Red

 Oh yeah, we could harvest our first red tomato before our vacation starts.

And there are more to come:

Will there be some tomatoes left for us

when we come back?

Hubby bakes vegan

A first-timer after all of Hubby's cooking:

Blueberry muffins (or what is left of them) 

with our self-picked blueberries (we went there again).

And a first-timer for me,

my first bread:

Spelt-Carrot-Walnut

Green or Red?

Hubby's first gardening attempt at tomatoes is looking very promising.

The question is now,

will they turn red before our vacation?

Speaking of green and red,

here comes Christmas in July:

Time For Me

The time we take for ourselves, gives us something in return.

Ernst Ferstl

Off to a weekend of Shakti Yoga, North Sea and sun.

 Enjoy your weekend, friends!

Copy Cat

The new lesson in the painting e-course A Year of Painting by Alena Hennessy is titled "Making it your own". Find some art that speaks to you and paint your own version of it.

I chose Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Venus Verticordia.

And another painting by Tamara de Lempicka that I saw this April at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Pink Moment of the Week

... Clara and Carolina wrapping up their toys in the leftover fabric of my pants.

Up-in-the-Air-Pants

You wouldn't believe from the heat that is outside now, but Tuesday was actually a very rainy day. All-day-rain. Cats and dogs. Buckets. Full of rain. No chance of going outside. To pass the time Carolina and I played "sewing". Cutting fabric, carefully handling needles, organizing thread and even a bit of real sewing (from my side). My sewing machine saw its last activity in back in January (!), yeah, it's been half a year without sewing ...

Here comes a pair of comfy jersey pants, 

the pattern is Moira by Mamu Design.

Only after I had cut the fabric I saw this:

So now the washing instructions and fabric's name are part of one side of the pants,

looks nearly like intended.

The pants are seriously intended for yoga and play time:

 

Yeah, yeah, feeling the sewing groove again ...

Beginning of the Blues

No, I am not sad. Quite the opposite. I am actually very happy, because the blueberry self-picking season has started this week. We have discovered a blueberry farm last year and this year the blueberries have grown even bigger there (as have the girls).

 Hello fresh blueberries galore, smoothies and muffins!

Wanderlust

Hint, hint -

where will we go this summer holiday?

Turquoise & Pink

Still feeling Japanese.

Cherry Tree Dream

Instead of Monday's running and rushing ...

... why not sit down and dream a bit.

I hope you are having a relaxing start to the week!

Pink Moment of the Week

Hollyhocks!

My Own Private Geisha

...came to visit me today.

Pink in Japan

After experimenting with red and blue Japanese style, I needed a little pink again to bring myself into creative balance. I had bought a bamboo calligraphy pen a while ago at the art store and decided to play with it and some ink.

First try:

rather cliché, but good for getting a feel for the bamboo stick

and its special lines

inspired from the Orlik exhibition last week

and those amazing umbrellas:

And now I go back to baking in the sun outside.

Hello July!

I totally forgot to flip Clara's Calendar on Tuesday.

So I do it today.

Yes, it is July, summer that is.

Maybe because the weather recently didn't feel very summery,

July nearly came unnoticed.

But it is warming up now.

Still no beach and sunbeds in sight for us in July

(school holidays only start at the end of the month)

but sunshine galore, I hope.

Japanese Blue

This is another Yoshiro Tachibana inspired painting, 

this time his blue paintings influenced me. 

Blue - 

a colour I wouldn't be normally drawn to, 

but add a little pink and purple and it works for me.

 Feels more Arabian to me then Japanese though,

must be all that blue.

Paint like in Japan

Japanese Art is the latest lesson in A Year of Painting with Alena Hennessy. Looking at work of Japanese contemporary artists, being inspired by it and trying something new and maybe exotic while painting.

Fittingly there is this exhibition now at the Oldenburg Horst Janssen museum: 

Over a hundred years ago artist Emil Orlik travelled to Japan to learn more about coloured Japanese woodcarving ...

... and was inspired.

Orlik also made a lot of drawings.

I used the work of Japanese artist Yoshiro Tachibana for my inspiration, who in return is very much influenced by modern European painters.

So here is my "inspired copy" of Tachibana's Mother and Child in Red,

stretching my creative muscles with colours I wouldn't normally use

and his special composition: