Work in Progress – In Arbeit

My latest picture is having an initial material choice problem.. I should have known, that the strong motif is asking for strong colors and shine of oil or acrylic paint.. and that the soft hidden watercolors are not enough to tell the story... . I found the Inspiration for the picture in the museum of civilization in Gatineau, while walking into a room where the floor beam was made as a wooden totem pole... I liked it very much and thought about this motif, situated in a modern home, with black furniture... to put the pole as a real foreign piece into it... Which wasn't such a bad idea, but when I found out about the color problem and tried to intensify the colors, the painting crossed the border... now it is too colorful (even the totem pole got too many different colors), the shadows must come from two different lights in the room to make any sense and the picture lost the typical light qualities of a watercolor painting... But yes, I guess the theme wont leave me that soon and next time I will be better... (I hope...) .

Mein neuestes, fertiggestelltes Bild hatte von Anfang an ein Material-Wahlproblem. Ich hätte es wissen müssen, dass das starke Motiv nach starken Farben und dem Glanz von Öl oder Acryl fragt...und das die sanften verlaufenden Wasserfarben nicht ausreichen, um diese Geschichte zu erzählen .. Ich fand die Idee für das Bild im Museum für Zivilisation in Gatineau, während ich durch einen Raum ging, in dem ein Pfosten und Balken zu einem hölzernen Totem-Pfahl umgestaltet wurden. Ich mochte das Zimmer sehr und dachte dann über diese Szene nach: in einem modernen Haus, mit schwarzen Möbeln, würde der Totempfahl wie ein echter Fremdkörper daherkommen... Nun, das war eigentlich keine so schlechte Idee, doch als ich des Farbproblems erkannte und versuchte die Farben kräftiger zu malen, kippte das Bild. Jetzt ist es zu farbig (sogar der Totempfahl bekam zuviele unterschiedliche Farben), die Schatten müssen von mehr als einer Lichtquelle im Raum kommen um sinnvoll zu sein und das Bild hat die typischen leichten Qualitäten eines Aquarells komplett verloren.. Aber ja, ich denke, dass mich das Thema so schnell nicht langweilen wird und so werde ich darauf zurückkommen und beim nächsten Mal werde ich es besser hinbekommen... (hoffentlich...).

Pick of the week – New: Posts also in German: Wochenauswahl

This week I bought something old and something new without much thinking about, that it actually had similar colors... but when I came home and saw, that shoes and purse were matching to each other, I was quite excited and really happy.. so come and see my very new sandals with a coin-detail and the beige, old fashioned Esprit-Bag from Value Village in a miniature version of the real granny purse-style...I m still loving it.. and my cat Shweta loved the arrangement, which I made for this picture... hmm, yummy old wood from the river... :-)

Diese Woche habe ich etwas Altes und etwas Neues gekauft, ohne sehr viel darüber nachzudenken, dass diese Dinge, die gleiche Farbe hatten.. .. aber wenn ich nach Hause kam und sah, dass Schuhe und Handtasche gut zueinander passten, war ich sehr glücklich...so kommt und werft einen Blick auf meine neuen Flip-Flops mit Münz-Detail und der beigen, herrlich altmodischen Esprit Handtasche vom Value Village, die aussieht wie die Miniaturversion einer Großmutterhandtasche. Ich liebe es und meine Katze Shweta liebte mein Fotoarrangement mit leckerem, weichen Fundholz vom Fluss... :-)

This week I love...

.... fancy USB-flash drives. Who says that technical items always have to be practical and unemotional. I just love the items you can create with the USB-drives, from artificial food like Sushi or fruits to jewelery, robots and many more. Its not necessary, less useful and lots of fun ... :-)

At the End of July...

... you start to realize that the light and long summer days are getting shorter again and that it is earlier dark in the evenings. Its the time to lit the first candles and although there is still one month of real summer left, first thoughts are wandering to all the colder months of the year, when its snowing every day in the Canadian capital. So, just fight the dark winter thoughts and read a book..


