quite interesting to me. And at the end I spotted the message to myself.
The text was not written to match, but at the end I could read a message: Hear hear one step at the time. Had a little laugh when I spotted that.




Now we're talking...

I'm very pleased with the left page. The cold colours and the pale winter sun. The structure of the paper even looks like canvas.
I can see that I need to focus some more at the writing, and I would not have done the text like this once more. (easy to say though) Can remove it, you say, yes but I need it as a reminder to how I learnt this and what not to do. That's all.
This journal will be kept as my "learning journal" so it's important to me that all the "mistakes" are in there.

I'll tell you how I do this.

When the gesso has dried I "paint" both pages. Better to get the messy job done at once. When it's all dry I cover (most of the time) the right hand side with some old sheets and consentrate on the left.
The red side here, I didn't like at all because I so much wanted to do curved lines and this one didn't show a single curve. So.. I was not looking forward to do this page at all.
But as you can see it came out " not that bad." I simply love birds and this was a great idea I think. The image of the parrot was in this book in the first place and I really wanted to use it. So all in all this became a very fun page to make.

Have a really nice and creative day everyone.

Journalpages, what do you see?

Isn't this amazing?

Have a good look at these pages. Especially the grey one is exiting. Can you spot any images? I can see a lot of things here.
I see Mother Theresa or one of her sisters, I see trees and gras/soil, a man with a big hat and a walkingstick, a hippopotamus, a roof with a chimney, a lion, a coffeepot and even a few more. On the red side I see a child walking to school with the schoolbag on his/hers back. That's the clearest vision right now. I'll wait untill tomorrow and look once more in daylight.



Do me a favour, write down your own list of images and we'll see at the end what comes out. I was planning to do a collage on the grey page but I can't do that with all these visions. Wow..this is over the top exiting. Try it yourself, paint and one old creditcard. I never know how or what comes out.
Wish you all a nice evening/night.

Some more doodling.

These are some new doodlings

I felt like doing something else a couple days ago.
The first one I made using some colours and it worked well, but I think perhaps the rose has a colour too prominent. I'm thrilled about the V-shape and will try some other things with that later on.
I bought some greys too and they do a big differens. The drawings get a whole new depth. Very interesting to play with I think.
I had to add a little yellow ghost too, I like ghosts. ( friendly ones that is) :-)




The second one was a try drawing a rope. Funny thing this, it seems to always fit with one over and one under as long as start and ending point are joined. Always the same. I've tried a lot of times now and it works every time. Let me hurry to tell that math isn't my force. ( must have something to do with math.)

When the rope was done I felt like filling the loops, and then I stopped. I really like this one, it feels airy and tidy which I like.
What do you think?