Monday Love: Stripes




I love stripes. 
And sometimes, i also love to paint stripes. The first two and the fourth picture are paintings of mine - the first one got sold to a winery and decorates their very modern tasting room (1st photo).

Picture: sunset:  


Painting stripes has a meditative quality about it. You don't have to think about what you paint, you just go along with the process, intuitively choosing colors.

  Stripes can be seen as a lot of things. A landscape, a bookshelf, a window with curtains, a fence, a deckchair, a pattern - and they always seem to have an easy, playful quality about them. 



I love the arrangement of colors in this  elegant living room 
Picture: Elle decor


Stripes look good on dreses too - but really what caught my eyes in this picture was the quilt in the backgroung - isn't it striking?
Picture: Country living



Hope your week starts on an easy, playful note as well. As far as i'm concerned, i feel a lot of pressure at the moment. Maybe stripes can ease my mind!

Other Fotos:  MVS 



Friday Pretties: Wild things



Orchids are such fantastic flowers

They seem to me like little faces, like butterflies, elves, fairies - and i love their colours. The little faun on the turquoise background is an older painting of mine that was inspired by Picasso. His fauns and kentaurs keep inspiring me and sometimes, out in nature, i seem to hear a distant flute playing and want to be one of these wild things myself!

See more Prettieness here!

Monday Love: Weekend fun


Weekend fun on a monday? 
Well, i hope we can transfer some of the good mood and take it along 
as the week gets of to a busy start again. Some time for play should be allowed!


On saturdays, i love to visit the market. The regular market with it's abundance of vegies, fruit and flowers, or sometimes the flea market along the river Rhine.


Find some nice old - but new to me - treasures and arrange them in a new way. I I have a present box, which i fill up with things that might be cute little presents one day. And when an occasion comes up, i look in there and see what i've got!


This is my friend Susann in a beer garden at the freight harbour, who came along. She looks kind of thoghtful here, but we've been laughing a lot!

Pictures: 1st, 2nd and 4th: MVS, 
3rd (the birdcage): Country living 

Friday Pretties: Finding Balance

Finding Balance - yes!

Are you craving the weekend like i do? 
Somehow, my schedule and head are both so full at the moment, that i really look forward to some free time. The weather's been crazy here (cold!), but tomorrow will be fine and i look forward to
a long and lazy breakfast
a walk over the fleamarket
an art exibition
meeting friends and
sitting outside in a local winery,
talking and eating something nice,
go on reading ...
... Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything by  Elizabeth Gilbert .Maybe you know it already - it's been on the Bestseller list for along time and now out as a film with Julia Roberts. I love this book. It's wise and funny and the author feels like a good friend already.

See more pretties at Joyces Blog

Monday Love: Timeless beauty

"The work in a fashion magazine can be a dream and sometimes true hell. But you are never in a limbo!!!"
(Same goes for work in a parenting magazine - ha ha!)

This is Franca Sozzani, editor of Italian vogue, and - so beautiful i find, and always very well dressed. She's kept a girlish charme without ever looking "teenile", and I'd love to look like her when i'm older.
Picture via Sartorialist

"The trick in life is learning how to deal with it."
Helen Mirren, Foto via
Helen Mirren is so great. She's on the height of fame in her sixtees, and why not? Times have changed and she's become a role model for many.


Michelle Oka Doner
is an artist i've already posted about - and this is what she looks like: a stunning beauty, regardless of age.
photo via
"If you stick to your work it will take care of you somehow."
Kiki Smith

And this is artist Kiki Smith, whom you may know. Her work is so intense - and she's an example for how some women indeed look more beautiful as they get older. It's the inner shining through.
Photo via

Friday Pretties: Blue flowers




Don't you love feeling blue sometimes?
I feel like taking a little break in outer space right now, or at the blue lagoon, or in the desert, where the night skies must be vast and the stars huge and dripping with light. I heard that the bushmen even hear the stars making sounds, and i'd love to find out wether i could hear them too.

This painting was done after reading a lot of Laurence van der Post, a south african author who wrote wonderful books about the bushmen and the animals of his country. The painting is long sold, but i remembered it today, because i craved this kind of deep but friendly blue. The kind you sometimes see, just before it gets dark. In Aura Soma colour-therapy the blue bottle stands for peace and peaceful leadership.

Have a colourful weekend with everything you like best - i'd be happy to hear from you!

Monday Love: Pink rooms and a pink dress


Think Pink!
It is such a good mood color and perfect to start the week on an optimistic note:
Look, i'm ready to enjoy life, and i'm here to add raspberry and cream to the daily bread and butter!
As a kid, my dream was a pink ball gown. Today, a tiny dose - like pink toenails - are mostly enough to ad a twinkle to an outfit.


Pink is a color, that always looks great on photos - a real eye candy. Pink floor and  walls and chair might be a wee bit too much in real life - but isn't it gorgeous in this picture? I'd love to stroll around in this room and see what it feels like..


And look what it does to this tiny kitchen.  Doesn't it look bright and happy, even though everything else is so basic? Color just ads emotion - and why be sparse with it?


Pink in Feng Shui:
Pink in an environment sooths the heart and fills it with love. Placed it in the Southwest area of your home,it benefits the Love and Marriage aspect of your life. Hmmmm - ever tried that? ;)

Since i'm living with 3 men (and a tomcat) i must be careful about using pink in my surroundings. But a painting, a cushion or a bright orchid can be wonderful already.

 Pictures: Wedding magazine, Marie Claire Maison


And look what i've got the other day - as a belated birthday present from my sister: A lovely pink bag from greengate. The perfect accessoire to jazz up my outfits for the last month of summer -Yay!


P.S.: Jane Mansfield said: "A woman should be pink and cuddly for a man." Do you agree?


Friday Pretties: Simple pleasures - a picture and a story

Once upon a time
in Spain there was a little bull and his name was Ferdinand. All the other little bulls he lived with would run and jump and butt their heads together, but not Ferdinand. He liked to sit just quietly and smell the flowers. He had a favorite spot out in the pasture under a cork tree. It was his favorite tree and he would sit in its shade all day and smell the flowers. Sometimes his mother, who was a cow, would worry about him. She was afraid he would be lonesome all by himself. "Why don't you run and play with the other little bulls and skip and butt your head?" she would say. But Ferdinand would shake his head. "I like it better here where I can sit just quietly and smell the flowers." His mother saw that he was not lonesome, and because she was an understanding mother, even though she was a cow, she let him just sit there and be happy.
From a story by Munro Leaf

I guess, we all need these Ferdinand moments from time to time - at least i do. Just quietly enjoying something nice and coming back to our senses. Have a lovely weekend everyone!
And don't forget to look at more Friday pretties at "Pretty little things"

Aquarell painting and heart: MVS - Moi