just some Summer pics

ok here are some Summer impressions,

uploaded in random order

Rock Herk, the girls and me

we saw a really neat group called Auf Der Maur! heavy rock! so cool!!

(notice the blue crutch laying next to me? i was totally in pain by the end of the day but it was fun!!)

Kapermolen park concert

the bunch & me

Karin's birthday bbq

find me on the 2nd row, 4th pic :))

Esther's thank you party

the Marie-Antoinette painting i made for Sue

Angel i painted for Diane Radischat in Seattle

my cool new water lilly blooming after just 3 weeks in the fresh pond

owwww my 2 youngest kiddies Estée & Robin

Valencia!!!

this man was selling all the important fiesta goods for the world cup final Spain-Netherlands

it was so cool when Spain won! fiesta and fireworks everywhere!!

i loved these fans, i never got around to buying one!!

Valencia, some sightseeing

one of the domes inside Valencia Cathedral

Valencia, boulevards

Valencia train station

Sue & me having cocktails

my henna tatoo, i got a 2nd gekko put on later

me pretending the tatoo hurt :))

painting a 'jule' ( little doll in kindergarden here in belgium) for my friend's son Hannes, he needed to take Jule (the doll!!) a present at the end of the schoolyear so aunty tanya had the honour :))

as you see he was really happy and his teacher had trouble getting it off him lol

Robin in the pool

Estéé
ok, that was it until now :)

my Summer will be cut short through the surgery on my back on 4th of August so i'm having as much fun as i can before then

have a super sunshine filled day!!!

love & peace

tanya xx

time flies!!

it has been ages since i have written on my blog, i can't say it's because i haven't had the time :) and it's not because i haven't got anything to say or to show... just call me lazy lol!!!



seriously, i've just been taking a break, two sunshine filled weeks in Spain with my friend Sue and her husband Colin, and adventure at times! starting with Sue having a flat tyre on the way to the airport to pick me up! luckily i had a friendly man sitting next to me on the plane, we had been chatting the whole flight, he heard about me having to wait a few hours so he suggested i hitch a ride with him and his two teenagers :)) lucky me! Sue got home hours!!!! later.



then i did my back in! totally! just by leaning over the bathtub to rince my hair, omg!!! i thought i would have to call the inssurance to let me go home! but it subsided a little, enough to still enjoy my holiday, on crutch most of the time but hey!?



We visited Valencia, i loved that! i'll show some pics in my next post, i have my foot up at the moment and don't want to get up to get the SD card from my camera :))



oh and of course i had a few paints and brushes with me so i made a little painting for Sue, pic is still on my camera so that's for the next post

some pics i do have:

this is the angel i painted for Diane Radichat in Seattle

(we were at Ranger together)

Tanya & Sue having cocktails :)

my gekko tatoo

me getting the tatoo!!! painful??? well no!!! i was faking! it's only henna lol!

i'm kind of tired!! went to a park concert last night, always fun because most of my friends are there too and in the Summer there is a concert every Thursday! so next week i'm taking the kiddies, there is so much for them to do there, it'll be fun!

today i picked the kiddies up from their two week stay at their dad, so glad to have them home again :))

tomorrow we are going to ROCK HERK, a rock festival not too far from here, loads of my friends are going too so it'll be great!!

Wednesday i'm off to my friend Esther's birthday BBQ

lol no wonder i'm tired huh?? but Summer is good for meeting up with friends and having loads of fun i think! pain or no pain :)) no use lying around all the time huh!

i have a few commisioned paintings to start but for now i'm going to just keep my feet up and have a rest with a good book

till next time :)

love & peace

tanya xx

Paolo Nutini - What a Wonderful World

i love Paolo's version of this great song!!

i'm lucky to be going to see him 25th of August!! i hope i'll be okay because i have back surgery planned for 4th of August, soooo not looking forward to that at all but it looks like i have no choice!! My eldest daughter is coming to help me out.

i had a full home security system intalled in the house! there were a few burglaries in the area a week ago and not that i am scared but it feels safer sleeping with the alarm on believe me.

i'm off to spain for two weeks in a couple of days for some fun, sun and my friend Sue!! :)) but first TWILIGHT NIGHT with my friend MP :)) 3 films in a row and meeting some of the actors, sadly not 'edward' lol.

