NATURE´S BEAUTY

  Today I enjoyed life by hiking in the nearby forest. All alone, just me, in peace. So therapeutic, luxurious even.

All quiet. It is like the calm before storm, stillness before summer´s rush.

I feel so small in a forest. But it feels safe, knowing I´m part of a bigger whole, our planet.

This is the sun we got today. Getting d-vitamin from this is a joke. =)

Remnants from last summer, blueberries still hanging from the shrubs.

This little fellow was the only animal I saw on my trip. On a cloudy day like this, even birds don´t care to chirp.

    It is important to stroll in nature to feel the connection between us. It helps to tune in with what´s really going on in the world. Man-made reality, with it´s worries of money and relationships, lies within the reality of our planet. It is essential to keep the planet alive, so we can stay alive.

IMBOLC ART

  In my mind there´s a picture, an ideal vision, of each sabbat´s soul. I want to get them out of there, to make them visible for everyone. It´s nothing I could photograph, it´s more like a dreamy state of being.
  I decided to paint them. Here´s the first one, Imbolc:

Dreamy light blue with hints of pale pink in the top left corner, and minty green in the bottom right (the hints aren´t as visible here as in reality). Painted with watercolors.

Flat paintings are boring. I want my paintings to have more depth, and I don´t mean only with the colors. I mean actual 3D depth. I glued these paper snowflakes on my painting  to really make them pop.

On the bottom of the piece, I glued a little light turquoise glitter on top of the mint color, to accentuate the icy effect I was going after.

I added these tiny Swarowski glue-on crystals to make resemble both stars in the sky, which are still a very remarkable part of this darker side of the year, and little ice crystals.

To give even more depth, I chose to use these bigger Swarowskis as well. Now that´s 3D!

This type of frame doesn´t draw attention to itself, and showcases the piece separating it from it´s surrounding. This baby ended up in our entrance hall. It´s the best place because you see it when you come home, setting you right into the mood of current sabbat, and is the last thing you see when exiting.

  I´m pleased with how this piece turned out. It wasn´t said that would happend, since I haven´t done painting in two decades.
  Not only am I happy now, but also encouraged to paint more sabbats!

IMBOLC FASHION: MINTY TUNIC

  This tunic came out of vanity, I admit. I saw the gorgeous mint green fabric in the store and just had to buy it. No excuses.
  It is inspired by the rare glimpse of naturally occurring mint-colored ice in nature around Imbolc. So beautiful...

  And here´s what I did with it:

I shortened my new favorite dress pattern, so it barely covers my butt, to turn it into a tunic. So this is a prototype, but it worked well at first shot. Yes! I´ve developed a liking to striped pants and leggings lately. They kind of give a more casual taste to outfits, just like jeans do. I like to think of this outfit as ageless. Meaning I could imagine women of all ages to wear something like this with style and grace, celebrating theirselves. 20´s, 40´s and even 70´s (if posture is still relatively normal). Don´t you?

Here again, I accentuate the color of the garment with matching eyeshadow. Light mint green on the inner lid and dark grey on the outer. I even happened to have minty aromatherapy bow earrings to match. Now this might be too much of the same color, if I did this all the time. But playing like this every now and then is perfectly fine, not to mention fun!

  You see, I just had to buy the fabric!  =)