Friday 27 February 2015

Yoga and Art (Yoku): Cocooning

paint brushes in half a circle
Last night was another session of Yoku (yoga and art): cocooning part II. I missed the first part because I was in Venice. Apparently they wanted to continue this theme because they felt it was not really Spring and most people are not ready to come out of their cocoon yet, but would like to explore their inner space more before stretching their wings.
participant Charlotte painting with watercolors
participant Charlotte painting with watercolors
participant Eline painting with watercolors
The yoga session was about cleansing your aura (your cocoon) energetically and to fire up the heart, so there were lots of fast breathing exercises with our arms up in the air.
painting of participant Esmee
We painted with watercolors this time, for me this was the first time ever for watercolors so I had no idea how to work with this. We received a little explanation and demonstration, then I fooled around with it, looked at the others and did my own version of a watercolor.
The 'assignment' was to paint a shape that represented the border of your inner space and to simply fill it with colours.
my finished watercolor about inner space
I felt like a red, circular space with a few distinct lines and I filled in the circle with coloured shapes. I was not so sure of what and how, I felt more movement in me than colours. As this is my first attempt at this technique I think it turned out not so bad and looking back at it now it is quite accurately actually. My inner space and energy is divided into several projects which have been keeping me quite busy lately: hectic going-ons at work, traveling & getting ready for Venice, assembling a portfolio for a new exhibition (hopefully it is going to work), planning my trip to India this Summer and I just acquired a new and large commission for photography.
It is all coming together: today I bought my ticket to India.
four finished watercolors
As always we were surprised to find how different each work is from the other, and at the same time so very personal. One of the other participants told me that she was always amazed at my bold work, whereas I am always a little jealous of her craft and subtlety. No need to be jealous of course, I am exploring my own creativity and enjoying the ride!

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Venice: gondolas and gondoliers

blue empty gondola
blue empty moored gondola
This post is about the gondolas and gondoliers of Venice, these two are obviously linked with each other and traditionally connected to the city of Venice. The gondola is a traditional Venetian rowing, suited to the conditions of rowing in the laguna.
five moored gondolas
five moored gondolas
For centuries the gondolas were the main means of transportation in the Venetian canals. Nowadays they are mainly used for transporting tourists or in regattas.
oar of partly covered gondola
oar of a partly covered gondola
Gondolas are (hand)made using 8 different kinds of wood and are composed of 280 pieces. The oars are made of beech wood. 

queue of gondola traffic
a queue of gondola traffic
We noticed this year that more and more people from the East are using the gondolas for a ride around town.

riding gondola in a quite Venetian canal
gondola in a quite Venetian canal
The profession of gondolier is controlled by a guild, which issues a limited number of 425 licenses. The license is granted after periods of training and apprenticeship, and a major exam which tests knowledge of Venetian history and landmarks, foreign language skills as well as practical skills of handling the gondola in tight spaces of the Venetian canals.
red striped gondolier
red striped gondolier
crowds on the bridges and on the water
crowds on the bridges and on the water
reflecting gondolier
reflecting gondolier
a typical gondola during carnival
a typical gondola during carnival: to be seen or not to be seen
gondola on the Canal Grande
gondola on the Canal Grande
gondolier on the phone
gondolier on the phone
stern of a Venetian gondola
stern of a Venetian gondola
Every detail of the gondola has its own symbolism. The iron prow-head of the gondola is needed to counter balance the weight of the gondolier at the stern and the 'S' shape symbolizes the twists in the Canal Grande.
moored and riding gondolas in front of the Rialto bridge
moored and riding gondolas in front of the Rialto bridge
 
navy blue striped gondolier
navy blue striped gondolier
We went on a gondola ride once about four years ago, it is an experience you need to do once in your life I think as the view to the city is quite different from the water than from the sidewalks. When in Venice, do as the Venetians. Well, the Venetians take the vaporetto, the waterbus. It is a lot less romantic and expensive than a gondola.

Saturday 21 February 2015

Venice: reflections

reflection of a yellow house in a Venetian canal
I've been back for three days now and I'm enjoying looking back at my photos so much. The only problem is that I took so many that I hardly know where to begin. Of course my friends who joined me on this trip want to see the photos too and I've slowly started to upload them onto my computer and to put them in folders categorized by day.  
reflection of two houses in a Venetian canal
I've already put the photos taken with my pocket camera in a special Venice dropbox so my travel companions can easily access them. The photographs taken with my DLSR are a different matter: I shot them in raw format and need to change them first into jpeg otherwise they will not be able to see them.
reflection of a blue pole in a Venetian canal
reflection of a blue pole in a Venetian canal 
reflection of two houses in a Venetian canal
reflection of two houses in a Venetian canal
Anyways, I've decided to start posting the photos batch by batch and by topic. After scanning my photos I decided to start with reflections because I don't have an awful lot of them and secondly I just love reflections (as you may know by now).
These photos are not posted in any particular order. Just know that the first days were grey and overcast and that the last three days were very sunny. I do hope you enjoy them.
three gondelas and their reflections in a Venetian canal
three gondelas and their reflections in a Venetian canal

part of the Arsenale wall reflected in a Venetian canal
part of the Arsenale wall reflected in a Venetian canal
Our apartment was near the Arsenale, which is an area where in former days the shipping industry was located, as in building ships. The people who worked there were called Arsenalotti. The area is surrounded by a wall and the entrance is still only permitted by people of the Italian navy. Parts of the wharfs are dismantled and refurbished for festival or theatre purposes. On one of our nights we saw a spectacular show of fireworks over there.
reflection of two houses in a Venetian canal
reflection of two houses in a Venetian canal on an overcast day
black and white reflection
black and white reflection
two gondelas and a reflection of a yellow palazzo in Venice
two gondelas and a reflection of a yellow palazzo in Venice
reflection of a peach coloured palazzo in Venice
reflection of a peach coloured palazzo in Venice
oar of a gondolier in Venice
oar of a gondolier in Venice
reflection of the Italian and Venetian flag in a canal
reflection of the Italian and Venetian flag in a canal