happy Summer to you all, i might pass by my blog over the Summer but i am not making any promises :)

love & peace xxx tanya

hi! hi!

hiya all, just a really quick hello, no art to show, life has been way to busy... no rest for the wicked :)
i just wanted to let you know i've added a new app :)) a few of my favourite songs, click on 'video' to see Jason Mraz or the ador-able (uhummm) Paolo Nutini!!!!
I am a lucky lucky girl! i've got a ticket to see Paolo in August, happy happy!!!

ok if i make something to show before i head off for Spain i'll blog about it, if not! see you all after my holiday :))

oh and as a huge Twilight fan i'll be going to the Twilight Night marathon before my holiday, three full films in a row and seeing some of the actors!! i mean come on!!! cool or not??!!
ok i'm off to bed, pretty late in my part of the world.... listen to my music! if it gets on your nerves while reading my blog just turn it off :))
love & peace, tanya xxx happy Summer!!!

Prince Charming...

Prince Charming, as i see him... not that i am in any way waiting on a Prince Charming lol, i just thought it would be cool to give him a go since i am doing another Suzi class :)) and need to practice side view faces! so here is my first ever, i 'm not drawn to side views so much because i get less eye to play with and for me it's all about the eyes in my faces but having tried this i probably will do a few more and then practice some 3/4 views too, always something new to learn and that is what i love about drawing and painting!and then there i this painting 'Passion' commisioned by my friend Esther, a beautiful redhead herself so she loves my girls & angels

this one is no angel, seeing the text she wanted put on was a touch sassy lol i figured it was best to make her a goddess instead :))

ok, short post, the weather is way too nice to be sitting in and the sun too bright to take the laptop out lol

so have a brilliant day & whatever you are up too, i hope you are having fun!!

talk soon!

love & peace

tanya xx

time to paint...

hi all, as usual life has been busy but we have had quite a bit of sunshine out here in the countryside, over the weekend we had temps up to 32 °C and that my dears is really hot for May!! however yesterday it rained all day and the temps dropped to 10°C and that was a huge difference and i even had to throw some logs onto the fireplace again but no complaints because today the sun is back out to play and the garden was actually pretty grateful for the rain..

but enough about the weather lol!!

i've had time to paint, mostly outside in the sun which proved a little difficult with my acrylic paint drying really quick even when pulled into the shade! but i have now bought a retarder and i'm hoping that will help the open time while i paint. anyway, here is my lastest finished painting
'SOLICE'

the text on her dress is from a my South african friend Marc Volker, he is a bit of a poet most of the time, just never get into football issues with him lol! omg he can rave on about it, i think he drives his wife Nicolette nuts with it.

i really like this text of his so i asked permission to use it and seeing he loves my art he said yes straight away and is pretty proud i used it so we are both happy :)

my insperation for the wings i found in the street artists in Barcelona

i used lots of golden mica flakes, i just love them!

i beeswaxed the whole painting, even her face, i stamped into the beeswax in the bottom right corner and added perfect pearls to it, i mainly used Golden fluid acrylics, Steward Gill Alchemy paint (colour fusion) for the eyes because i simply love the shimmer they give and i used some Steward Gill Colourise paints on the face and Golden fiber paste for her hair...

so there you have some of my mixed media secrets :)

at the moment i am working on a commisioned painting for a beautiful redhead friend, i will show once finished

have a great day and i hope the sun is shining where you are

love & peace

tanya xx

food for thought

i've been inking & painting & embossing metal, sanding and scratching... laying the last hand om my next workshop, i'll post pics when i'm totally done

i have had no time to paint and yet i feel i should have, i need to paint to orden my feelings and impressions... otherwise thet stick with me and start living a life of their own, the only way i can stay strong and not let feelings or pain take over me is by painting them away, maybe not away but giving myself a chance to put them into perspective. most people class me a a strong woman, i have been through a few ordeals in this life and yet appear to be happy and optimistic and i am! i am strong and optimistic on most days, but like all of us i do get down, i do have feelings to cope with, the pain take over on some occasions, now i am in no way complaining here! don't get me wrong! i have a super beautiful life, i am happy...

but to be honest i made it easy on myself in a way, i stayed away from social life, i never tried to make new friends where i live, i have been happy enough to meet people through teaching and it was enough for me. Over the last few months i have been out and about more, i felt it was time to come out of my hiding place, not that i was really hiding, i was just enjoying the peace of my soltitude. I live in a wonderful place, surrounded by the most beautiful nature that makes me intensely happy on any given day, i have a strong connection with nature, maybe more than with people, i don't have many close friends, by choice.

but i have been out and about and am glad i have but at the same time so many new impressions are coming my way and i am getting to know myself all over again, how i react, when i feel comfortable or not, ... new lessons, all over again, challenging and sometimes tiring but i am learning things about myself or recognizing things i already knew. and i get into the funny situation that people i meet ask if i am married or single, have i got kids? uh yes 5! lol then comes the shocked look on their faces most of the time... i get all kinds of responses, some think it is amazing i have five, they think i look too young to have five, three of them being adult! funny is that in a pub sometimes when i tell a man about my five kids i see the scared look on their faces ;) and most of them suddenly need the toilet haha! good way of getting rid of them really... :)

also i still am way more reserved or timid than some other women i see who go straight into action when they see a man they fancy, i see them getting really close, putting on sexy eyes and smiles and giggles and even to the extent of almost throwing themselves at a man the very first night they meet... i'm not judging! in no way am i judging, i'm just stating that i am incapable of acting like that, i have never ever made a first move... i was actually talking about that to someone the other day and that person said it roots from fear of rejection... that made me think... maybe that is true but i have no idea! i think it is just not appropriate (for myself) to act in such a way and i never will... do i let chances slip? i don't think so because really if a man falls for such behavior then fine... but no thanks lol!! i like who i am and if that makes me a little gray sparrow amongst colourful birds then so be it... you might find this a strange conversation lol but it is just a pick of one of the new impressions that have been coming my way, nothing more to it really.

the sun is out today but i have some more work to do before i can actually go out to sit in it, i did have my morning coffee in the garden and again was amazed by the amount of birds that are in my garden (including a whole bunch of beautiful sparrows :)), i saw buds on my lavander, yay i love love love the scent of lavender so i cant wait for the flowers. the tadpoles are becoming very active in the pond!!! soon i'll have hundreds of tiny toads hopping on my terras, i'm not too fond of that to tell the truth, it looks like some plague out of the bible and some of them even commit suicide by hopping into the kitchen and bathroom! ever had tiny toads hopping around you while sitting on the loo??? aaaarrgggg!

anyway, heading off to get some stuff done that is really long over due but life is busy and the days are way too short... i'll get it done and posted today! my mission!!

hope you all have a wonderful day wherever you are

love & peace,

and i do lay stress on the peace, inner peace is something i have found to be essential

tanya xx

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mums.

My mother's day so far has consisted of sleeping in because the littlies are at their dad, it is his weekend to have them so i will see them later today when i pick them up.

So sleeping in was my luxury though i would have prefered to have kiddies jumping on my bed bringing me burned toast and weak coffee and dandilions from the garden :)

however my 20y old son did make me (half burned) toast and scrambled eggs and brought it out into the garden without even a mumble of happy mother's day haha and then went off inside to watch a recorded film from last night... typical my son lol!

so again peace and quiet...

except for my little buddy blackbird who i have named George :)

my sweet son did give me a gift certificate for new sunglasses so yesterday we had a nice day in the city, choosing some pretty cool sunglasses that i will have by the end of next week, lunch out in the sun, well not so much sun but it was nice enough.

I'm not one for expecting gifts for Mother's day, whenever my kids used to aks what i wanted i always replied that it would be fantastic if they would for one day not fight or make a mess and make me a cup of tea without me asking for it... i always got the tea!

motherhood is quiet a ride, one that i have learned lots from, with five kids there is a lesson every day! my hardest lesson has been to let go... my teenage daughter taught me how to do that, in not such a soft way (some of you will remember she ran away from home in feb 2009 and is now living with her father) it hurt like hell and on some days it still does... but i have learned to let it go as much as i can, she is nearly adult now, 18 in June.

