Goodbye 2014, Goodbye Blog

What a year 2014 was!

 When I filled out this workbook on 31 December  2013

I couldn't imagine that I was in for some serious magic in 2014.

(you can find the workbook for 2015 here).

Not that my life has changed so much on the outside:

same Hubby, same children

(Carolina liked to nap and I liked to photograph her)

(so thankful that everybody was healthy and happy this year),

same house

(got massively decluttered),

same vegan life

(even though Hubby learned to cook),

same yoga job.

Great travels.

But then,

there was my word for 2014.

*create*

I sewed and knitted only a tiny bit this year.

Mostly I painted.

An avalanche.

One little day at a time,

sometimes only a couple of minutes a day.

And now,

at the end of the year,

I have a portfolio to show on my new website:

www.cathringressieker.com

I painted, got addicted to art e-courses

and also learned some Photoshop and Illustrator skills.

I will have an art exhibition 

at a place where I teach yoga in January.

Some of my paintings will be published

in Alena Hennessy's new book " A Year of Painting".

A word of the year is a very powerful tool.

A direction, a calling.

So I would like to say Goodbye

 to this miraculous year

and I have one more thing to announce:

This is my last post here,

this blog also gets decluttered.

From tomorrow,

1.1.15,

you can find musings from my pink studio over there:

https://cathringressieker.wordpress.com/

Thanks for reading my blog over the last four years. 

I wish you a happy New Year

and really hope to see you again in 2015.

 

Love and Light, 

Cathrin

Hello December!

I turned the last page of Clara's Calender of 2014.

December is probably Clara's favourite month of the whole year.

The Advent season, St. Nicholas Day, her birthday and Christmas

all in one month.

Who cares about the cold and dark then?

We celebrate.

Pink Moment of the Week

A collage for this week's assignment in MATS.

We were supposed to create an abstract collage for a 25-45 year old female, using limited colours (in my case pink, red and neutrals) and collected items. Plus including words, floral and geometrical motifs. Would I buy it?

Pink Moment of the Week

Do you know Suzanis? I didn't before this week's assignment in MATS. They are embroidered patterns from Uzbekistan. They served as inspiration for designing plates. Here are mine:

Wherever I am, pink travels with me.

Hello November!

I turned the calendar before we left for our vacation:

It will be Carolina's third birthday at the end of the month.

Right now November for us is not full of rain, cold and dark,

but more like July.

(and remember you can still win some sweet souvenirs 

in the Travel Quiz)

The cold and rainy moments will come,

but we'll take some warmth home with us

and light three candles later in November.

Falling Leaves

The wine leaves turning red are my favourite plants in our garden in autumn. 

There is so much beauty and radience in those colours 

and they captivate me every time I pass by 

(and go to the compost). 

All through September and October I watch this spectacle, 

which is now nearly over.

My latest play with surface pattern design

(I am just taking this incredibly fabulous

e-course Pattern Camp with Jessica Swift at the moment)

made those wine leaves come back to life on the computer screen:

So this is my first-ever pattern design
(it is a straight tossed repeat to use the designer lingo) 

and I couldn't be more proud.
There is still a lot to learn,
but combining drawing, painting and new computer skills couldn't be more fun.

Thank you leaves for your inspiration.

Pink Moment of the Week

Can there ever be a painting without pink?

Pink Moment of the Week

a new painting:

Hello October!

It is the first of October today.

What sounds more like autumn than October?

"Is this a heart"? I asked Clara.

"Of course, not! 

Have you ever seen a heart with three tips?

It is a leaf."

Golden October here we come.

Yoga, Paint and Photoshop

It all comes together.

Pink Moment of the Week

Back at home.

Back to painting.

Hello September!

We are already a couple of days into September, but I have only flipped Clara's calendar now. We prolonged our summer holiday with a couple of days at the (oh-so-cold-compared-to-Thailand) Baltic Sea. Additional to a very slow internet connection there I have cultivated quite a strong screen fatigue over the summer weeks, with no desire to spend time in front of a computer. But now it says:

Back to school!
 

Clara's school actually only starts on Wednesday and yes, she will be in third grade (this special day was already two years ago). But my yoga courses start tomorrow and with all that comes the settling in into our old routine, that feels unfamiliar right now. So we'll see what kind of fresh fruit this September will bring (apart from apples ...). Probably more blog posts, I promise.

Hello August!

It's birthday time again in August, says Clara's calendar:

Oma and her dog will be celebrating.

For our family August will mostly look like July.

More sun and beaches to come.

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.

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!

My Own Private Geisha

...came to visit me today.