vrijdag 28 december 2012

Happy new year!

Happy new year everyone,
may the sunlight warm your hearts and open your eyes to enjoy the simple things!

maandag 24 december 2012

Knit, knit, knit...

Knit, knit, knit... I've been knitting my socks off, to make a lot of necklaces to be shipped out to Australia. They will be sold in a shop in Melbourne. All handmade and designed by me, I enjoyed making them, and feel honoured to have been given the assignment.


This Friday I'll be giving a workshop, looking forward to it, and then I will take some time off to start the new year fresh. I've got quite a lot of plans, so who knows what the new year will bring?
Happy holidays everyone, take care, I wish you a peaceful and creative 2013!

maandag 10 december 2012

Winter-time has come

It was cold this weekend, so only a few visitors came to my studio. 
Even though I had made an effort to turn my studio into a little shop.  


Outside the views were amazing. We arrived early in the morning and there was a mysterious fog hanging above the snow. Together with the morning light it was an amazing landscape. We took time to stare, watch and take it all in. Later in the day soft sunlight came in, and changed the landscape into a palette of white colours. I love the winter!
Click on the photos to enlarge.

maandag 3 december 2012

Inspired by Dutch landscapes and skies

In this painting I made an abstract landscape reminding me of the Dutch skies, bright, windy and cloudy, and of the golden colour of grass.


And yesterday I went for a walk and saw them again, so nice to be inspired by your surroundings... Also the amount of sky gives me a feeling of freedom, the wind blowing any worries slowly out of your mind, reducing it to simply enjoying the colours of nature. I hope my paintings will have the same effect on those who buy them.



dinsdag 27 november 2012

8 December: winter opening of my studio

Welcome in my studio on Saturday December 8th, 10-16 hours. Lovely to see you there! Christmas decorations, new cards, animal paintings, accessories and some new paintings.

This is a new painting, a base of acrylic paint and then I used crayons to make the portrait. Lots of other things going on, having fun!

vrijdag 23 november 2012

Creativity is going on

In the course I follow we are now working with 2d and 3d, which means I had to learn a new skill, namely sculpting. My first thought: really? But now I am starting to enjoy it, and made this sculpture of a study of a real-live model.

And here are some of the results of the workshop I gave yesterday: as always different results, different colour combinations and in any case really festive!



dinsdag 13 november 2012

Workshop paper christmas decorations

On 21 and 22 November I am organizing a creative workshop, in which I show you how to design your own paper christmas decorations. We first start by painting a design to your own taste and then will be applying this to your own choice of christmas decoration. Maybe some nice menu cards for christmas dinner? Or making some stylish decorative hangers for your winter home?

Come and join me for a cosy creative evening? Please mail me for more info or leave a message.



maandag 12 november 2012

A quick drawing-exercise

This is my workspace, quite cosy..., but the computer is not one of my favourite items so I tried a drawing exercise by Carla.
Carla Sonheim is one of my favourite American artists, I wrote about her before. I have one of her books (Drawing Lab) and often use it for some fun drawing. She now has a new book The Art of Silliness, she writes about it on her blog. I tried one of her assignments which was to draw a cat in one line and then draw more cats in the same way. It was a fun break from staring at my screen the whole time. And here are some results:




I like her exercises so much because:
* they are fun!
* you can just practice your hand, and just try, so low profile
* they make that you look at things in a different way
* they can be done quickly
* the results are almost always surprising
* they take your mind off other things
Which reminds me, back to work now! :-)

donderdag 1 november 2012

New festive cards

Well, it's been a while... we went on holiday for a week and enjoyed the autumn colours, I designed and made some christmas accessories (pics will follow), worked on some ideas for workshops and made some proposals for lessons. Not much painting I'm afraid, but does drawing in ones sketchbook also count...? :) I've made some nice sketches, some quite graphic, others inspired by tv-documentaries. I saw a tv-series and in a short flash they were showing cave drawings from the early days, so inspiring! I quickly took my sketchbook and made some drawings of the exact cave drawings and then made some of my own inspired by them. Maybe I'll use them some day.

