A New Painting and - Merlijn!

Hello Everybody,


We saw Merlijn today - for the first time this year.
I love Merlijn. Love, love, love. 
I love Merlijn as I'd love a dappled horse standing on a hill, somewhere on a wild Irish landscape, with his mane blowing out in the wind and his grey nose smelling the sky. 
I love Merlijn as I'd love a big old train going to Venice, with the carriages painted in a navy blue so deep and shiny, you could see your eyelashes in the reflection..... I love Merlijn.....
When H wins the lottery ( I don't believe in it meself and think that you should put the money under the mattress instead ) - he can buy me Merlijn and we can go to Venice the Hard Way, with Wilbur sitting at the pointy front bit as a furry little Figurehead, looking out for flying fishes and dolphins with big deep eyes.
We saw him waiting at the lock at St Aldegund this morning (Merlijn, not Wilbur) and we waited and watched until he was gone from sight. He's a converted barge, at one time carrying freight, but now passengers. 
We saw him many times last year and like that classy sports car, he always stands out from the crowd. He's my favourite barge on the Moselle, along with our old friend Eiltank 47, who's a industrial/commercial barge and probably three times the size.
I should probably get out more.
Did a lot of work with my new painting - thinking up the composition and the colours - I'll post my sketches with my next Blog.
In the meanwhile, here's Merlijn....

Waiting to go into the lock at St. Aldegund.

.....and a photo I took last year when he was moored at Alf for a while....

I also did this sketch last year, from Bullay across the River at Alf. In the end it was so cold, it was just me and the geese.

Soon.

Tschüss!

A New Painting and a German Haircut

Hello Everybody,


I'm still looking at my painting and doing a small bit of tweaking, but I'm thinking now of the next one..... It's been interesting for myself to log the progress of my Wilbur painting - it's the first time I've ever broken a painting down into all the different stages and see how it develops. I'm also happy with introducing a more of a 'Fantasy' element than I normally would. Has this come from living here in this Ancient River Valley with all the history? I can't really say, but I think that I'll stay with it for the next painting too...
So what to paint next?
Wilbur in Winter?
Perhaps a painting with a Swan?
Or maybe a painting with Wilbur and a Swan in Winter?
There are endless possibilities....
Which brings me to my new haircut.
I had my little piccie of what I wanted it to look like. I had my phrasebook - 'Hier etwas kürzer, bitte.' I had my fingers crossed. 
But the hairdresser did a Very Good Job. She cut it how I wanted it to be, even though the picture wasn't quite what I really wanted and my phrasebook didn't have nearly enough phrases.... So that was meself in a good mood anyhow. It was also heartening not having enough vocabulary to discuss what I'm doing on Saturday Night and whether I've bought all me Christmas Presents Yet....
After all that, we went across the way to Globus Hypermarket to get the deposit back on our plastic mineral water bottles. They've got this great machine where you put in the empties, it reads the barcodes, then prints you out a slip which you can exchange FOR CASH. This is a wonderful thing and the machine reminds me of something you might come across in Las Vegas. 
Only you have to drink a lot of water first.


I must find a little picture for this post. Can't have a blog without a picture. Me new painting is in me head (don't want to go there), me finished painting you saw yesterday evening. So..... what can I find? Even though I said that it's quietish here in Ediger-Eller at the moment, the grapes are being picked and there's a yeasty smell along the old streets. But The Grape Picking is not that noticeable really - people get on with their work and drive tractors up and down the roads and that's about all you'd see unless you were in the midst of it... So here's to you and the wine of tomorrow....

They've progressed a bit since I took this photo, but you get the idea.

So.

Tschüss!

A Painting in Progress - Finished?

Hello Everybody,


Long Time no Blog - just over a week, but it's been a hectic one to say the least. I had a couple of very urgent design jobs to do, which was good for work but not good for my painting. But they're finished now and I think my painting is too.....

See, it's on an easel, signed and everything, so it must be done.... probably just a little bit more tweaking... 

Then I must scan it into my computer with my trusty A3 scanner, set up the colour profiles to get the best print - I might put a small black border around the edge too. I won't be selling this print in a mount, so I think that a little border on the print itself might look O.K. - I'll see.

Then it's time to set up the shop - I must get the header worked out, all the key words and phrases and all the bits and pieces that go together. The one big problem I have is that I may have to be away for a short while soon (only just found out now...) - so I don't want to open up the shop, then have to put it on 'hold mode' after only a week or so.... But if I don't open it until I get back, then it will be too late to sell the prints of this painting for Halloween....

What to do.....What to do....

Don't you find that things always come together at the same time and tangle themselves around your plans? Yep.

Of course, 'Celtic Cat (that's Fluffy Wilbur to thee & me) in A Moonlit Forest' - Fantasy Cat Painting from the Moselle Valley - would probably work too. And just like a 'Dog's Not Only For Christmas', Wilbur isn't just for Halloween....

