The story of two cars!

My fathers two Mercedes Benz from 1951 became historical in our family due to their destiny. During a business trip in Germany, an American military plane exploded above in the sky. Cars in front of and behind my father's car started burning. The blast wave was intense so he had to make all his effort with kicking the door to get out. Several people died or were severly injured and a nearby house burned down. My father had his gardian angel watching him as had happend in the past.

The other car was lost in Tunisia Autumn 1958. It was the raining period, my father was late with delivering a work he had been doing for some time. The main road to Tunis was closed, so he to took the smaller road close to the Sea. The sparking plugs became wet and the car stopped just before a bridge. He went over the bridge to ask some guys for help. When he turned back, a flood wave came and took the car, which sank some 100 meters down the river.

I've done a page to celebrate those two lost Mercedes Benz.

 Thanks to Natalie Kalbach's blog hop for her Stencil Girl Oldtimer stencil, (which I, lucky me had won) I could make pictures almost like my father's old cars. One was made by using Liquitex Gloss Super Heavy Gel over the stencil on an OH transparency. The other car, I put Pebeo Heavy Modeling Paste through the stencil on paper. I've used H2O Twinklings, Schjerning Uniq Pearls and Art Metals, Pebeo Studio Dyna Iridescent.

The background is made by glueing tissue paper with gel medium onto a magazine cover, next layers are Galeria Black Lava Texture Gel, Pebeo Black Gesso and Treasure Gold. The stars are made with modeling paste through TCW stencil Punchinella (Balzer design) and Schjerning Art Metal. The gears are Tim Holz dies painted with Uniq Pearl and Treasure Gold, in the middle is a military button and the numbers comes from TGR.
  
Happy crafting

Gerd 

The Challenge of Music!

I jumped into The Challenge of Music just to force me to creat something unique and inspirational.

My choice of piece for the Challenge, was Paul Horn’s Prelude 

from his album Inside of the Taj Mahal. 

It's singing without words and a flute, so beautiful!

Click the above link and listen to the music on YouTube!

I love that music because it brings me into a state of equilibrium and lightness. 

Paul Horn is a fascinating musician, who went to foreign cultures as well as to dolphins in the sea and then interpreted his impressions into fabulous music.

Last year, my focus was on creating jewelry. 

This year, has brought me into the mixed media world, a complete new world of creative techniques, concepts and language.

The past weekend, I attended a mixed media class with Ana Dabrowska aka Finnabair. 

Maybe you can see that I have been inspired by her techniques. 

 However for the Challenge, there was a problem, I had to go beyond the picture of the Taj Mahal. 

Eventually, I woke up one morning with the ultimate picture in my mind. 

My subconscious was still acting during my work. 

What a surprice! After finishing the picture, I could reveal these themes -

The Night, leaving the dark sides of life, meets the Sunrise coming with a new sparkling Day.  

The dark Evil against the supreme Good coming from the Sun.  

 

The Snake in Paradise and

Phoenix & the Eternity!
 

Some other details, the butterfly threatened by the snake behind

The snake's tail

 

The materials, are grunge things ( the snake is made of an old dog leash), left-overs from the past weekend, pearls, shisha mirrors, glitter glue and acrylics. 

I had a styrofoam plate coated with a piece of rough silk instead of a canvas. 

Thank you Erin Prais-Hintz for this exiting challenge!  

Let's do the The Challenge of Music blog hop!

Here are my fellows in the Challenge of Music -

     

Erin Prais-Hintz Alenka Obid Ali McCarthy Alicia Marinache Amy Severino Amy Grass Carolyn Lawson Cece Cormier Cynthia Riggs Emanda Johnson Emma Todd Erin Kenny Evelyn Shelby Evie and Beth McCord Holly Westfall Jennifer Justman Jenny Davies-Reazor Jess Green Judy Campbell Karla Morgan Kristina Johansson Lola Surwillo Malin de Koning Mallory Hoffman Mary K McGraw Melissa Trudinger Michelle Escano Michelle Bourbonniere Michelle Mach Molly Alexander Monique Urquhart Niky Sayers Pam Farren Rebecca Anderson Sally Russick Sharon Driscoll Susan Kennedy Tari Kahrs Veralynne Malone