And then: ★
Tag Archives: art
Germany
So, I moved to Germany to volounteer work at The White Rabbit Arts. It’s pretty nice here. Very german. Like really, I think I’ve only ever lived in really international communities, even when I’ve been abroad. So just being in a new country, in an apartment full of people who mainly speak german, is different. It’s like actually moving.
And so far I think that Germany is:
1. Warmer than Sweden. Not by much, but a little warmer.
2. Bigger. Obviously. Nürnberg is a pretty big city, and there’s just more people here in general, which means that you can walk down the street and find a random four story book store with a little café hidden inside. In Sweden that would go into bankruptcy within a week if it wasn’t in Stockholm or something.
3. More social. Slightly, at least? Once again, I quite like it.
So, here’s a collection of pictures, from the train station (interesting), my apartment and writing out my letters to the people who support my volounteer work.
Hugs in german to you✽
Some notes the internalized belief that we are not worthy.
My doubts about what I’m doing with my life are unhealthily dealt with by me creating a persona that I feel is allowed to do what it is that I want.
Because here’s the thing, maybe I would myself only support someone in my situation if they were far enough removed from me. If they were a fun artsy character that I could be amused by and get inspiration from. If they were “normal”, maybe from my village, a completely ordinary person, I would instead be slightly annoyed and feel that they shouldn’t be allowed to do that. My own internalized fear that I’m not allowed, fundamentally: jealousy. If they’re a character however, someone far enough removed from us, we don’t have to feel guilty about us not doing what we want with our lives.
We turn ourselves into the charicature of a role in order to gain some heavenly allowance to walk a certain path. Or other people’s allowance. Or our own allowance, since it’s our own belief about our insufficiency that we subconsciously push onto other people. And maybe I went the crazy artist route instead of the normal missionary one because it’s easier. Because my charicature of the slightly crazy, flighty artist is simple compared to my idolized charicature of missionary, a holy mix of some old school mother Theresa and present day social ball of sunshine, spotless and unattainable.
But the truth is: you’re allowed to remain an ordinary person while pursuing an extraordinary life. In fact, I think it’s absolutely essential.
Ocean
I’ve always struggled with painting landscape. But here are some things that make it easier:
- Work in layers. I literally took a blue pen and very roughly sketched out the painting. Then I took acrylics and used them with a lot of water to make an underpainting – at this point you don’t have to be careful, just put down colour where it’s supposed to be. And then I added oils, which is where I could actually start blending things, and get the exact shades, details and depth. The first steps are easy, because there’s no pressure when you know you’re gonna paint over it anyway. And the last step is easy, because you have the guide of the paint you’ve already applied.
- Choose a reference photo with a lot of contrast. This might be personal preference, but I can’t deal with painting full meadows with a thousand different colours in them. I might just need to learn the right techniques, but for now it’s easier to paint something with contrast. That means the dark parts are just dark, and there are big blocks of basically just one colour. That makes it a bit easier to grasp for me, and when a picture has clear shapes it’s easier to know where to begin.
- I actually only have two points, but it just looks better with a third.
(Etsy)
(Continuing from my last post, I’ve been sharing a lot of my art on etsy lately. Mainly pretty small things, because then they don’t have to be that expensive but it can still be an original piece. I want to write some sort of essay about that – on the merits of original art, simply because I believe there is power and beauty in that kind of shared creativity. I don’t know exactly why or how though, so I want to figure it out for myself to tell it better to others. Anyway, here’s a link.)
On the nature of daylight
I’ve been making even more sky painting lately, because it grounds me somehow. When I get better at it I want to make bigger ones and make a full on exhibition, name it On the nature of daylight, after one of my favourite songs.
Here are some round ones I’m experimenting with.
Epilogue
I guess this is some sort of epilogue to my posts about Germany, because I just wanted to share:
1. This cool photo of me by the Swedish west coast, where we stopped while driving home.
2. And these random screenshots from my phone, because we drove home and everything was beautiful and I needed to make quick sketches of the sky so I can make actual paintings of it later.
A Sunset and An Evening Sky
(Little set of 2)
(3 Quotes that hit me and got written down in my notebook)
- “Every time you wrestle with your doubts, every time you dismantle your intellect to use a tool instead of analysing it, every time you choose to practice instead of theorize your creativity, you will move forward.”
- “Art is a field that’s defined by your actions, not by your qualifications.”
- “The 21st century is an aesthetic century. In history there are ages of reason and there are ages of spectacle, and it’s important to know which you’re in. Our America, our internet, is not ancient Athens. it’s Rome. And your problem is you think you’re in the forum when you’re really in the circus.”
(+1
- “Trust yourself. Trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true.”)
The sky and sky and sky
A documentation of the sky. This is my new diary, a documentation of different skies – although it’s the same sky, I suppose, like Monet’s water lilies. Painted in different seasons and different light.
I want to put them in a little case because they’re becoming too many, carry them with me. Maybe put them in a journal, one on each page.
(We’ll see)
eirians 