Fish

My sister Sabine has chosen the theme for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge, and it´s one that I also like. So many options!

Flamingo

 
When I read this week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge, I thought that I´d skip it as I´ve never made anything flamingo themed and pink isn´t my favourite colour. 

My second thought was "hm, what about Alice", but as my Alice stamps featuring a flamingo were much too small, I had to make a digital Alice + Flamingo card. For the card below, I´ve used images from Miles Beyond the Moon and Cheryl Budden. 

Then tonight, I´ve made a second flamingo card using rubber stamps from Dylusions and a few alphabet sets. Obviously the flamingo head and legs combined with a self-made collage body were a bit unbalanced, so I had found my words for this card, "Keep the Balance" - hope you´ll like its quirkyness.

By the Sea

 
For a swap organized by Lenna Andrews at Creative Swaps, I´ve made this set of ATC themed "By the Sea". 
I´ve used stamps from Klartext, Darkroom Door, Acey Deucy, Studio Light and Red Lead for these.

Where Do You Come From?

 
I´m hosting this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge, and I like to pick themes that give the participants lots of possibilities to interpret them and show their own definition of the theme. 

This week, I want to know where everyone comes from - sound easy, but is open for interpretation ...

When I think about myself, I could say that I come from Germany as I´ve never lived elsewhere. But does this define me? Is my country my home, or is it the city I live in? Or the place where I was born? Or my family? My home? Is there anything like a home for me? 

In my case, I was born in Cologne and lived there for 9 years, then moved to Bremen for the next ten years and then moved to Münster to study at the university, and I just stayed here. Even after 40 years of living here, I wouldn´t call it my home, whereas I still feel strong emotional connections to Cologne and Bremen. Feeling at home is a difficult thing.

I could have made cards about Cologne and Bremen and would even have had several stamps to illustrate them, but it would have felt like denying the fact that I´ve been in Münster for soooo long now and my whole life as an adult. 

So I asked myself what characterizes Münster for me. It´s not as big as Cologne or Bremen, it has only 320.000 inhabitants. So it somehow feels small and cozy. Most tourists like its center because it looks historical but really has been reconstructed after WWII because it had been destroyed almost completely. Only two of those picturesque houses at the famous Prinzipalmarkt are really old. We have much cobblestone here, more bicycles than inhabitatns, lots of one way streets, and there´s an old saying that in Münster it always rains or the bells of the many churches do ring. 
I´ve tried to illustrate some of these characteristics, combined with my feeling of this city as a young one that is shaped by its 65.000 students, and I´m very happy about this fact as we have more music, art, literature and other cultural life here than most other cities of this size. 

I hope that I´ve been able to capture a bit about this city, and now I´m curious about YOUR creations and the stories behind them. Please feel free to interpret the theme as you like!

Rainy Day

Rainy Day is this week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge. My card started as a collage of several papers torn from a magazine, then I added gesso and watercolours for the background and some stamps and watercolour pencils for the finished design.

Postage People Again!

 
Probably a lot of you remember my blog swaps featuring Postage People. Though these happened long ago, these creatures want to come to life from time to time, and when my sister announced a Postage People swap and I knew I had one week off work, it all worked together. I´m pretty sure that I won´t need all these ATCs for the swap (and I have some more half finished on my table), but as always I just couldn´t stop making them. If you haven´t tried them, just do to feel the addiction. I´ll never get tired of these.

Sketchbook playing

 
I got out my watercolour sketchbook these days and found an old crow sketch that I decided to work over with watercolours.

Today I´ve been watching Tamara Laporte´s video on Sketchbook Revival 2023 and drew and painted this fox while watching. As I only used watercolours and pencils and didn´t work on it after the video, it has lots of mistakes, not enough white etc., but for such a quick sketch, I´m happy with the result.

Spring Greens

The theme for this month´s Visible Image ATC swap was Spring Greens, so I knew I wanted to make an ATC that welcomes spring. 

The accompanying card was inspired by images of Chicago and its green coloured river celebrating St. Patrick´s Day. As always, the scan doesn´t show the shimmering mica sprays behind the city skyline ...

Chicken Eggs

 
Once in a year, I´m having a fabulous afternoon and evening together with 3 of my best friends, painting Easter eggs and having fun with cake, beverages, music and political discussions. It´s one my highlights of each year, but usually I only paint two eggs. This year´s eggs show chickens as I´ve loved painting my chicken postcard recently. I have used watercolours and several pencils and markers here.

Chicken

 
When I saw that this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge theme was "Chicken", I thought "I know I have a matching stamp" ... then I didn´t find it tonight and drew my own chicken. Then I found that stamp but liked my own chicken so much more. Art is to be open to surprise yourself (and maybe others).

Alice - First Step

 
For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed Alice I´ve made a paper collage hand coloured and finished with some rubber stamps. Such a nice theme as Alice never gets boring, there´s always something new to find in this book.

Masks

 
Wearing your everyday face can be a necessity or a betrayal. You should be allowed to just be you, but you´re not.

Here´s my card for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Masks".

Red Roses

 
Have you ever tried to scan something red? You´ll be surprised to see the result ... Reds that go well together in real life will look weird together on your scan. So you have to believe me that the reds on my card really look great together on the original card!

I´ve collaged two magazine photos of a woman and a bunch of red roses, used clear gesso upon them and painted them with watersoluble crayons, then added two stamps from Red Lead. 

And the whole card is my entry for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Red Roses".

Love is all around

 
Valentine themes are always difficult for me as I´m not into hearts and love themed art. So for this month´s Visible Image ATC swap themed "Love is all around" I took a different path that suited me more. This card and ATC reached Canada in high speed and and have found a loving home :-)

Imperfect Circles

 
For this year´s rubberstamping art project at Heindesign themed Circles, I´ve made this card using stamps from Red Lead, VivaLasVegaStamps and De Stempelwinkel. I think you can see how much fun I´ve had with this one!

Bauhaus Design

Last night I´ve made two Bauhaus themed postcards to accompany a Bauhaus themed gift for a friend. Now I can´t decide which one I want to use for this purpose ... do you have a favourite?

Light and Darkness

 
I´m hosting this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge this week with the theme "Light and Darkness".  

For my sample card I´ve picked a quote from Goethe´s play "Götz von Berlichingen": Wo viel Licht ist, ist starker Schatten. 

So I´ve used a custom made Goethe stamp, a light bulb from Katzelkraft and a text stamp from PaperArtsy to illustrate my thoughts. Plus gesso and shimmering watercolours of course.

I hope you´ll feel inspired to show us your own version of this theme this week!

Butterfly Effect

We´ve all heard of the Butterfly Effect - doing one thing and causing many effects this way. That´s the thought behind my card for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge. 

I´ve used stamps from Paper Artsy/ Lynne Perrella and Visible Image and used shimmery watercolours from VHAquarell for colouring.

Year of the Rabbit

 

I never really got the idea of Chinese zodiac signs because I can´t believe that soneone born in the a specific year has something in common with everyone else born in that year. However, in a few days the Chinese new year will start, and it´s the Year of the Rabbit. 

When I read that this is the theme for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge, I thought "hm, I know I have some rabbit stamps", but it wasn´t before tonight that I found out how many I have - and I won´t tell you ;-))

Then today I read that stamp designer Tracy Evans is ill with Covid right now, and I thought "Why not make a card with only her designs" ... and here it is, my card to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit - may it be a good one.

Peace

 
For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Peace", it could have been possible to make a Holiday Card with a Peace on Earth message, but I decided to go with John Lennon´s song "Imagine" in a street art style.