Friday 30 August 2013

Rocking Your World Friday

It's Friday and on Friday there is the meme on Celtic House called Rocking Your World which is
'the moment to step back and take stock of your week, to work out the positives, the things that have made life more bearable and to celebrate these facts. Pop a post together, come back and link each Friday and let's share our positives around. It's a great therapy and stops life slipping through our fingers or spending too much time dwelling on the negatives. Not sure if it's for you - give it a go - you'll never know until you try!'

So this week
We almost finished clearing my Dad's house.  I took this photo of the sunset whilst we were there.  Although to be honest it wasn't quite this spectacular - when I zoomed the lens the camera interpreted the scene like this.

We met with the lady who is buying my Dad's house and really liked her and her sister and her brother-in-law.  I think they will really enjoy looking after the garden.

We had a reasonable journey to Pembrokeshire on Friday and back on Tuesday despite the Bank Holiday.

On Thursday I did a workshop taught by Tim Holtz which was great.


When I got back from the workshop I was able to Skype with Andy and Naomi.

And last Friday my birthday present arrived from them.



I've read the first 3 chapters.  I need to read chapter 3 again before I move on to chapter 4.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice



Thursday 29 August 2013

Wow! What an amazing time

and what amazing generosity.

This morning I went with Nicky and Morag to a workshop hosted by Personal Impressions and taught by Tim Holtz.



We all had a kit each with everything we needed to make a tag book.  These are my manila tags with the first layer of the background using Distress Stains.

These are the backs of them after stencilling with Tim's new stencils.

The front and backs of inked and stencilled Kraft tags.


And the front of the manila tags as far as I got during the session.

And then it was prezzie time.  We were all given a bag, a signed copy of Tim's book, a Ranger apron (actually we had that at the start) and a scrubbie.

And all of the kit we had been working with.

And just to prove that I was there!  Me!

There was a shop there and I was very restrained.  I only bought some Multi-Medium and some tissue tape.

Although I did come home and order all the stencils from Art from the Heart!  Oops!

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice



Little Details

Carolyn has a weekly meme on Thursdays called Messy Little Details.  Find out about it here.  Why don't you join in?

And finally for August a 'cupboard' which was high up in a wall.  I love the monotone colours in this.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice


Saturday 24 August 2013

Art challenge

On 12 Months in View today's Art Challenge is to use one of the techniques used over the last 6 months.  I thought I would have a go with the alcohol dripping technique again.

Of course it might have helped if I'd gone back to watch the video.  But no I just started.  I put gesso on the page and then a layer of acrylic paint.

I dropped the Surgical Spirit on it and it didn't have much effect.  I tried putting another colour on top and tried again and that didn't work.  I realised that the paint was too thick so I used the bleachout technique - using a wet wipe through a stencil which is what produced the mosaic look.

By this time it looked muddy so I sprayed some White Linen Ink on it.  That didn't make it look any better.

As I was working in my journal rather than on paper I had to stick with it.  Although I suppose I could have put gesso over the whole thing and started again.  Instead of using the Amsterdam paints I moved on to using the Ranger Dabbers and diluting the paint rather more. This was more successful.

I'm not sure what colour I put on after the pink but this was the final colour.  I drew the swirls and leaves with a Stabilo pencil.  I put some modelling paste through the mosaic stencil and stamped randomly with Archival Ink.

I went over the pencil with a water brush.  I stuck some map flowers onto the 'stem'.

I added some writing.

It still didn't look finished so I added the quote from the challenge.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice


Friday 23 August 2013

Rocking Your World Friday

It's Friday and on Friday there is the meme on Celtic House called Rocking Your World which is
'the moment to step back and take stock of your week, to work out the positives, the things that have made life more bearable and to celebrate these facts. Pop a post together, come back and link each Friday and let's share our positives around. It's a great therapy and stops life slipping through our fingers or spending too much time dwelling on the negatives. Not sure if it's for you - give it a go - you'll never know until you try!'

So this week was a fabulous week.  Last Saturday was my birthday and we got up very early and got a 7am flight to Munich in Germany.   So many new sights and sounds to be thankful for.

Firstly, over a hundred birthday wishes on Facebook. Wow!  Thank you everyone.

My birthday dinner at the Biergarten.

My dinner : Stewed Roast Deer

With Dumplings and red cabbage.

And Sorbet and  Prosecco to follow.

And Roger had pork


And Apple Strudel


If I had ever compiled a Bucket List then this next place would have been high up on it.  On Sunday we took a coach trip to see the Royal Palaces of Ludwig II.  The first castle was Lindhof and then we visited Oberammergau where we saw lots of painted houses.

