Happy birthday house :-)

This year, my house is getting 140 years old. I don´t know the exact month, of course. To much time passed by, but it´s something to know the year. A lot of records got lost at WW II, but here and there things were found. So I know it´s the house of the architect and that´s the reason it´s the largest house here (and the most beautiful I have to admit). After the whole village burned down in 1871, it was build anew only a year later. The speciality was the colourfulness of every house. It was public in this area. I found some pigments, but I didn´t know if it was original, but it´s similar to it´s new paint. It looks totally changed now. Of some kind I miss the shabby look, on the other side it was important to rescue the substance. It´s not getting better. And after some years it will look kind of normal, not that ... uh new. :-)

Trilogy

Heartcore I-III
egg tempera & oil on stretched canvas (linen)
each 18 x 12 cm
2011

Yesterday I finished the third picture of a little trilogy. Hearts in different variations and states. The first one I wanted to show sunk into the earth, but I heard some music (as always) and at the very moment I painted the "earth" I heard a song about the sea. Well, I was lost in thoughts and painted water. Whatever. I think it suits it.
The next heart is in a preserving jar. My friend Zia told me about it as she´d read this stuff in a fairytale. I was intrigued and made a little sketch to remember it. Thanks Zia for this nice idea :-)
The third heart is from one of my older pictures, and I thought it would be nice to use it on it´s own ... not in a whole content, only the heart itself. The poor one is constricted, but I think, it´ll live. All of them ;-)

Night hike and twilight

Nachtwanderung ( night hike)
egg tempera & oil on stretched canvas (linen)
100 x 80 cm
2011

Wow,that picture really took it´s time. I wanted to finish it in August, but time flies and has it´s own rules, so September ends in some days and it took 2 months to paint this work of art.
As always I painted some of my dreams plus sections from fairytales and other ideas to create this one. In this picture you can read the words Colonialwaaren, Kaffee & Tee, Roentgen. It´s not that visible on the photo. I´ve seen it once at an old house, kind of bizarre, hm? It means general store, coffee & tea, x-ray.

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Zwielicht
Öl auf Leinen
18 x 16 cm
2011

That one I painted in July but. It shows a Pantodon buchholzi. Schmetterlingsfisch in German. Butterfly-fish? ... Whatever, because of the name it´s a hermaphrodite between butterfly and fish.

Happy birthday Loki!

Today my Sheltie Loki is 1 year old. How time flies! He´s beautiful, isn´t he? :-)

Nightly visitations and the lady in a red dress

Der Waldspaziergang
The Forest Walk
oil on stretched canvas
100 x 60 cm
2011

The idea for this picture came out of nothing. One minute I walked with my dog, the other I had it before my inner eye. An absurd situation, because the red dress (inspired by Hieronymus Bosch) is impractical for such a venture. And the lady had to wear this beak mask I have a soft spot for. The title came with this idea and normally I don´t know a title in the beginning. Sometimes I know it during my work, sometimes I have to think about it very hard. I never knew it at such an early stage. The lilly is a lilium regale and even this detail was important with its florid scent. The background is only black (two kinds of black) and white, even it looks a little bluish.
After this swift idea I had to prime my stretched canvas, so no working on my picture the same day. That was torture! I went to sleep late at night, but I couldn´t sleep. All the time same picture danced before my inner eye, told me the title so I don´t forget it. I did roll my eyes because after this attack I would never forget what I want to paint and how to name it.
Late the next evening I could sketch the figure on the canvas, but that wasn´t enough. I couldn´t sleep again and when I slept I dreamt of painting this picture. I had the feeling my mind had a life of one´s own and I couldn´t do anything about it. I don´t even know why I was so besotted of this picture.
Boy was I grateful to make the first stroke of the brush. The nightly visitation ended at this time and after painting like a maniac its finished now. I like it, really, and I have to grin every time I look at it.

open studio

Last weekend I opened my studio for visitors. The sun was shining, it was warm, so a lot of people decided to visit me to look at my pictures and the art of Jan (the other artist), enjoy the garden and eat some cake. It was beautiful.


my little studio, here I work - in the attic I work, too, but here it is all creative energy


some art in the living room


one of the bedrooms


same bedroom from the other side


in the attic


here some pictures on the old smokehouse


another part of the attic


Jan´s bugs *ggg*


a quiet place for thinking


Jan´s bird houses


in the garden


for the hungry guests


that´s me


Jan and Andra - Andra was giving a little garden concert


some of the guests - it was hard for me to find a chair *ggg*


the concert - my mum is on the left

Place of oblivion

The place of oblivion
oil on stretched canvas (linen)
46 x 46 cm
2011

A place somewhere deep underwater, a water nymph sitting there with a dreamy look on her face. In front of her an eye-clock. A place no one knows about, because we´ve all forgotten about it. A place of myths and fairy tales that have no room in our world anymore – some people, of course, know this place, but their talk about it only in their dreams. It´s oblivious to people who don´t believe in the old things that were important centuries ago.
Is that clock working? I´m not sure of it, the pendulum seems stuck in the corner of the clock. It´s a place without time, without traces and it holds all the wisdom of the world. You only know about this place somewhere in the dark, if you believe in the magic of the world. Maybe the water nymph awakes and decides to talk to you – if she´ll like you. Try to find it, it´s worth the effort.