Some beaded jewelry

This was a custom made order. I just love those lovely golden and green collors.

My mother gave me this nice shell-mosaic pendant, and I thought the blue colors were just amazing.

Custom order jewelry

Hi!
Today I am making some custom order  necklaces. I always love to do some beading! I will post some pics later today.
I would like to share the audiobook I am listening to while working:

Daughter of the sun by Barbara Wood

I find it really good!

In "Daughter of the Sun"  international best-selling author Barbara Wood turns her attention to a 900-year-old mystery.  Why did the Anasazi Indians of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico abruptly abandon a vast & flourishing  city filled with monumental architecture and ceremonial buildings?   

17-year-old Hoshi'tiwa, a gifted pottery maker, plans to marry a storyteller's apprentice.  Her plans are turned upside down when she is snatched by the fierce Toltec army and taken from her primitive village to "Center Place", an outpost of the Toltec empire.  Hoshi'tiwa  is assigned to the Potter's Guild where she distinguishes herself through her exotic and unusual pottery.  This leads to an elevated position and eventual entry into the court of the powerful and violent Toltec leader. Embroiled in a web of deceit, love, envy, murder and betrayal,  Hoshi'tiwa unwittingly becomes the catalyst for the eventual downfall of Center Place and what historians now call "The Abandonment."

Words of Wisdom from Julia Cameron

Creativity is not something you possess, but someting that expresses through you. You might call that something “inspiration.” The point is, you need to step aside and allow this force to enter.

Puccini claimed the ideas for Madame Butterfly were dictated to him by God. I myself have often sensed “higher forces” of inspiration. I sometimes think of ideas as coming from art itself. I went through a period for several years when I conceptualized this as “angels” of music, of painting, of theater, etc. In this sense, music itself wants some music written and we are merely the conduit.

It certainly sucks the ego out of things, doesn’t it?

Making some progress with my little cat

I changed my mind. (I do that all the time - very irritating!!) Remember yesterday? I had made this: 

BUT: I changed my mind. Is that indecisioness what they call a "creative process", or is it just me? Ever so often my projects die, because I keep taking them into new directions. You see, I found an old sketch last night, and suddenly I understodd what that black wooden lid was meant to become. I will tell you more about that this weekend. 

So, I had to figure out what to do with my paperclay cat. I am maing this one for a special occasion. I can´t say anymore :-)

Well, I found a nice wooden door sign, and made a shelf for the cat to sit on. (Polystyrene foam, two wooden sticks drilled through and fixed with white glue and paper clay on top.) I think I will paint it grey with stone pattern. Like this: 

The cat is just plain white right now, but after I ´ m done with it, it will be very colorful. I think the cat belongs to a witch. It will of course be named Felix. All my cats are called Felix. There must be something wrong with my imagenation... It is just that whenever I make a cat, or paint one, I think Felix is a very appropriate name... 

And it will have a fun witchy hat! Like this one:

Illutstration from the book: "How to cook children  a grisly recipe book" by  Martin Howard  & Colin Stimpson. 

 I totally love this provocative childrens book ;-) It has all sorts of wonderful innlustrations of witches ;-)

What I have been up to tonight

Paperclay and a wooden lid from a box

New painting " Nature´s Fall"

This acryliv painting looks like "popart". It was so much fun to make! It measures 18 x 24 cm (7" x 9,5"). 

I painted a nice Normann fir, and wrote a autumn lyrical musing. There are also some dried flowers and Swarovski crystals. 

Price: $80 + shipping. It can also be purchased here http://www.amioamio.com/da/produkt/91195/

A very nice gift from my husbands family

I got married a couple of months ago, and my husbands family gave us this fun gift that I want to share with you. They took us to my favorite potter, and they all decorated a mug! They are all different, with flowers, stars, names and drawings. This was a very nice gift, and I will drink coffee and the with a smile from them.

There were only one thing missing: I would have love the fact that my oldest daughter and my mother also had made one each. We talked to the potter Marianne Strube  if it could be possable to make one more, but unfortunately it wasn´t. The process of making the mug, letting it dry and let Michelle come and decorate it when it was ready was to complicated and expensive. That made me sad. 

I will find a way though to have a mug from both my daughter and my mother, and use them along the others. 

The transformation of a doll

Good evening!

Tonight I would like to share with you, how one of my dolls started out, and how it ended years after as a totally different doll. It is the doll on the top banner I am talking about :-)
I had an idea from the start, to make an old witch, kneeling on the ground, reaching her hands out to worship the earth. I never got satisfied though. I changed her several times, even repainted her a couple of times too.

Words of wisdom from Julia Cameron

"Art is an image-using system. In order to create, we draw from our inner well. This inner well, an artistic reservoir, is ideally like a well-stocked trout pond. We’ve got big fish, little fish, fat fish, skinny fish– an abundance of artistic fish to fry. As artists, we must realize that we have to maintain this artistic ecosystem.

If we don’t give some attention to upkeep, our well is apt to become depleted, stagnant, or blocked. Any extended period of piece of work draws heavily on our artistic well.

As artists we must learn to be self-nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them– to restock the trout pond, so to speak. I call this process filling the well"

We´re having fun at the market

Every Saturday I go to the local market, where I try to sell some of my paintings, our dichroic glass pendants and other selfmade jewelry. I just love it! I totally love the good energy and all the happy people that I meet. I make a little money too! Not much, but a little to make the trip worthwhile. Today I got so many ideas on how to make new jewelry and bags, that I just couldn´t wait to get home to my studio. There are other artists there too, and some of them make really beautiful art. I get sooo inspired when I see their works. 