I must think it over.

Away from the studio in the Valley, things have been quietish. There are quite a few tourists about, but they're mainly interested in walnuts. For some reason this year, some people are finding big sticks and bashing the poor ol' trees to get the nuts, rather than waiting for them to fall naturally. Hey you lot - don't do THAT. It's just not nice.

Bis Bald.

Tschüss.

A Painting in Progress - Peaches from the PeachGarden

Hello Everybody,


A nice, sunny day today - got my washing out and it stayed out and dried. Got some more of my painting done (the fur,the fur....) and had a walk to Ediger and back. 
Now we had three missions to accomplish in Ediger - make a hair appointment, have a glass of wine (since it was a sunny day and winter is fast approaching, so how many more sunny interludes do we have?) and buy a couple of bread-rolls and some Black Forest Ham.
The hairdressers was closed two hours for lunch, it was the ruhetag (rest day) of the wine place - normally they still serve wine, but not today......that left the supermarket - we were O.K. there anyway.... One körner brötchen (with seeds), one normale brötchen (no seeds), a packet of ham, a packet of cheese slices (not for meself) and a bar of chocolate (uh oh...)


So what to do about the glass of wine? - (forget about the hair, I suppose another week doesn't matter so much anymore...)
'Conzen's' says H.
'Grand Idea Altogether' says meself.
Conzen's is a classy establishment and has a grand view of the River because it has a huge first floor terrace with big umberellas. So we sat for a pleasant lunch hour in the corner table alongside a big-leaved plant which H said could be a Triffid.
I decided to have a beer in the end. A very nice light wheat beer - and even though it was only a small one, it looked big enough in the glass.
'That's a big beer for a small one' says I in my best German. (Well I think that's what I said.)

See, it DOES look big.

Settled down to painting this afternoon, and this evening I was off for my German lesson and came back with a big plastic pot full of peaches.

Soon,

Tschüss!

A Painting in Progress - Walnuts Keep Falling on....

......well everything at the moment.


Hello Everybody,


It's been a busy past few days what with one thing and another - we even had to miss the big Straussenweinfest in Ediger, which was a great shame. But H had to go to the little supermarket in Ediger at 8.30 Sunday morning, and people had already started the wine tasting. The weather was really bad for the rest of the day though - pouring rain and wind - but Saturday was really hot and I'd say that there were plenty of people about.
Anyhow, to make up for this deprivation and because we had a few hours free, we stopped for a glass of wine and a sausage this afternoon at Theisen's. The sun was shining again, but we got the tail end of Katia - I didn't have enough hands to hold the glasses, the menu and H's manuscript all on the table. It even shook the walnuts out of a tree just across the way. They were bouncing off the parked cars and off the ground - perfect walnuts, not in their green cases anymore - all they need is drying out in the sun..... 
H collected two pocketfuls.


Finished all the ironwork detail in my painting, now it's back to Wilbur and his fluffy fur - then it's the whiskers. I have a special brush for them.

Oh and the necklace, mustn't forget that...

Tshüss!

A Painting in Progress - The Bremmer Kreuz

Hello Everybody,


Sorry for such a boring blog post yesterday. I broke my own little rule of 'if ye don't feel like writing your blog, then don't'.
Not today though - today was a 'wow' day for anybody who's mad about landscapes and far horizons. We decided to take a hike (from the car-park) to the Bremmer Kreuz - the cross up on the Calmont slope that I mentioned the other day. It looked a bit rainy, but it didn't last and we had a nice little walk past a huge ploughed field then through the woods with oaks and pines. H was on the lookout for bears. As usual.

Anyhow after about a kilometre (we thought that it was an Irish one to start with - i.e. two kilometres) we came up to a slight slope and a little clearing in the trees.....

It really was a 'wow' view - I don't really like that word, but that's what it was. The photo doesn't do it justice at all, as it was overcast and you would need to be up there on a good day for a good photo - but you could see for miles and miles. Our village Ediger-Eller is there on the left by the railway bridge and there's a lovely little church and another Cross on the high ridge between the River.

(There are paintings of these on my website www.ramplingpaintings.com )

And that huge meander - that's a great meander that is. All the cultivated areas are grape-vines and the Calmont slope, which we were standing on top of when I took the photo, is the steepest vineyard in Europe...

The cross was lovely too - simple and peaceful - I can't understand why we never found it before, but I'm glad that we've found it now...

Just look at all that sky...

Naturally all this fresh air put me in a good mood for painting and I worked away on the detail on the gate...

So, till tomorrow.

Tschüss!

A Painting in Progress - A Windy Day in Eller

Hello Everybody,


It really was - this little bit of the Mosel valley was like a wind tunnel - there were leaves and walnuts all over the place. The walnut season is cranking into gear and already there are people clutching plastic carrier bags and probing around in the grass looking for them....