... one which I can strongly recommend is 'Daughter of Fortune' from Isabel Allende, about a brave girl, who is traveling from Chile to California during the time of the gold rush in the 1840s. ... :-)

*Blush*

Most of the time our couch in the living room is white.. but sometimes when the practical Ikea-slipcovers are getting washed... our second cover (which is not matching to the rest of the orange-off white-blue room) has its grand entrance for a couple of days... and makes our couch the shining red center of the room... (which is of course not very practical, when you have white cats - with white cat hairs... =)

Work in Progress

Once it was a T-Shirt of my husband, but thats already so long ago, that I was not even able to find any picture of him, wearing it. Then it was laying around for some time just in a closet and finally I recycled it for my purpose.
First, the T-Shirt got cut into many different pieces and out of these pieces I was able to sew a small bag for me.



This bag is having the perfect size, when I m walking outside with my cats every morning, because I just need my keys, the camera and a handful of peanuts to feed the squirrels.

Raw Sugar Café

Recently a friend introduced me to the Raw Sugar Café in Ottawas Chinatown and immediately I fell in love with the interior decoration.
No chair seemed to have a matching partner, all colors, styles and materials were happily mismatched. Even every table had a different design. The whole café had so many nice and interesting details, that I just want to show a few: ...




...to pull all these pieces together, the café owners used a very dark wood flooring and one main wall color, with only a few accent colors on smaller part of the walls.
But, in a Café it is of course not just about the design, I can also recommend the nice cakes and tea, as well... (try the Lemon Tarte ... :-)

This week I love...

...the two nicely yellow chairs from the etsy-store of Hazel & Hunter.
They are old traditional chair models and still the colors and the print of the fabrics makes them look quite modern and able to adjust to a modern environment as well as to a traditional one...

... and the wonderful royal, blue chair from Coastal Living Chic which shop happens to be on etsy, too....

Pick of the week

Today, I want to present three of my latest bought/found items:

They are all coming from the Value Village in Ottawa, where I have been on one weekend for long hours and with all the colors and motifs they seem to celebrate and show the summer with flowers, colors and holiday dreams...


The first item is an already often washed and therefore nicely soft vintage fabric with an old fashioned flower print. I liked the delicate flowers and colors, which are not that shining any longer because of the previous washings.



The blue dress made it very fast from a found to a favorite piece.
The material looks like as if you could also make aprons out of it, but the cloth is just perfect for hot summer days. So, all small flowers come to me... :-)



The last item is a colorful candle holder, handmade from Mexico.
Normally I don't like to buy other peoples souvenirs in the thrift stores (I prefer buying it, when I'm in the country by myself) but I wasn't able to resist the hand painted flowers, the shining bright colors and the interesting form of this 2 $ item... and so it found its new place in the book shelf and hopefully my cats are not deciding that it is their latest toy... .

Splash of Color

Recently, I found these three pictures for a nice table setting in a book from 1967 and liked them immediately...
They are looking so bright and colorful in their shining blue, orange and red and seem to fit perfectly for a summer garden party... So don't be afraid, to overload your table with patterns... just have a look in the garden, it is right now overloading with flowers, as well.... :)

Work in Progress

I was working on and struggling with this picture for a longer time (thats why it is still with snow)... and also had a break in between, where I finished something else... But, now it is ready and it is my first real Canadian picture...
I m still not that happy with it... for example the house looks a bit like falling to one side, but finally I decided that it is enough and that everything which I'm trying to make better, trying to add more and more color f.e., could actually also make it worse. ... and so I stopped and here it is.. :-) Lets see how my next Canadian motif will be and maybe I will become better in time.

Recent Finds from the Thrift Stores

In the last couple of weeks, I made a few pictures of new old furniture, old fabrics and other finds in the second hand stores of Ottawa.. and I want to share some of the pictures with you.. when I only would have a little bit more place in the house, I guess some of these pieces already would have found a new home with me... :-)