There was this lady that I just have to share with you. Her name is Jeanette Helles, and she uses metal scrap and junk to make beautiful figurines. Check out here website: www.skrotkunst.dk. My favorites were these two:

I can´t make stuff like that. I just can´t. I am too focused on details, so I admire those who can. 

Well, I´m off to some painting. 

Many hours in front of my pc...

Good evening to you all out there!

Today I have been busy giving the blog a face-lift! I hope you like it!
I am trying to make some virtual galleries, but unfortunately Blogger doesn´t have a really good solution to that problem. I used to have a Flickr gadget to photostream my pictures, but it stopped working. I made some new pages under the banner though... Check them out.

Also, I made som bargains at a fleemarked today:

The four wooden candlesticks are handmade and beautiful. They only cost 5 danish kroners each ($0.7) The stick to the right is a cupholder, but after painting them black, I will make them all into new witches like this: 

I still dream of more of those antique couch legs... I had a very old and antique sofa and armchair in my studio. One day it had to go, because I needed more room, and when my husband and I was carrying it up from the basement where I have my studio, I looked that those legs, and my world totally stopped! I realized they where great for dolls, so we took them off before taking the sofa to the junkyard. I never found legs like that again... 

Another bargain I made, was a chair! I love my proffessional drawing table, but it is too high for an ordinary office chair, so I was looking everywhere for an extra high chair, and suddenly, there it was! Very cheap also! Some days are just the best.

Tomorrow I will start working on those candlesticks! 

Whar are your plans for tomorrow?

Thought provocating titles

I was at the library today, and suddenly it happened! I saw a book called 'please stay with me when I am angry' and suddenly my head exploded with visions of paintings, dolls and different moods to create. I talked about it yesterday. How I get very inspired when I hear a beautiful sentence, a poem, music, text lyrics and so on. Ist it amazing that a trip to the library can produce so much inspiration, without opening a single book??

Working on a new painting

I am using a working-title on this painting. Actually, I almost allways use that. I very often get inspired by a sentence, a saying, or perhaps just a thought provocative name or something.
This one is: "Home is where the music is".
Maybe it will be the final title, maybe not.  I will add some notes hanging from the tree in the background or the moon, and also a landsign saying "Home" or something like that. The painting refers to the need of finding home somewhere somewhat solitude. To me, music is the language of the heart, so I very often use symbols from the musical sphere to explain the longing for heart/home/love.
The painting is acrylic, deep end canvas, 24 cm x 30 cm ( 9,5" x 12")

Words of Wisdom from Julia Cameron

"My heart holds integrity. I love integrity. I am authentic in my responses to people and events. I respond with dignity and courage from a core belief that I am worthy. My values are worthwhile. My principles are shaped by my inner knowing, not by my external circumstances. I bring to the changing flow of life events an inner steadiness, an inner compass. I am whole and unified in body, mind, and spirit. My integrity is natural"

- Julia Cameron

Honoring the August full moon!

I made this painting today. I like those gothic moons, anf those Swarovski crystals :-) I named it: "Songs from Anneland: I told you a secret tonight" 

It is painted on a wood panel. 

It has been such a wonderful summer so far!

My commission sign painted by the very talented Carolee Clark!

This summer has been great! It is quite funny to say so, because my life isn´t great at all right now. My mother is very terminal sick with cancer, and I am on a leave from my job to take care of her. Still, so many wonderfull things have happened this summer, and it makes me think, that we must remember and cherish the happy moments we have, when we have them. 

Here´s a list of wonderful things I have experienced this summer so far:

• I got married to my life-mate and partner in crime! I like being married! After ten years of engagement, we finally did it. He is such a wonderful man, and now my husband, and it just feel´s good and right. 

• I got to see Loreena MacKennitt in concert in Berlin too! That was one of my biggest wishes, and the experience was totally magical! I can´t show you a picture of the concert, because it is not allowed to take pictures during the show, but I can show you a little video I shot during the sound checks: 

• I got to take my youngest daughter Selina on a trip to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. We had 5 days of hanging out, eating out, shopping and visiting art exebitions and museums. She is leaving for bording school in a a couple of weeks, so this was a trip to make up for all the time we will miss in the year to come. 

• I participated on a 3-weekend long puppetry workshop at the wonderful danish puppet theatre "Teater Refleksion" and was taught to make a wooden puppet. Another of my biggest wishes. 

Not quite finished yet, but you get the picture. 

• I have been a bif fan of Carolee Clark´s artwork for some time. I just love her wonderful Halloween style with witches and lovely calligraphy. Normally I couldn´t afford any of her works, especially because of  the expensive international shipping, but some time ago, I got a little extra money, and I asked her if she would show me the kindness and paint me a commission sign. Fortunatly, she accepted! We agreed on the tavern style sign, and I told her what I wanted to be painted on it: myself and my husband as a witch and a wizard, and my two daughters. I also wanted my two naughty rascal cats Arthur and Merlin in the front. The sign turned out marvelous! She even made the cats look right!! I am so thrilled! The sign is on it´s way, and I cannot wait to see it hanging there in my hall! 

• I got to be a member of the the "Bards, Ovats and Druids! Every month they send me study material, and I am very excited about it! It is something I have been wanting to explore for a very long time. 

Could you blame me for being so happy? 

Did you ever experience wonders, at the most difficult times in your life?