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Another Method

There was this piece of cardboard, not larger than a postcard. I used it to place an excess of gold bronze gouache from a broken paint tube. Then I thought, why not use it as a background. I added some more paint leftovers, using a small palette knife. Then the fish came. And some sea weeds started growing.
I see the plants in all of my pictures as something that grows by its own rules more than deliberately being created.
If someone did terraforming on our planet, they must have allowed growth more than having produced something.
As for fiber art: I'm still working on the Bauhaus quilt; I'm quilting the reverse row by row. It is going slowly. But if I start another fiber project before I finish this one, I'm afraid my husband will have to wait forever.

More news from the bottom of the Seas

From paradise to submerged paradises. Sea life just won't let me go, although I never dived. My ideal is abstract painting like Paul Klee and Vassily Kandinsky, but I just can't go abstract.
The upper one lacks composition, it is as chaotic as life itself. The general theme in my underwater worlds is fertility and how the species are a danger or a source of food for one another.

After this one, I tried to give it more composition.
I grouped the details in order to reach more rhythm. Peculiarly I fell back into a more realistic kind of painting.
I'm afraid I keep circulating around my adored favourite, my all-time masterpiece "Goldfish" by Klee.
See the Ocean Life series here.

Can't go up from my dive

Ocean Life No 5, gouache on black cardboard, 8,5x11,7"
Have to tell you something. When I was a very young child of 3 or 4, I loved painting on black paper, preferring yellow and lime green. How typical is this for a kid of that age? I also imagined angels to be black. Kind and loving, but black.

Ocean Life No 4

This is the latest piece in the Ocean Life series, gouache on black paper. Is it going too far in the direction of kitsch? It has a kind of woodcut touch which I quite like. I could do it as a lino cut, using printing ink instead of lino cut ink, because if it is resistant to water, I can color the print afterwards.

And now something completely different

Quilting can be so boring sometimes. I guess I'll continue my work on the Bauhaus quilt while watching TV. -- In the meantime, my favourite painting technique -- watercolour -- keeps me from going to bed. I'm a night painter. My surprised remark "oups! Four in the morning!" wasn't heard by anyone. Fortunately.




What got me into this painting mood to finish no II and paint the complete no III? It was the wonderful narrative language of Adalbert Stifter in his short novel "Bergkristall". Listening to audio books like this and painting without the breaks the day brings, gets me into a trance that replaces sleep.

The result was this series of 3 submarine scenes. Here they are. And I'm working on no 4, but not more shall be said.