And - another Birthday. Tis the season for Birthdays and it was a great, unexpected party. Good company, good food, good wine and good music (except when I was doing the singing). The great Mosel tradition of celebrating Birthdays continues....


I'm a bit short on pictures today.... I've got some work done on my painting, but I'll post the latest photo of that tomorrow - it's mainly more work on the gate. 


So, here's a photo that I've taken of one of the aforementioned walnut trees. In a Georgia O'Keeffe inspired composition (I love her paintings), with the trunk at a diagonal. There are two schools of thought as to which way up, is the right way up, for her painting of 'The Lawrence Tree' (as she didn't sign her work) - my own feeling is, that this way is the right way round. For me anyway...

The bottom photo is of the River between Ediger and Eller.

Tschüss

A Painting in Progress - Out for a Drive

Hello Everybody,


It was a hot day yesterday - 48 degrees in the garden in the full sun - and fluffy Wilbur (star of my painting) was out sunbathing in his fur-coat.
'Ain't you hot, Fluffy?' says I.
'Puuuurrrrrr' says Wilbur very quietly (he is a very quiet purrer).
Today was cloudier and not so hot, and we went for a ride in the ol' Chevy up behind Bremm and out of the valley. There's a sign post I'd noticed before, directing the unwary to some Roman monument or another, and which I saw today is also the track to the Bremmer Kreuz - a cross up on the Calmont Slope. Now I wouldn't mind a little hike to the Bremmer Kreuz - I never knew how to get there before today - and with a cool morning and me pair of Good Boots there should be quite a view at the end of it.... I'll let you know.
For now, here's the view from the track before the car park.....

Nothing spectacular, photographically speaking, but you see that darker bit of slope in the background? That's where the River has worn the valley away into these huge meanders - the land above is mainly flat and ancient volcanic. There are wind generators and cows up here.....

Been working away with my painting - got more trees painted in and today I also started on the ironwork of the gate (? perhaps).

I had to put a bit more light on the tops of the pine-trees as they were blending in too much with the sky - and putting the detail in the ironwork is now starting to bring the background and foreground together....

Till Tomorrow...

Tschüss!

A Painting in Progress - Walnuts and Radlers

Hello Everybody,


I discovered a short while back, that a 'Radler' is a shandy - now it's been a long, long time since I've had a shandy - I think it was back in the New Falcon in the early Eighties. I've only just rediscovered it now, because H was looking for a can of beer to put in the curry and bought a shandy instead - even though it had 'Radler' written all over it. Anyhow, it was left in the fridge for a while and I decided to drink it the other afternoon. 
And do ye know what? It was really nice, tasted just like the one did in the New Falcon.
So this afternoon, as it was sunny and warm, we went down to Siegfried's Bier (and shandy) Wagen and I had a Radler made by Siegfried himself.....
Down by Siegfried's, there are loads of walnut trees - and the walnuts are almost ripe and ready to start dropping to the ground. Then it's a WalnutFest when everyone goes out collecting... Those who are in the Know, get up early and collect the best ones, but a second-best walnut is good-enough for me.

This particular walnut was on the ground, with part of the green casing eaten away by some little creature - there are supposed to squirrels here but we've never seen any. Plenty of moles though - 

'Where do the moles go when the river floods?'

Nobody seems to know.

Got the conifer trees painted in my picture today - I had intended to paint the trees under the castle, but when I mixed up the paint it seemed to me to be more conifery, so I did those instead. Also used much the same colour for painting the River. The water is whatever colour is reflected in it plus a little bit extra....

So for now,

Tschüss!

A Painting in Progress - Vine Leaves and Zell

Hello Everybody,
Had to go to Zell this morning to the Bank and whatever - a lovely, sunny day and we decided to have a glass of wine on the way back.....

Unfortunately, the place we chose was having it's 'Ruhetag', which means 'No Wine Today' - it was a shame as it as the perfect day for a wine by the River. All the bars and hotels around here, have a 'Ruhetag' - a quiet day, a day off once day a week (always the same day, but different days for different hotels) - and this can sometimes be a bit unfortunate as there can be six days of bad weather, then on the good day, when there's business to be had, it's the day off..... Got a nice photo anyhow...... I love these half-timbered houses....

Got the vine-leaves done in my painting this afternoon - I made them a bit more spikey and smaller than real vine-leaves would be, but the tendrils are curling around the Stars (well, one of them) - so that's good enough for meself.

The Star formation is The Plough, it's not to scale and more than likely not in the right position, but it's my favourite Constellation and I think this is where it fits best.

The weather was hot and sunny here today, but the evenings are getting cold. Can we really be thinking about winter already......

Tschüss?