Yesterday ...

I sold two pictures. The byer viewed all my art, asked about the prices etc. pp. She loved the Merman in the green robe really much, because it´s such a handsome man ... ;-) Maybe one day she´ll buy that one, too.
Then she said: Well, I´ll take that and that. She pointed at a bigger one and ... at my Hieronymus. You can see a part of him on my about-me-picture. I never, ever wanted to sell that one, but yesterday I decided to let it hang and not to take it into my bedroom, where no potential buyer could see it. Maybe it was time for him to go. I´m really sad, but sold it for a really good price, of course (that was no hindrance for the buyer).
Now I have a nice amount of money and my beloved Hieronymus only as postcards and a print *sniff*

I could use some more of these kind of buyers. They know, what they want and are willing to expend the money without asking: Do I get a discount when I buy two pictures?

*takes a last long look at Hieronymus*

next picture

Ich-Universum
oil and egg tempera on stretched canvas (linen)
54 x 35 cm

Some kind of self-centered universe. Almost everyone lives in a comfort zone, where it is cosy, everything well known etc. It´s difficult to leave this zone, because no one knows what to expect. This is like a foreign country with a language you don´t speak. But like someone in this zone sees the things in his own way, so do other people in their self-centered universes as well. It´s an easy way to put other people in some kind of drawers, because "you know everything about him or her, you know what they fancy, what they´re doing, what they´re dreaming". But other people see you the same way. Bad, huh?
So this zone is like a little kingdom with a curtain to shut out the world, but in reality it´s nothing more than a cardbox, that looks a little bit like a puppet theatre.

between two vernissages

Wasserreich
oil and egg tempera on stretched canvas (linen)
115 x 90 cm

One vernissage is over, the next one is tomorrow. In between I found some time to end a picture, that I ended one and a half year ago. It was important for me to change some things in it, especially the king. He´s one of the mermans that came into my life last year, even I haven´t seen it the first time ;-)
The original robe was white and very boring, so even the king looked pale and impatient. Now it´s rich with little fish tails (can I say a fish has a tail?) instead of ermine. The crown is much bigger, too, and even he looks still impatient (that´s characteristic of mermans) he looks much more better.
The title I can´t translate. I don´t know an exact word for it. Wasserreich has two meanings. On one side you think of an empire under water, on the other side it can mean an area that´s not arid. I haven´t found a word for that.

working in another genre

Last year in China I´ve worked in the studios of the painters with chinese ink. That was something new for me. First I was a little bit ... clumsy, but in the end it was a lot of fun to paint with it. Unfortunately the pictures are in China in the studios.
One of the paintes gave me 5 kg of finest 10 years old rice paper from Hongkong. It´s strong and has a really good structure, a little bit rough and you can even paint aggressiv without destroying it ;-)
Today I´ve decided to try it again. I´ve only had black ink, so I´ve took my old watercolors (I normally hate watercolors) to give it more life (I´ve painted with red, of course, love that color). It was a lot of fun again, even I did miss the beautiful ink colors ...
To take a photo was a pain in the a..

O.T. (without title)
chinese ink and watercolors on chinese rice paper
ca. 70 x 135 cm

Melodie

Melodie E. J.
egg tempera and oil on canvas (linen)
70 x 45 cm

That´s another good friend. She´s an artist, too, and originally she´s born in the USA, her mother is from the UK and she´s grown up in the Caribbean (the Dutch part). Now she lives not far from me, but unfortunately she decided to go to the UK. But hey, so I have a place to stay.


And today I´ve received a small parcel. Hmmmm, I´ll not open it before one minute after midnight. It´s not easy. It looks so interesting. Thanks Drachenfrau! *hugs*

these and that

Today I´ve varnished some of my pictures. It´s about time, they´re dry now and I want some protection. And because I was to lazy to do that the last weeks, I have to varnish 11 more. Mph. I´ll do that the next days.

And at the moment there´s a little exhibition of our club. Now my picture "Submerged" is insured with 4000,00 €! My, my. A good friend of mine, A., had that idea, because her father was a well known artist in East Germany. And he told his daughter this amount insured for the exhibition, he said, if something happens he has good money. And because A. loves my pictures and means, they´re similar to her father´s, she decided to specify that amount insured for my picture, too.
She told me that last week. She had a little trouble about it with the director of that institution, but she says that´s normal if you want to show professional art.
OK, I don´t know what to say about it. It´s really nice, of course, that she values my art that high. If it would show the next time on my bank account ... ;-)
I guess that director now looks with horror to my exhibition in september. More than one picture ... *coughs* So they´ll look properly after the pictures. *shrugs*

new picture

Andra Barz
oil, egg tempera, acrylic on stretched canvas (linen)
105 x 120 cm


Now the picture is ready and I didn´t show other progress pictures. I did it on my german blog, but I have to admit, I was quite to lazy to do that here, too.

It´s a portrait of a good friend. She´s a singer, mainly Jazz, but sometimes she sings to my pictures ;-) Her feelings about it or what she thinks, when she looks at it. That´s really exciting.

I´ve decided to paint her in art deco style. I like that time and it suits her, too. It´s noble and faded, lascivious and cool, livelily and dead. You never know, what´s the facade and what´s real.