And we saw this amazing display of flowers.


And then on to a place that was probably top of the theoretical bucket list - Neuschwanstein Castle.


On Monday it rained and we got very wet but it didn't dampen our spirits.  We were thankful that it was still warm and so we didn't mind.  We visited more royal palaces - the Nymphenburg Palace which originally was outside the city and used in summer  and the Residenz in the centre of Munich.

Nymphenburg


Inside the Residenz

 
And St George in the Treasury


Our hotel was lovely, the staff were friendly and helpful and the transport links into the City Centre were great.  Only two problems.  One I hate feather pillows.  Two, our room was on the front of the hotel and as it was so warm we had to have the windows open.  The room faced on to what turned out to be a very busy and noisy street and we didn't sleep much.  However on Monday we were moved to a room at the back and we were very thankful.  The room was much cooler and quieter.

On Tuesday we went to Augsburg by train.


And on Wednesday we visited the Deutsches Museum.   According to the guidebook it would take 3 weeks to see every exhibit so I am thankful that Roger decided we would only spend an hour and 45 minutes there.

The we took the Underground to the northern end of the Englischer Garten and walked back through the garden to the city.



The plane took off on time and we arrived home safely, most thankful that nothing untoward had happened whilst we were away.

And best of all I had a good night's sleep with my proper pillow.

I'll post more photos of our stay in another post soon.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice


Thursday 22 August 2013

Scavenger Hunt around Munich

I had intended taking part in Rinda's Photo Scavenger Hunt this summer but time has passed since it started at the beginning of June and I hadn't really got into it due to life getting in the way a bit!

And then I thought I could use the list to take photos on our trip to Munich.  I carefully printed out the list and then just as carefully left it at home.  I could remember one or two of the things and I looked up the list on Rinda's blog using my phone but couldn't find a pen to write things down!  So I winged it a bit!  But I seemed to do okay with the photos I took.

I ended up with around 450 photos from our 5 days so using Rinda's list is a great way to show you just a few of the things we saw.

Rather than listing them numerically I'm going to do them by the day.

Saturday
#3: City Hall or civic building.   Here is the Rathaus in the centre of Munich. Rathaus is German for Council House.

About half way up the tower of the Rathaus is a clock with moving characters.  Here's a rather wobbly video I took.

#8: A Tower.  Munich was full of towers and to take this photo of the communication tower at the Olympic Park we climbed the 306 steps to the top of the Alter Peter Church tower.

Sunday
We visited two Royal Palaces and Oberammagau.  I'll do a separate post about that.

Monday
It rained.  Really, really wet rain and we were soaked.  However I did see these.

#10: A bench outside.


#13: A fence.  I'm hoping railings count as a fence.  This is at Nymphenburg Palace.

From this Palace we went back to the City Centre and visited the Residenz which had this, the Cuvillies Theatre.
#2: Theatre for the performing arts


And so to Tuesday.
We took the train to Augsburg where amongst other things we saw a Cathedral, the house where Mozart's father was born and lots of beautiful buildings.  And there were lots more towers!
#1: An Open Air Market

#14: A stained glass object.  A window in the cathedral.

#17: Candle(s).  This candelabra in the cathedral with a beautiful quilt on the wall behind it.

When we got back to Munich we walked round some of the areas we hadn't done before and went to a Dali exhibition.   Then back to the hotel where I was able to snap

#6: Someone taking a nap.

Wednesday
The last day of our trip.  We started at the Deutsches Museum.
Bonus (or possibly substitute) item: A sundial
There was actually a sundial garden on the roof terrace of the museum!

The museum was amazing.  Absolutely full of technology and I thought I would have to use this rather elegant wind turbine for #16.

However, all was not lost.  Downstairs in the basement in the children's play area was
#16: A windmill.  Who would have thought!

And of course the museum had to have a tower.

And from the roof I was able to take a photo of lots more towers!

In the afternoon we walked through the Englischer Garten and saw these:
#12 A cloud in the shape of something.

I thought this one looked a bit like Popeye but I think the shape had changed by the time I took the photo.  It could be a dragon.

As could this with a bit of imagination .  Or maybe the head of a bird!

And lastly for our trip
#4: Airplane.  It was dark by the time I got airside at the airport so I hope you can make out the aeroplane in this photo.

But to make sure, here's the inside just before we took off.

I'm really pleased with my haul of photos for Rinda's challenge.  Just a few more to collect before September 21st.  Perhaps I'll put the list of what I need into my phone!

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice