Tag Archives: photos

Travel Journal continues into Switzerland

Posted on by
Reply

It’s summer holidays here, and I’ve been spending some time working in my travel journal. So far, since my last post about this journal here I’ve finished the pages covering our journey to Saverne and Strasbourg in France and on into Switzerland.

 

Some pamphlets we picked up are stored in a pocket made from a postcard from the Bosch museum.

I employed the Azza technique again here on the right page, cutting up 3 photos to make a gothic window shape I used a bit of walnut ink around the edges of the page to give an aged effect. Love that walnut ink!!

We were lucky enough to catch this wonderful English choir in an old church near Saverne. They were certainly the best choir we heard on the whole trip…the English really know how to do choirs!

 

We drove from Saverne in France to Romanshorn on Lake Constance in Switzerland in one day. On the way we diverted up a mountain to see the Chateau of Haut-Koenigsbourg.I made this background using a new stencil by Michelle Ward that my darling husband gave me fro Christmas. First I painted 2 pages with yellow ochre blending into cobalt blue, then used blue, green and yellow spray inks through the stencil. Then I ripped some fleur de lis scrapbook paper to make a border. I loved the effect of the ripped patterned border so much I used it again on a few more pages. On the left page I used a photo I took to make a pocket to hold a pamphlet from the castle. This is my favourite page so far from this journal, I LOVE everything about it.

A double page devoted to Strasbourg, where we explored the cathedral and took a boat tour. As you can see I used another fleur de lis scrapbook paper here. I visited a few scrapbook stores in my area and bought every medieval/baroque style paper I could find.

 

I painted the next 2 pages with yellow ochre and red oxide, and printed out a map from google maps of our itinerary from Saverne to Romanshorn. There’s a pic of the city of Konstanz in the centre which flips over separately.

Here it is again with the central photo flipped over. Now you can see the old door (from 1322!) and the library of St Gallen, which has many beautiful OLD manuscripts and books.

 

 

 

We drove over and through the Alps to the Italian part of Switzerland and stayed in Bellinzona which was gorgeous. I had forgotten to print out any photos from this part of the trip, so I put together a montage of 3 photos on the left page, the 2 in the background I made pale.  I used a pale green damask patterned paper for the background on the right and tore a border with it on the left. That walnut ink came in handy again around the edges.

Over and through the Alps again to Grindelwald, a beautiful valley surrounded by snow capped peaks. The left page is a map I picked up in Grindelwald  and the right page another Azza style of cut photos. I had yet another fleur de lis patterned paper that I used to make a border and tie the 2 pages together. There is some of Gerrit’s writing (in Dutch) about Grindelwald on the left page.  I have not really written a great deal in this travel journal, just a few lines here and there. Partly because it all happened over a year ago now and partly because I have so many photos I want to use. When I travel again this year I expect to write a lot more, as I intend to be making the journal as I am traveling.

I still have all of our 4 week trip through France to go in this journal! I don’t know whether I’ll get it all done or not..in any case I quite like what I’ve done here so far. Thanks for listening, blessings to you all in blogland.

 

My year in pictures October and November

Posted on by
Reply

My year in Pictures continued: OCTOBER

Sanctuary is a beautiful group that meets every Sunday morning in Bangalow to sing, meditate and be inspired by readings and poems from many different mystics, poets and spiritual teachers. It’s our own Byron Bay version of church, but not so much Christian; it’s based more on universal spiritual principles and virtues. This particular Sunday we stayed for a picnic lunch in the park to celebrate Sunny’s birthday.

There was more fundraising for the Songbirds with this house concert and dinner we put on at Carmelle and Kieran’s place.

 

 

A birthday lunch for Grace at The Balcony restaurant in Byron…pictured here with Grace, Taly and Rachel.

 

 

 

I had a couple of weddings up at the Crystal Castle in October and this is one of them, a lovely family from England

 

 

NOVEMBER

I was involved (as a back up singer) in a fabulous show, written and performed by Louise from the Songbirds. It was called “Conversations with Goddesses” and it was both funny and moving. Here I am waiting backstage with Dylan, the musical director.

 

 

 

 

Gerrit became an Australian citizen in a ceremony at the Byron Council Chambers.

 

 

We had a few friends over that night to celebrate Gerrit becoming an Aussie. Here are our friends Maureen and Georgie resplendent with Australian flags.

2012 in photos Part Two

Posted on by
Reply

A continuation of my year in pictures: MAY
Breakfast with Jana at her place after a walk…..a treasured friend!

 

 

 

 

 

May is the best month for gorgeous sunsets, like this one just down the road at New Brighton beach.

 

 

Carmelle’s fairy themed birthday party. There was a performance of fairy poetry with harp and flute. We 3 Songbirds sang a parody of one of our songs to Carmelle as a surprise.

 

 

 

 

 

In May we had a visit from Gerrit’s youngest son who now lives in Melbourne, so we took him on our favourite lighthouse walk.

 

JUNE:
My lovely book club at our June meeting… I think we were discussing “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” and pretending to be French.

 

 

Louise and I on the “Slutwalk” in Byron Bay, walking against violence to women.

 

 

 

Walking the lighthouse track on a Saturday morning followed by brunch at a Byron Cafe has become a regular thing for us. You can see here the weather is still warm even though it is June.

 

 

I organised a choir concert on the last weekend in June. Here is my choir Choral Sea assembled before we went on stage.

 

School days

Posted on by
6

I belong to a creative writing group which meets fortnightly. For the last session of last year we randomly chose the name of someone else from the group and wrote a piece for them.

Denis got my name and wrote a lovely little piece about me in which he imagined what I must have been like at age 10. I was touched, and it also got me thinking about what I was like at that age. So I created these pages based around my memories of when I was nine and ten years old. I had some not very good black and white photos (we’re talking mid sixties here) which I photoshopped so they looked sepia because I love that sepia vintage look. I’m telling you this so you don’t think I’m older than I am!!! Anyway I had recently bought my first book of scrapbooking papers which had a School days theme, so I used bits of these papers and took my colour scheme from them. First I painted the whole page a creamy colour, than did some stenciling over it with a brownish red. It looked too bright so I gessoed over it with a cream tinted gesso to tone it all down. This was better, so then I collaged down some photos. I had a go at creating a pocket from my year 5 school photo and I folded Denis’ piece of writing and popped it into the pocket. I had quite a few memories I wanted to write, so I didn’t bother with doing fancy writing, just did my normal hand printing.

I have an unformed plan in my mind now to make a whole journal of memories of my life, perhaps starting even with my parents life before I was born. Two of my sisters have been writing some memoirs, but I suspect I don’t write as well as they do, I’m probably more visual. So perhaps a Visual memoir might be a good thing for me to attempt. It could become quite a big project I suppose. Maybe I’ll use an old book for the purpose, will keep you posted!