Finally!!

Yippee, finally finished the large (60x80 cm or 23.6x31.5 inches) mermaid painting!!! It's already hanging on the wall in the hallway.
Maybe I will be working on it for just a little bit more in the future, but for now it feels okay for me. 
So here it is!

I haven't used beeswax on this painting (yet). I did use some glass bead gel for the sea, beach and the hair of the mermaids.
Some details:

The story is that both mermaids are in love with the prince, but only one can have him of course. Guess, which one won his heart?! Because I like happy ending stories, there's another cute prince hidden in this painting. The only thing he needs, to turn into a real prince, is a kiss! :D


My next project will be a painting of a fairy, maybe not as large as this one though.

Energy

With the arrival of warmer weather I have more energy than I have had over the last couple of months! So for the last week and a half I have been doing chores in my house I wasn't able to do for some time because of the lack of energy and pain caused by the fibromyalgia. So instead of finishing the mermaid painting I have been cleaning certain parts of my house where stuff was accumulating. With a little bit of help of my sweetheart and a friend, I have been reorganizing and throwing/giving away lots of stuff. 


Another thing I wasn't able to do for a very long time because of the lack of energy is to go out at night. This Saturday however we went to a street festival in Leeuwarden. We met some friends in the city and listened to a couple of bands. The band I loved most was the girlsband Katzenjammer from Norway. Very talented and musical girls, great live performance! They all can sing solo and play lots of different instruments. We were lucky to have found a spot not far from the stage so that I was able to take some photos.
Here are some of the photos that I took:

I also made 2 videos, but for some reason I'm not able to upload them at Blogger.

So here's a video from You Tube with a song I love: Rock - paper - scissors

Another song is: Ain't no thang

And what about this one: I will dance (when I walk away)

I really hope we will have a warm and sunny Summer this year!!! I feel so much better and energetic when there's no rain and cold. I sometimes consider immigrating to another country where there's much more sun available. Well maybe one day .....

Work in progress and one finished

I'm busy with working on the large mermaid painting I started about a year ago as one of the assignments for Suzi Blu's workshop about mermaids. Yesterday and today I added glass bead gel and some sea/beach elements. I love how it turned out and I really LOVE the glass bead gel.
Look how shiny the water looks!

I hope I will be able to finish the painting tomorrow.


I did finish painting the wooden 'type case' yesterday. This morning the paint was dry and I could hang it on my wall. For now I just leave it like it is, but I think it would be nice when I put some wallpaper in (some of) the large compartments.

Swedish Cornel or Bunchberry

This afternoon I finally discovered the growing place of the Swedish Cornel or Bunchberry. It's the only spot in my country where it still grows and it's not far from my village. My sweetheart and I went to look for it last weekend but without any luck. But today, after almost giving up my search again, I finally found 4 blooming plants! I knew I was on the right spot because I had already found the plant without the flower.

This was the first photo I took of the first blooming plant I spotted.

I thought it was the only one but then I discovered that there were 3 more. They were all much smaller and therefore harder to see. Can you find the 4 flowers in the next photo?

And here are some other photos I took.

Another rare plant that I've spotted and which grows in the same area as the Swedish cornel, is the Chickweed wintergreen or Arctic starflower. 

Angel painting and new project

So today I finally finished the angel I started a long, long time ago! It's from a Suzi Blu class.
This is how she turned out!

And here's a more closer look, where you can see that I've also beeswaxed and added stuff on the sides of the painting.

I hope you can see that I've used some Angelina fibers in the hair! (click on the picture for a closer look!) It took me some time to find these over here in my country.

This afternoon I've already started to work on a new project. 
I bought this large homemade kind of 'type case' in a thrift shop last week. I'm going to paint it white and hang it on my wall to put in all kind of small collections I have. I'm still thinking about putting all kind of different wallpapers in the back of all the different compartments. 

(I forgot to take a picture of the type case before starting to paint.)


This is how it looks right now with the first layer of paint.

Bird watching

I love to watch the birds at Droonessa. 
They have installed webcams to peep into the nests of storks, church owls and some other smaller birds. They are all so busy now with breeding and taking care of their little ones. It's fun to watch, although sometimes you have to be a little patience to see the little ones, because mom (or dad) is still busy breeding the last eggs.


Follow the next links to watch the storks, church owls and other birds.