I don’t know how you guys get on with the wintry season. I enjoy sitting near to the heating, rolled into my wool blanket and having my cup of hot choclate or my glass of wine there, reading a book or watching a Netflix series on my tablet – that’s great on cold, dark winter days!! But talking from the artist view, I suppose winter months are the most challenging if you’re used to paint with colours.
Often, it starts to get dark outside already at 4:30 pm here in Northern Germany. Some days I come home from work and have only one (!) hour to be productive as possible I can before I have to turn my little lamp on to get some extra light. As you noticed, I like to work on the floor when I use acrylics. I can focus on many parts at the same time and mustn’t lean down to grab any colours or to take a snack because it’s all right there beside me :).
I have to say at this point that I really don’t like unnatural light when working with colours – they appear in a kind of understrength and unreal way (like viewed through a filter). Compare with the Gallery photos made during daytime – it’s completely another picture!
Nevertheless, weekend is on the corner – best time to be saved for all the creative projects requiring daylight :)! Wishing you a good time and stay safe!!
Do you recognise occurences like these: You’re tidying up and suddenly your focus rests on some piece of furniture. You look at it from the distance censoriously and think: Man, what an annoying soul-empty expression of N O T H I N G – I don’t wanna keep you any more!
Nowadays, it seems to be easier than ever to throw things away and order new chic ones – but wait and think again: Is there any chance to substitute the boring emptyness you feel looking at that piece with a sudden inspriration? My husband Thomas is great at having such creative brainstorms. I really appreciate his positive impact on everything. Before our wedding for instance, we had a LOT of decisions to make. We decided to move from two separate flats into one only. Hardest part was to decide what to keep, what to recycle and what to get rid of – and we had only one month for that and all the renovation work (for all of the three flats!) included. We had to keep tabs on our wedding costs, so we couldn’t even think about big new buyings. Best situation to get creative :)!!
You see the white little cupboard above? Thomas took it some day from some house clearance and it fits perfectly to our bathroom basin. I made the first transformation step by changing the knobs, but for the next 11 months it stayed the same – boring white with some flakings on the top side.
One day in April during the first lockdown this year, we decided to go window shopping in the Bremer (Steintor-)Viertel (a nice part of the town full of individual boutiques, coffee bars and restaurants near to the Theater Bremen). There you can find many many shops offering vintage and designer furniture. In one window we saw a fancy lowboy coloured in light grey with golden leopard print and totally fall in love with the idea to get that amazing look for our bathroom cupboard, too!
Thomas started sanding the surface at the same day. He mixed a green colour from our wall colours left and painted the cupboard two times – the golden leo pattern was my task. At the end, we sealed our new it-piece with a wood warnish to avoid damage. And for the ultimate look, we changed the knobs again to reach a little more “Serengeti” style.
What we really, really enjoyed after the first lockdown in June 2020, was our fourth visit at Anette Breu’s Keramikatelier. If you’re searching for a great made-with-love gift for someone or a relaxing and alternative art project, you should definitely try this!
My first visit at Anette’s pottery studio was in November 2018. My beloved childhood friend invited me to spend a girls day with her on the occasion of my engagement on October 2nd. She really knows what I love!!!
You step in and note an inconspicuous sound of jazz music and the aromatic smell of coffee. On some of the table groups people are already working intensely on their projects. The whole room is enframed by shelfs high to the ceiling, full of blank pottery – plates, mugs, pitchers, bowls, but also little decor stuff like napkin rings, candle holders and little figurines are waiting for being painted. No sooner you’ve had time to see everything, Anette’s warm voice welcomes you and shows you the wardrope, the bathroom and the table group reserved exclusively for you and your company for the next few hours. She gives a little introduction of the materials and techniques, let you see some examples and soon you will find youself equipped with a potter’s wheel and a cup of frehsly brewed coffee right back on your work place. Rule no. 1 is: Wash your hands before touching any blank from the shelfs (the blanks have a special coating which reacts with any skin oils on your hands; that would make the colours harder to stick on the surface). Then – it is the most difficult part – you have to choose your favourite piece from the shelfs to start with. I think I spent 30 minutes just imagining which one I would miss most in our home :)! After having made your selection, it comes to rule no. 2 when choosing the colours: Let Anette know what colours you’d like to use before you grab them from the colour shelf. She knows best how much of the colour you would need. To avoid waste, she fills them into little cups, refillable at any time. That leads us directly to rule no. 3: Never ever use the same brush, finger or whatever for different colours!!! They have to stay un-mixed to guarantee a perfect result at the burning procedure later. And important: Try to paint in layers! More layers of each colour you put on, more saturated the result colour would be! Anette recommends at least three layers of the same colour to put on. And now you start! For all those ones who feel overextended by the task of hands-free painting, Anette has a big (big!) folder with lots of print motives to create nice serigraphies or to use them as template to draw your individual motive. Then, she has a huuuuuge collection of different stamps and other cool stuff to treat the pottery surface with. I promiss, you will not notice how fast time is running when you’re concentrated on your painting – it’s incredible and so fun!
