Book of circles

I have always been fascinated by circles. It‘s the primordial shape with which all starts. When children are drawing a circle, they soon start to draw everything: the sun, the moon, people, animals, flowers….

Circles are soothing, they are protecting. Sitting in a circle is the most simple and powerful way to celebrate being a part of it all; to root into the earth and to connect with heaven.

Just recently I had the idea of starting a whole journal only with collage art circles. All more or less the same size.

So here are some pages from my „Book of circles“.

Cutting out circles has another side effect: it gaves you a good detail look for patterns, colours and small things in greater pictures. This is quite important, when you are a collage/journal artist.

Sunday's sofa 1.2.2015

 The book "Ansichten von Frauen" (Views of women) is nearly 40 years old, I am still intrigued by some photos (and statements), this is one. Her statement is "I hope I will manage every situation in life".

There also is this book about Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, which I was browsing through. I love the way he was photogaphing her, especially her hands.

And there are pages from magazines, some for paper swap and some to keep. My Flickrfriend Lene has sent me 31 kilos (!!!) of (old) magazines and postcards and stuff. Like Xmas for me!

Now I have lovely material for new collages.

I am also playing with paper again. Here with little quote bags.

Last day of February

Oh spring come nearer! This is the last day of February.
Like always I am shifting between kitchen and desk with creativity as my companion.

Cooking is always having a photo eye on the beauty of the ingredients.

Try this one: Black bean paste


150g schwarze Bohnen/ black beans
1 grosse Zwiebel/ big onion
1-2 Zehen Knofi/ cloves of garlic
Salz/salt
Pfeffer/pepper
Etwas Chili & sonstige Lieblingsgewuerze/chili and other fav herbs and spices
1 EL Ahornsirup/ 1 tbsp maple syrup
1 EL Tomatenmark/ 1 tbsp tomato purée
1 EL Olivenoel/ 1 tbsp olive oil

Soak the beans over night. Cook them with the double amount of water (=300ml). Peel and chop the onion and garlics and fry them in a pan, add the spices. Add the maple syrup and the tomato purée and let it cool down a bit.
Mix the beans and the onions and garlic in a food processor, add the oil and blend it all together.
Fill in a jar and keep it cool.
Makes a lovely bread spread and adds something special to sauces and soups.

Talking of beans and lentils. Don’t you love storing them in old jars of glass?
But what about the “best before…” dates on the package. The lovely numbers rubber stamps I have, gave me this idea:




Some new journal pages, yes, I am at it again.





Btw: if you think, eating is a problem and you should be on a diet, watch this to understand what’s it all about.
This makes me sad and angry and although our commercials are not all that obvious, we share the same problems too!

Invisible letters to Max 1/12

This is my new art project. It all started with my friend Max, who is something like my male muse, he told me, if he could afford it, he would buy one of my collage books every month.
So I invented this as an art project. He will get the mini books, one every month and I will send him hunting for new material all over Cologne (unfortunately he does not live in Cornwall).
So what you see here is the first of twelve, there will be one "invisible letter" every month.



















Thank you Max for inspiring me!

Three Postcards

I started to make some postcards.







On the backside is some lettering, I am using it all the time. It's soothing to do that.

Work and work material

It 's the first time I am making a mini collage book ordered by a friend for another friend.

It will be a gift for a very strong and special woman. It's a lot of work, but it's great fun.
I will give my very best. Will finish it tomorrow and show it, as soon as the gift has arrived.

When you are doing collages, you can find this:

hidden poetry in a book. This is by Barbara Starrett (it's half German, half English).
I love such finds.

And new material was coming today.
A ledger from 1929.

Great stuff! very helpful for making collages.
This is a book from 1882 about the spanish language.

Look at these pages! What a beauty!

Love this date stamp too, the nice words "Rec'd" and "Ans'd"...

Note books and mini books

Little notebooks made from a magazine about work space interior. You just need Gesso and watercolors to do that.







And more collages...