Saturday 29 June 2013

Tiny & Beautiful

I absolutely love my iphone macro lens that I recently purchased.  I am so undone by God's amazing creativity, putting so much beauty in nature, in tiny plants that we normally step on, walk by and overlook.

I spent some time today down by the river taking pictures with my iphone macro lens and I discovered a whole world that that was breath-takingly beautiful. I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them.


And just to show scale, here is my son standing on the above pictured Tiny Buttons Stonecrop plant.


Have an amazing, beauty-filled weekend!

Silvia
follow me on instagram at silviaklassen 

Thursday 27 June 2013

Stopping to See ...

My life, like most people's lives, is busy! My husband Tim & I lead a church, we have four kids and we home school them. Along with that, I am working hard at growing as an artist and developing my skills and passion.  As part of my journey, I am studying under a local artist and taking courses.  Right now I am taking three on-line courses and l am really enjoying them.  Needless to say, my life is full (& I love it!)

As an artist I am always looking for inspiration and I often bring my digital SLR camera with me when we go on an outing.  However, it is big and I don't always want to bring it with me.  I do however carry my iphone with me pretty much all the time now & I have a folder full of useful camera apps that I use all the time to take, and edit, my pictures. I purposely keep a watchful eye out for fun, unique or beautiful shots.

Taking pictures has always been something I love to do and I love how it reminds me to stop and look at what is around me. There is beauty everywhere.  Helen Keller once said, "Why not learn to enjoy the little things ... there are so many of them."

Here are a few little things I enjoyed this week ...



One last thing ... I've joined the world of Instagram. If you are an Instagramer you can follow me at: silviaklassen

Silvia

Wednesday 19 June 2013

Easy Art Journaling

With the onset of summer just a few days away, I thought I would put a post up about art journaling through the summer. Summer is a great time to start an art journal if you have been toying with the idea. There are many quick ways to art journal, and I will be sharing some ideas here along the way.

Journal pages can as easy or as complicated as you want them to be.  The wonderful thing about art journaling is that there are no mistakes ... no right or wrong way to journal and no one ever has to see your pages if you don't want them to!  It is a place where you are free to try new techniques, learn and explore. Its also an expressive way process your your days and weeks, your memories, hopes, dreams & celebrations, as well as your hurts and struggles.

Lately, I have been remembering what summer felt like as a child and the words, "the lazy days of summer" often come to mind. Summer days as a child were often a blank slate that I filled through-out the day. There was little planned until our family vacation, and I recall the excitement of waking up knowing I could, within reason, do whatever came to mind. 

I have a package of adorable patterned paper that I have not yet used and last night I was eager to create a journal page with a few pieces, but my time was limited.  So I pulled out my paper stack, adhesive, washi tape (colourful, often patterned tape ... see pic below), as well as a few other materials and got to work:

The patterns I chose felt so summery and carefree!

I glued some old wall paper samples down as my base and then added colourful pieces of paper with the washi tape.

basket of washi tape

I added a few little details with markers and a smudge of acrylic paint and I was ready to go!


Under the flaps that I created with the paper and washi I wrote all about my childhood summer memories. And as we head into this summer, I hope to create some wonderful memories for my own kids.

These two pages were fast and easy and I love how simple and pretty they look.

Look around your home and see what you could use to create some easy art journaling pages and get started!!

(A few ideas: coloured paper, old cards, wrapping paper, patterned napkins, washi tape, tempera paint, stamps, old envelopes, funky labels.)

Silvia

Monday 3 June 2013

the story she tells...

Its been a while since I last posted, but I have been busy working on some projects and I want to share one here.

One of the themes of my life is freedom and it comes up over and over again in my art ... it has since I was a teenager. One of the amazing things about art is how you learn about yourself and see your life through your work.  And really, I think it has to be that way for it to truly be art.

Freedom is something that God spoke to me about many years ago, and I am able to see more and more clearly how close to His heart it really is; without freedom we can never truly love, and we can never choose Him.

It wasn't until I finished this painting that I saw that I had unknowingly woven the theme of freedom into my canvas yet again.  But that is what I see, with my story behind me. Perhaps with your eyes you see something else ...





Silvia