Friday 20 February 2015

Back from Venice

Hello again, I'm back from Venice (Italy) and my friends and I had a wonderful time over there. I took so many photos I don't know what to do with them, I'll probably post them in the next couple of days in some sort of order. For now I can tell you that our apartment was wonderful and closely located to the San Marco square. We had breakfast together in the apartment, cooked a few dinners there but also dined out. We drank prosecco at the Caffè Florian, walked around in our costumes, posed for numerous cameras, shopped, rested, ate delicious ice-cream and other dolci: in short, we had a great holiday! I'll tell you more about it in the next couple of weeks.
mosaic of Carnival of Venice, 2015
See also:
Our own photoshoot
Our costumes
Venetian reflections
Gondolas and gondoliers

Tuesday 10 February 2015

Off to Venice

costumed in Venice
Well guys, I'm off to Venice now. I will not write long posts while we are over there, maybe not at all, I don't know. It all depends on the utilities at our apartment, and, I need to take a good rest from everything. I'm more likely to post shots on IG. 
I'll be back sometime next week. Have a good week!

Monday 9 February 2015

Almost off to Venice

I'm almost off to Venice, just one more day of work and then we fly off to La Serinissima. Below are a few photos of the last time I was there, in 2013.
Venice: street lantern
Venice: street lantern
Carnival in Venice: costumes
Carnival in Venice: costumes
Maria and baby Jesus
Maria and baby Jesus
man in orange costume
man in orange costume
colourful poles

Carnival in Venice: mask on hat
Carnival in Venice: mask on a large hat 
Carnival in Venice: dressed up dandies
Carnival in Venice: dressed up dandies
I am soooo looking forward to it!

Friday 6 February 2015

Beet-blueberry smoothie

Yesterday was day 5, the last day of my mini detox period. I actually want to prolong this until we go to Venice next week, so that is just a few more days. The tablets are finished, but now that I am in the routine I might as well continue eating no meat, dairy, coffee, sugar and alcohol. I have been moderate using those products anyways, so the change is not gigantic. 
beet-blueberry smoothie
Eating a smoothie in the morning is one of my favourite things. So here is another recipe.
Ingredients:
2 cooked beetroots
2 bananas
1 avocado
1 teaspoon of macapowder
1 tablespoon of chiaseeds
splash of coconut water
bit of soy milk 

plate: IKEA Bråkig
ditigal stamp: Elise Blaha

Wednesday 4 February 2015

Yoga and Art (Yoku): The white canvas of every new day

Last Thursday was another episode of Yoku and this time we experimented with drawing patterns from an inner flow. This technique is called dynamic line drawing as I understood afterwards.
wax crayons
As Vir Kaur was away we didn't have a proper yoga session, but Rosanna gave us a physical warm-up and a proper body scan.
discussing each other's dynamic line drawing
After that we went to our drawing table in a fluent move and choose two colours to our liking from pastel colours or wax crayons. Our assignment was to draw figures preferably with our eyes closed and with our bodies moving during drawing. We then choose a particular pattern which we liked best and on a second piece of paper we drew that pattern, large and small and over the whole sheet. After a few minutes we went to one of our neighbors and talked to another what we saw in each other's work. It was quite interesting to hear what the other person had to say.
practicing dynamic line drawing
Elena during dynamic line drawing
We then had to look at your own work again and enhance or highlight the lines and shapes you saw in it. This was the difficult part for me, I didn't see that much form in my drawing. Rosanna looked at my drawing, gave a few suggestions and I was on my way, but I continued wrestling with it.
four dynamic line drawings in a row
When our time was up we had four totally different works lying on the floor. This never ceases to amaze me, that there is so much difference from one piece to the other. I also noticed that I usually have a lot of white space left on the paper, I don't feel the need to cover the whole sheet of paper with paint or pencil.
my dynamic line drawing
Above is my final dynamic line drawing. I really didn't see that much shape in my drawing and this looks rather like a flattened heart, but maybe that is not a coincidence. I really struggled a lot this time. When I was asked about what I would take home with me it was: "I don't know what I can do with it. I don't know whether it is finished or not."
Does that mean that I struggle with the canvas of every new day? I realize that sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Yoku art in our corridor

Vir hanging up our piece of art
Last weekend my housemate Vir Kaur and I found the opportunity to fix our big art project from a former Yoku session to the wall in our long corridor.

Vir hanging up our piece of art
We live in one of the buildings of an old hospital (Wilhemina Gasthuis) in which the nurses used to live so there are plenty of long corridors, rooms on either side of those corridors and common kitchens.
me, hammering away
photo by Vir Kaur
art in our corridorWe decided to use small nails to fix the large piece to the wall: it probably is not going to stay there very long and a few mall nails will not leave great marks in the wall. We measured it out on the sides and on the bottom and then we hammered away. One housemate said he liked it very much, another said it looked like mud (I guess his eyes were not exactly open) and I still would like to hear from another. Vir and I are quite pleased about it. Its vibrant colours and patterns just make us joyful and go beautifully with the purple interiour.
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