My own mother died last year in September and that too was a hard thing to deal with in different ways than most of you would expect.

She died at the age of 59 after a seven year struggle with Alhzeimers

we never had a connection, i only met her for the first time as a teenager so it was not the average mourning journey i went through...

this morning sitting out in the garden, for the very first time in my life i felt she might just be watching over me after all and it made me cry and then i started to miss my runaway teen and that made me cry and then George started singing and that made me smile and cry... and then the song hallelujah came on my ipod and ok... you get the picture.

****************

i went to a really cool party on Friday night.... oh i got home at 3.30am after playing taxi for a sad soul who's car had broke down ;)

i met so many cool, beautiful, crazy people, we laughed so much and omg you don't want to knows ome of the convo's we had, hilarious believe me!!

so happy Esther invited me :))

and i made her a little present because the very first time we met she fell in love with my framed collage necklace and insantly dived into my cleavage lol... she is like that!

(here is what i made for her, not so good pics but it is hard with the glass that reflects)

she pretty much squeeled with delight and we immediatly fitted the chain to fit and then she had to change her earrings because they didn't match lol ... and every one just had to admire it! she gave them no choice lol!!

ah well i'm going to let you all have a wonderful day and i'm going to continue to relax out in the sun, today the sun seems to have come back to play and i am not complaining!!!

love & peace

tanya xx

what makes you happy...

what truly makes you happy? my list is long!!! of course my children or on the list of what makes me happy, i find that pretty obvious...

i was pleased and suprized of the amount of small things on my list...

the blackbird singing in my garden made me intensly happy this morning! honestly i sat in the garden smoking a sigarette (that is a different story!!) and saw mister blackbird hopping around, he has been my friend for a few weeks now and he is loud i tell you! last year he seemed to get on my nerves a little but this year his song seems so beautiful! i actually go sit out in the garden just to see him. so this morning there he was hopping around from tree to bush to the pond (he is an active little fella) singing his heart out, i imagine him doing that especially for me of course, after all he seems to be my new companion. And then comes mrs blackbird, hopping along... and it made me smile to see my little companion having a girlfriend... yeah, things like this make me happy and not just for a moment... it lingers... i take the feeling back inside with me, it makes my heart sing happy songs and makes my pain lighter and less important and again that is on my list of what makes me happy!

my dog rolling around in the grass like a little lunatic

a fresh hot cup of tea

the sun on my face

sitting outside to paint

sitting inside to paint

biting into a juicy apple

drinking hot chocolate in bed

red paint (well all paint but red is my fav!)

my new oil pastels

buying new shoes for my kids

raspberry sorbet

having coffee with friends

having wine with friends

listening to all the cool music on my pink ipod

watching the kids play out in the garden

drawing in my art journal

my friend Diane in Seattle who says hi every single day

discovering new music

silence... for a long time silence was so loud!!! it brought discomforting thoughts and fears and worries. now silence is simply silent, peaceful and nice.

my list is so much longer... and that too makes me happy.

i hope you all have a wonderful day
love & peace
tanya x

Love Yourself Today

(Saturday morning 7am)

we have been having the most glorious weather out here, the blossom is coming to full force and so are the number of tourists , almost enough for me to escape it all! omg!!! the amount of bikers! yeah bikers Harleys i mean... all tough dudes coming to see the blossom lol how cute!!! bikers, cyclists, cars, bussssssessss even, all through our tiny little village, a bit of a pain when you are out in the garden having what you thought was going to be a quiet sit down lol!!!

yesterday i went to my beautiful friend in Aalst to have a nice quiet sit down and lunch out in the garden : ) a super de luxe salade, wine and the best strawberries evvvva!! fresh from our countryside. i even got a bit of a tan, well don't expect too much of my tans lol, this British skin of mine does not tan all that well... but it was a good good day...

one day that felt like two weeks holiday.

Saturday i had the honour to "Rangerize" a bunch of nice ladies, they were rockstars, they inked and stamped and combined techniques like pros! so so proud of them! i never took pics but i'm sure i will get my hands on some to share later!

days like these make me happy, make the never ending pain bearable... eventhough i have to pay for it 10 times over today i don't care!

