An Autumn Walk at Gut Heidefeld

Hello lovelies!

I had fully intended to visit more gardens over the summer months, but then illness struck, leaving me with no choice but to stay home and recover. It's mid-October now, the flowers have long wilted and nature is preparing for the cold months. However, I did not want the year to end without having visited at least one garden in the area. Gut Heidefeld seemed like a good choice - their grounds were still open to the public at this time of year and there's a cute Café adjoining the garden. I'm always up for tea and cake!

Let's start with a little bit of history. The estate dates back to around 1811 and it was initially used as a residential castle with the surrounding grounds mainly used for agricultural purposes. Fast forward to 2010, when a local family acquired the estate of Heidefeld along with the land. The family roused it from its slumber, and with great attention to detail, transformed it into the beautiful gem it is today.

The garden contains an enormous variety of trees, flowers, plants and herbs - my head kept swiveling from one to the next - a few of them familiar, but some I had never seen nor heard of before. I took a ton of photos and will share these across several posts. I hope you will join me for a virtual walk.

 Amazingly these gorgeous roses were still blooming.

It was sunny but quite chilly on this day. The leaves have already turned orange and brown or have fallen off. It was very quiet and peaceful here at the fountain. 

The entire garden is interspersed with sculptures by local artisan Wilhelm Bollwerk. A nice surprise when you discover them among the plants and trees! 

These are "Garden Guardians"

Sometimes it pays to look down.

There were plenty of benches or chairs to sit and just soak in the surroundings.

I did not see many birds, but I did spot this owl sculpture.

The walk isn't over yet, but I will pause here, as I feel I have already posted way too many pictures. I hope you enjoyed them so far. See you next time and have a wonderful day!

Handmade Vintage-Style Collage Papers

Hi everyone!

Autumn has arrived here in the western part of Germany. It had been raining for the better part of last week along with a significant temperature drop. Not that I'm complaining. After a scorching summer we can certainly use a bit of rain. The trees are happy and so are the birds. 

Downstairs, the light in my studio isn't the best at the moment, but I still wanted to share my recent makes. I gathered old book pages, toned sketching pages and regular printer paper and applied various paints, inks, pencils and pens in a predetermined color palette. I wanted to keep these fairly neutral, as I will be using them as backgrounds in my art journals. My palette consisted of white, cream, taupe, raw umber and black. 

I also enjoyed making a batch of flowers and leaves as "collage fodder". I used fineliners in black to draw simple flower and leaf shapes in a loose and scribbly fashion, filling up two sheets of drawing paper. I cut all of them out - which required quite a bit of patience!

These leaf prints were done with stencils and ink sprays. Splotches are inevitable, however, I don't really mind, as most of them will be covered with either paint or other collage pieces. These were done on grey-toned sketching paper. 

After I was done I felt like creating a journal page. I selected a few of my papers, tore them up (yes, I hesitated at first) and adhered them in my journal with gel medium along with a few of my scribbly flowers. I'm loving all the texture and patterns!

Thank you for visiting my blog. Have a great day!

Junk Journal Fun

Hi everyone!

I endeavour to make art every day, but when I don't have much time or energy I pull out my handmade junk journal for some simple art. Usually that means throwing down some paint, making marks and perhaps adding a bit of collage. The junk journal pages already have color or pattern on them which serve as a starting point. I just allow myself to play and have fun!

For those interested, I have included my video of how I made the junk journal at the bottom of this post. This is a longer video (about 10 minutes) as I am demonstrating how to make it from scratch. 

The above page includes a background of vintage music sheet, stamps and stencils. You can watch the YouTube shorts here:

The above is a recent page I made with acrylic paint and lots of colorful layers and bold marks. You can watch the full YouTube video here:

And lastly I'm sharing the video of how to make the Junk Journal here:

Thank you so much for visiting! Have a great week ahead!