Thomas and I spent nearly two hours for our newest attainments: I broke our old salt bin, so he created a new one. Then, we decided to have an individual toilet brush holder in pop art style (the motive is freehand painted but I’ve searched for some inspiration in Anette’s BIG folder ;)) …
Due to the pandemic, in Germany the second lockdown is waiting on the starting blocks from the beginning of November 2nd, 2020 on.
Restaurants and coffee bars are to be closed for the whole month, as well as institutions like theatres, concert and opera houses, cinemas and museums – but also amusement parks, swimming/wellness baths and all kind of sport studios. For self-employed persons like my mom this is a really tough time – no business and no chance to perform. Only comfort is that there are many others who go the same through at the moment … And, safety and health are the ultimate ambition!
For me, this pandemic and the short-time work during the spring and summer months offered an opportunity to think about different people I really miss right now because it will not be possible to visit them for a long time (like my grandma in Finland). Therefore, I started to design little cards and writing paper. Now, card per card, letter per letter I’m really busy to fill them with content and send them to family and friends all over the world.
Yesterday evening, I talked to my childhood friend about this website project. She works at an architect’s office for nearly 5 years now. Before, she completed her architectural studies and collected some work experience in different architectural projects at different workplaces.
Similar to me, she rediscovered painting during the COVID-19 pandemic. She pointed out an interesting subject which inspired me to write this post.
For any kind of artist, from time to time there are existing almost the same doubts about being taken seriously when presenting works of art. Would others value what I do? Would my art be understood? Is it good enough to be presented? Am I important at all??? We all know them good. Sadly, but I assume that those doubts are the worst obstacles when deciding if art is to be presented or not, if a website is to be established, a dream realised, and so on.
My grandma would say: Do whatever you do with all your heart and then it will be great (or in Finnish: Kun teet mitä teet koko sydämelläsi, varmasti onnistuu!). She is right! Instead of bothering ourselves (and othes) with right-to-exist questions, we should go ahead – let others see what we see and offer them an individual insight-out experience from our perspective! And remember: We can’t please everyone – but sure, there will be at least someone who likes what we do!
[To my dear childhood friend: Can’t wait for YOUR website!!! She paints awesome portraits of people from photos – would be a pity to miss them!!!]
A new week has started and nothing but rain since yesterday … I mean the really bad rain called “Dauerregen” in German (continous rain). Today was little better, we had “Nieselregen” (drizzling rain), but you feel like doused comming home from work.
How you guys get your motivation for beeing creative on such rainy days? To be honest, for a moment I thought I couldn’t resist imagining myself grabbing the blanket and turning on some Netflix series – Friends for instance … and choclate! But no! Okay – YES to the choclate – but I came to the conclusion that rainy days are perfect to work at something that would be even harder on a warm, sunny day. I turned my motivation music on (like “Queen – Don’t stop me now”, “Supertramp – Goodbye Stranger” or “Led Zeppelin – Out on the Tiles”) and finally got started … 🙂
Man, if I’d known how much work it is to revise all those photos and to choose the “valuable” ones I hadn’t started yet, but no excuses! I think the first step is done :). Please, take a look – soon there will appear other works (some still in progress) to look at!!
I’m happy to welcome you to my website. A friend of mine encouraged me to start this thing – so, here I am – really excited what will happen on this page in the next few months and full of beans and enthusiasm to show you my works …
First things first. My name is Olga-Venla Magdalena Krüger and “in real life” I’m working as Technical Documentation Professional of a well-known company in Bremen (Germany). I do that for nearly 12 years now, but never forgot my actual passion – art.
I draw/paint pictures since I’m 1 year old – will show you some first works as soon as my mom finds them ;). In school, I graduaded in art as advanced course – then I prepared 6 different portfolios for the art college, but never went there. I decided to study German and Italian language plus literature instead, graduaded, then found the job at the company mentioned above – and now I find myself creating this website for art, funny.
What else to tell about me: I’m born in 1988. Besides my work and my passion for art, I love to dance ballet. I dance for more than 31 years – actually, my mom is a teacher for Ballet and Modern Dance in Bremen. So, don’t hesitate to visit her website if you are searching for a new great way to get in shape :). Then, there is a hobby I really should pay more attention to – the piano. I used to play on concerts in my teens – even long pieces from Debussy, Mozart, Beethoven, Bartók – but during my university studies I became unmotivated and my carrier as a concert pianist was over before it started at all. I’m living with my lovely husband Thomas in a nice little township in Bremen and we love to decorate other people’s homes (and ours) and to refurbish old furniture.
I will show you shortly some of my/our newest but also older works – so you could get an impression of what I do and whether you like it :).
magdalenaarte.com 