Sent 3 paintings for jurying

I have filled in the forms and sent photos of 3 of my paintings today for a juryied exhibition. Sørlandsutstilllingen.

No time for painting today either

No painting today

No painting today - too busy evaluation end of term papers. Too busy and too tired too often. My muse is tired. Lots of ideas has been worked on mentally this autumn but too little has come of it. Yepp, like my students I do need the Chritmas break hehehe.

Tired, watercolours on watercolour paper 21x30cm

Tired,

watercolours on watercolour paper

21x30cm

$35

p&p is FREE

Lovely couple visiting

Today I had a lovely visit of a friend of mine Elisabeth bringing her new puppy; Charlie, a golden retriver.

Yellow Birdladies Queueing at the Sale, watercolours on watercolour paper 21x30cm

Yellow Birdladies Queueing at the Sale,
watercolours on watercolour paper
21x30cm
$35
p&p is FREE

This weekend one of the local churches has had its yearly Chritmas basaar where they serve and sell bakery, especially specially a traditional bakery called "lefse" which is a tortillasimilar dish baked on a special round plate called "takke". It can last for a very long time in a dry state which is how they stored them in the old days when refridgerators and such were not invented. When eaten it is softened and folded after having had butter suger and cinnamon put on. (or other things depending on where in the country you are from). They can be made by using different kinds of flour and also potatoes.

In the basaar they also sell some handicrafts and some books but most of all I think many comes for all the lottories, especially since the local bingo stopped. I bought some Christmas presents myself and also a couple of books. One of them has been my companion this weekend: All the way home by Ann Tatlock.

Three of my books were also on sale there but as with the rest of the handicrafts and books there, I am sad to say that most were packed up and carried home again. Prices in general were very close to material costs so I really do not know what traditional crafts can do to compete in the modern market. Me, I adore handmade things - the knowledge that it has come to life usually in a home by a person taking care putting it together with personal skills. I also love the fact that most of them are one of a kind things because small differences occur in crafts. Also for a couple of things like wollen stockings - the traditional knitted ones like the ones grans used to knit are the very best ones, way better quality than the store bought ones.

Trying Too Hard, watercolours on watercolour paper 21x30cm

Trying Too Hard,

watercolours on watercolour paper

21x30cm

$35

p&p is FREE

Bird Frying Sausage, ink drawing 21x30cm

At work things are very busy these days with the end of term tests starting on Monday and we are all running around harassing the poor students to make them as prepared as possible. Tonight I have put the finishing touches on the 9th graders tests for Norwegian. We are trying out a new way of doing it more in line with the new curriculums and evaluation demands. It will be exiting to see whether this works better than the traditional ones.

In between the test days my co class teacher and I thought we would have a nice day in between so next Thursday, weather permitting, we will have a day out with sausage grilling and games. Our 9th grade team tries to find a way to get outdoors once a month but we do not always succeed. This is due to too many children and teenagers spending too much time in front og the tv and computer games and thus getting too little physical activity and schools trying to even that out a tad.



Bird Frying Sausage,
ink drawing
21x30cm
$45
p&p is FREE

Dark Eye in mount, acrylics on watercolour paper 15x20cm

Today's painting was originally one I planned on using in a collage or something but when I arrived home from work today my mum, who is visiting at the moment, said that the Eye had kept looking at her all day from my work table. That lead us to considerin just as it was in different versions of mounts. With a cream inner mount and then a black outer mount the imagery really popped out.

Dark Eye in mount,

acrylics on watercolour paper

15x20cm

$45

p&p is FREE

Poetry project at work

This week I will be working extra long hours because both 9th grade classes have done poetry in Norwegian and each student has delivered a folder with several poems each. Most of these will be sorted and put together in a poetry book by me and that work is of course a much bigger job than I considered when thinking it was a great idea. Lots of work sorting and getting layouts fitting together as well as keeping my wits so that I do not include any poems marked private and have removed the author on any poem marked anonymous etc etc . I do believe however that the end result will be great.