Love Yourself Today, this is the name of my lastest Mixed Media Painting

she proved to be a bit of a pain in the butt lol! oh so many things went wrong on this one, i have no idea why! i think she was meant to be and exercise in patience and i had to learn to love her the way she turned out and i do! she maybe a bit of a dark spirited lady but she has the right message and her energy feels more than okay.
she is a 15X30cm painting on wood

i used lots ofGolden Fluid Acrylics, glass bead paste, modeling paste, gold mica flakes, Steward Gill paints, Tim Holtz stamps, Ranger inks, Distress powder.

This week... i plan on finishing off a few class samples, i have a scrap class and i'm due in hospital again for my last nasty, hateful stupid,

paintful, not-doing- much-for-me injection!!!

soooo not looking forward to that!

anyway beautiful people!! i wish you all a great week filled with all nice things

love & peace!!!!

tanya x

how are you all doing?

life has been moving on, i really should try and blog more often but the days just seem so short :)

i'm not going to talk much about the pain i'm in, it is just ongoing and therefore boring the life out of you all!

so what have i been up to? well i went along to a photo shoot with my friends Daisy ( model) and Paul (photographer) see some pics of Daisy here. it was fun especially because i will be helping to make some cool props for future shoots and some jewellery and beaded clothing ( when am i going to do all that?)

here is a pic i took of the glam life of models in the middle of a field, waiting for the set to be finished... i was sitting under an apple tree drawing in my journal, taking it all in, it was diff to my usually activities but fun! i must admit that a certain person was right to drag me along eventhough i had just come out of hospital!!!

the first ice creams have been approved by my little ones! it was such nice weather last weekend that i took them to the playground...

they appear to be wearing matching clothes lol! that was not on purpose

further more i have been busy with upcoming workshops, i went to a Donna Downey workshop in Belgium, it was really nice meeting her and her wonderful husband, it was worth the drive and the long day... and fof any of you who might be wondering... i do take that hat off sometimes :)

i am working on a few paintings at the same time but non of them are finished so not much art top show other than this quick little mixed media canvas i made for norah, my friend's 5 year old daughter! it is a quick job, done while she was waiting and acoording to her orders... huh wishes!!! my my !! she knows what she wants and she loves pink!!!

last but not least i wouls like you to go check out my blog friend Al Hernandez, he has been a fan of my blog for some time now and i have always enjoyed his reply.

i have added him to my blogroll so you can go visit his blog whenever you like;

have a nice day or evening depending where you are in the world... i'm off to start dinner

take care! love & peace

oh and if you are a facebooker then you might enjoy adding my fanpage to your list! just search for rusty angel Art and you will find me there, thanks xx

where does time go??

it might be just me but i feel like this year is moving on at high speed, some how it is almost half of April without me realizing...

due to the hernia, which is causing me more pain and grief than i care to talk about, i haven't been up to much, i did work on this painting though, a work that took about two weeks for me to finish, i had to learn to paint at my easle sitting down, not the easiest thing with this 54X107 cm painting!!

Absolem Butterfly Girl paintingthis beautiful butterfly that a friend gave me after the Alice in Wonderland film, was my inspiration

it was quite a journey, a new adventure actually! first i painted my girl on wood as i usually do, this time i painted a bit smaller than i am used too and that proved a bit tricky for me to do details but it didn't matter reaaly, i painted on 15X30 and then i had it scanned at the photographer, Paul Croes in Hasselt, he printed it on to canvas with the Epson fine art printer. a really nice starting point for me to finish off my art on this huge size!

the nice thing is that i had the finished piece photographed in the studio so now i can sell prints on canvas that i can further embellish if i please, this way i can make more people happy withmy painting at a lower cost. the original is no longer available.

i have already had the draft version printed again, flipped horizontally so she is now facing the opposite direction, this one i will be painting in very different colours, a totally different butterfly girl! i wil show once finished.

ok that is enoigh blogging for me, my back is aching like razy so i better take the lie-down

hope you are all enjoying Spring! here in the countryside the first blossoms are starting to show, hopefully the weather will stay nice and then we will have the full white burst of the apple, pear and cherry trees! it is a wonderful sight!! tourist come from all over to visit our area then.

talk to you again soon!

love & peace
tanya