Something is happening...

This has been percolating for a while now. The urge to paint big (big for me, that is) and with abandon.

Without worry about staying in the lines. About things looking "right."

With the colors I love.

Painting purely from the heart.

Suspending all judgement.

And having fun, fun, fun with it!

It's the first painting where I really felt like an artist painting it. And the first one I signed boldly!

I tried to take a self-portrait showing you the size of it and it worked only partly. I love the shot above though with one eye each.

There was no place to perch the camera to get a decent picture, so I decided to just photograph the painting with the book case in the background to give you an idea of the size.

Tomorrow I will continue with pictures from our recent trip, but I just needed to do a little art show & tell in between. And I'm linking this to the amazingly talented folks at Paint Party Friday!

Summer is here with full force, meaning hot and humid and thunderstorms almost every afternoon. The garden is happy and I love my air conditioning...

I hope all of you are doing wonderfully!!

❧ Silke

Tarpon Springs

While we were in Clearwater Beach, it was much too hot (at least for me) to spend the whole day at the beach. I just can't take that much sun, even under an umbrella. And Daniel is always eager to explore the surrounding areas.

One of places recommended to us by a good friend was Tarpon Springs, a fishing community of mostly Greek Americans (even today, we heard Greek spoken everywhere we listened). If you click on the link, you can read more about it.

It was an area where for many years sponge divers harvested sponges (the kind we use in the bath) and later fished for shrimp.

Now, it is mostly a tourist destination and really pretty.

Daniel took lots of photos, so enjoy the little tour!

We ended up eating one of the best Greek meals we've had in a long time. A Greek salad and a plate full of grilled seafood. It was delicious!

And no meal is complete without a little dessert, which we took "to go" and ate in our little beach cottage that evening.

The following day's visit I'll have to divide into a couple of posts I think, as there was lots to ooooh and aaaah over at the Ringling Museum of Art. You'll see...

Wishing you a good rest of your day!! And thank you for visiting...

❧ Silke

So much to tell!

Well, I was on blog break again, but this time due to travel. Daniel and I took a few days and drove down to Clearwater Beach (near Tampa) in Florida where we rented a little beach cottage. The drive from Savannah was only six hours and we totally fell in love with this area.

The biggest surprise of moving to Georgia has been how much we love Florida. We didn't know anything about it really and it has surprised us every step of the way.

We have so many photos that I decided to just show them to you in little bits so as not to overwhelm you. These are just a few from our first evening there exploring the beach that was just steps away from where we were staying.

It was warm and humid and perfect!

Don't you love the life guard stations?

It was nice to see that the beach front wasn't overly developed. There were some hotels and condos but also long stretches of single family homes.

The sand was white and oh so soft! We loved walking across the beach to one of the many restaurants for dinner.

We only visited the pier once but the view from it was really nice.

A "serene" photo of me. What you can't tell is that I was quietly sweating after walking on the beach for a good while.

Which is why it was great that after this, we headed to an excellent gelato place for some delicious ice cream.

More tomorrow! I also have lots of art to show you and other things. Expect to hear from me regularly again...

I hope you are all doing well and can't wait to visit your blogs!

❧ Silke

Color Play

I was having fun with color and transparent acrylic washes. This is also pretty big in the original, so that was a challenge. When I work wet like that, the paint takes on a life of it's own. I find that some areas that seemed to be "wrong" when they were happening are now my favorite parts of the painting. 

It's good to give up control sometimes...

Wishing you a beautiful Tuesday! It's going to be sunny, hot and humid here...

❧ Silke

Green is all around me...

When I was sitting in our backyard a couple of days ago I noticed how many different shades of green we have back there and how many different textures. So I grabbed the camera and took a few photos. I could have kept going, but I didn't want to overwhelm you.

It did give me the idea to do another very fast self-portrait (this one took about 15 minutes) only in three shades of green and white. It turned into an intense little painting. And somehow it speaks to me! I like all the little imperfections.

I hope you all had a beautiful weekend with warmth and sunshine. Summer has arrived here with warm temperatures and very humid weather. Every afternoon there are thunderstorms in the area, but we never know if one will make it's way over our house and garden. I hope today one of them will decide to visit to keep our garden so nice and green!

❧ Silke