Impossible to choose any other colour today as the Netherlands is awash in a sea of orange. But it is very current as well, since this year’s pantone colour of the year is also a strong shade of orange.
Orange and green necklace by FishesMakeWishes
Sailing Fox Watercolour by Ucuspucus
Orange Summer Bag by Sudrishta
Orange ceramic and hemp necklace by Dekkoline
If you’d like to see a few more of these Moodboards you can do so over at this blog.
Still not back to a proper blogging routine but getting the week off to a good start with a Monday Moodboard. After a week of sunshine and sea I want to hang to that mood for a little longer.
Sunshine Felt Flowers by FlowersbyKara
Seashell Print by Alganet
Sunshine Yellow Resin and Silver Ring by QuercusSilver
Woolen bangles by MysticFibers
You can see more Monday Moodboards over here.
As usual, its looking like another busy week , here at Starrybluesky headquarters. And as always, when there is travel coming up, all kinds of tasks present themselves as “essential”.
Some tasks are firmly in the calendar – and one is the Edinburgh LoFi Group exhibition opening on Thursday the 1st at Urban Outfitters, Princes Street. The image above is part of the postcard invitation. If you are in Edinburgh that day, please do come along between 6 and 8 pm. There will be refreshements and music. And a little stall selling some prints and postcards from LoFi Group members.
Apart from that,I am tempted however, to set a lot of other things aside so that I can just keep painting. The painting e- course with Flora is now heading into its fourth week. I have canvases set up both here and in Holland so I can keep up with it where ever I am. I love the early “free for all” stage , where it doesn’t terribly matter what kind of marks you make. Its more tricky once you get a few layers down and you have to start trying to wrangle the image into “something”. But I am trying to detach from any ideas about outcome and just paint paint paint.
( By the way, if you are curious about her approach to painting ,her book will be published sometime in May.)
And just a quick reminder too, that the Early Bird discount for Stephanie Levy’s Creative Courage course is valid until today ( 26th ) . And if you do decide to join in , be sure and let me know so that I can enter you in my giveaway too.
And yes, I do like e-courses. Actually , I just like courses and workshops – e or otherwise. Keeping on learning is just the best thing. I am getting to the stage though, where I think it would also be good to pass on some of that knowledge and I’m developing an e- course of my own. If you’d like to be kept in the loop then make sure you are a subscriber to my newsletter.
“Art is not something that we do outside of life. It IS our life, and has the power to engulf every activity. The more the spirit of art infuses you, the more you find the wonder of possibilities and opportunities for continual play in life. What you do becomes less important than your attitude. The more we look at life as the pursuit of excellence, the more it becomes play and the more that play becomes an extension of our art.”
Brooks Jensen “Letting Go of the Camera”
Door in Florence – Polaroid Painting – available in my Etsy shop.
I gave a few little hints a couple of weeks ago about where I went for a little birthday break, and with one thing and another hadn’t got round to posting about it – so my Travel Tuesday slot seemed as good a time as any.
Hidden away in a meadow that you would never know was there if you hadn’t been let in on the secret, are four of these “roulotte” caravans. Made by either French or Dutch craftsmen and then kitted out with colourful interiors they are the perfect little getaway. Fortunately for me, the only one available for the dates I wanted was decorated in my favourite blues, purples and greens. Compact, but kitted out with everything you could possibly need – cooker, fridge, wood burning stove, little bathroom and shower. The front section was the “salon” and a bed was fitted into the rear with huge storage underneath. After all, in such a beautiful little space you don’t want to have all your stuff lying around.
The sounds were those of the sheep in the next field or the occasional quacking of the two resident geese. Our roulotte also had a few extra lodgers, with a swallows nest above the door , containing four hungry little birds. The parents swooped in to feed seemingly unperturbed by the humans round about. In the evening all the swallows performed stunning displays over the little pond in the centre of the meadow.
I was very very lucky with the weather. After the summer we have had , I didn’t expect to be eating my breakfast in the sunshine on my birthday. But the sun shone all day long, making the break even more perfect.
I’m not that familiar with this part of Scotland, the tourist buses largely whizz by , after the briefest of stops at Jedburgh – only long enough to see the abbey or have a coffee , but not both. And I do think the area deserves to get a bit more attention. The landscape is quite gentle rolling hills, but every so often you are surprised , on arriving in a little village, to find quite a big village green and a cluster of cafes or antique shops. And a lot of beautiful walks, for example along the banks of the river Tweed, or through the Eildon Hills on part of St Cuthbert’s Way.
The contact details for this magical place is Roulotte Retreats. I have put the other images from the roulotte on a Flickr set.
Paris Fruit and Veg
Although any work on my 12 City Project is having to be squeezed into little spare moments just now, I thought I’d help keep myself on track by posting Travel Tuesday images from each of the cities in turn. This time it is back to Paris. I’m feeling a bit of a pull towards Paris so maybe a trip there is in order. These photos are not polaroids but I can’t help stick but to the square format even when I shoot with other cameras .They are just little “glimpses” that I took in between the Polaroid shooting that was the main focus of my trip. It was so wintery while I was there that a trip in the warmer half of the year is very appealing. (Though to be fair, I ‘ve made it look a little more wintery than it was,with this faded colour processing.)
Jardins de Luxembourg 1
Jardins de Luxembourg 2
Paris Window
Behind the scenes, more cushion production going on. And designing other fabrics so that I can put in my next order. My studio newsletter is out next week – that’s the way to find out when new products launch, what else I’m up to and any special subscriber bonuses.
Museum Fish
Someday Soon by Michele Maule
I decided for today’s Etsy favourite to go back to my early days on Etsy and see which shops had caught my attention at that time. I’m pleased to say that a lot of them are still going strong and still favourites. One of these shops is Michele Maule. She has a bit of a fondness for old typewriters, cameras and red shoes and works in mixed media. I love the mood of her work – you can’t help but feel cheered up by it.
Hope It's Ok - by Michele Maule
Michele lives and works in Portland , Oregon and you can find her Etsy shop here.
This week’s Etsy Favourite is Geninne D Zlatkis-an artist based in Mexico. I’ve been saving these prints for a while until I had the perfect spot for them.
She has a very delicate and unique style with a special fondness for painting birds and lives in an amazing house that her husband designed.
She has her finger in a lot of pies, working on a fabric collaboration and writing a book on hand carved stamps amongst others as well as being featured in the book Water Paper Paint
Find out more about her life and her work by visiting her site here and her Etsy shop.