I also had a lot of fun in making some fun and festive cards with paint, which I then scanned so I can print them from my computer, they are for sale in my ETSY-shop, they can be used for christmas or for a party.


maandag 1 oktober 2012

Results of the workshop

 We worked on two exercises, this is the second one (above): exploring different tools and their structure in paint. Even dishwasher-brushes are used.
see how you can achieve structure in the paint, a lot of movement going on... :)
 Taking time to look and look again.
 One of the end results:
I really enjoy giving these workshops, seeing how slowly creativity is expanding and finding its way in the paint. Also the concentration while working and playing is so nice, really focused! I know from experience that it can be exhausting, but it also shifts the focus from every-day life to creating something.

donderdag 20 september 2012

Today in the studio..

I've been working in my studio today, while thinking about the next step I looked up and saw the grapes between the green vines.
The other window is showing the first steps of autumn, it was chilly today. 


Maybe because of the chilly temperature I painted this woman, with a coat blowing in the wind. She came to life while turning my paper round and round. I gave her a bit of pastel crayon for a bit of fragility.
Yes, it was good to be in the studio.

maandag 17 september 2012

Local Art Festival - impression

Last Saturday I was present on a local Art Festival in a very green spot, surrounded by meadows, lakes and trees. The sun made it a lovely day and we (my mother and me) met some nice people. All were really interested in art, and a lot of questions were asked.
 Next to us were a mother and son who are working as glass artists. They were sharing their experience with art fairs with me, and I learned a lot from that. I sold several small paintings and some postcards, but above all enjoyed the nice people and the lovely, serene spot. 

donderdag 6 september 2012

This week in my agenda:

being distracted by some drawings... ;) And enjoying the weather, cleaning up the studio. Also on my list: working on the website, but... I find myself doing other things...

donderdag 30 augustus 2012

A studio full of young creativity

I organized some summer-lessons in drawing and painting for teenagers.
First assignment to get the creativity going was making fantasy-animals, thinking about noses, eyes and ears. And then colouring the best one. As always, already different styles appeared: colourful, controlled or just crazy. I always love this variety: with the same tools, different things are made. Next assignment was making portraits, I explained something about the dimensions of the face, and showed different ways of drawing eyes, hair and so on. They were very focused!
Another lesson was painting with acrylic paint, they wanted to paint landscapes (quite difficult I think), but we set to it and after an hour, they had painted the landscape of the photo they had chosen. We also went busy with an abstract work, and that was a lot of fun! Here are some results: 

dinsdag 14 augustus 2012

Currently in the studio...

I am working on some small mini-art paintings for a coming market. Having fun and being inspired by summer and Dutch landscapes!



donderdag 26 juli 2012

Sweet summer

Sweet summer day with a soft wind blowing, lazy days near the lake and taking it slow. Yep, seize the moment to enjoy! And then those colourful sun umbrellas... when I see something like this, I just have to take a picture and enjoy the moment.
Location: lakes of Loosdrecht (Loosdrechtse plassen) in the Netherlands, see http://www.wijdemeren.nl/

maandag 23 juli 2012

High up in the sky

Sometimes art can be found right above you! Take some time to watch high up in the sky.



Pictures taken in the Lebuiniskerk in the city of Deventer, such an old church with lovely features.

zondag 8 juli 2012

Summer course/Zomerweek

Zomercursus 16-20 juli en 13-17 augustus
Ben je 10 jaar of ouder? Dan kun je deze zomer meedoen aan de zomerweek tekenen en schilderen voor tieners. In deze cursus gaan we elke ochtend aan de slag met tekenmaterialen of met verf. Elke dag hebben we een ander thema. De zomerweek wordt georganiseerd in het atelier van ZIZOlabel, Nw. Loosdrechtsedijk 106 in Loosdrecht en vindt twee keer plaats: 16-20 juli en 13-17 augustus. Kosten voor 5 ochtenden (10-12 uur) zijn 50 euro. Je kunt je bij mij opgeven: info@zizo-label.nl.





donderdag 28 juni 2012

My creative place

I am fortunate to have my own creative place, my atelier where I can go to and focus. At the moment it is so green here in Loosdrecht and the rural setting of the atelier is lovely. Dutch skies with typical cloudshapes and green meadows with sheep are only a few steps away and I enjoy it every minute. My neighbour is working in his vegetable garden and showing the produce and sometimes sharing some rhubarb or lettuce.


The green aspect is also present in one of my paintings, see detail:


In the creative place I have been doing several things: I printed fabric with some stencils I designed myself, I prepared a course I would like to give this summer, I made some drawings and I cleaned the space to prepare for this summer-visitors. Oh, and I made some really nice bags with a new fabric I found!


And I made a new painting:
So, a small update, now I am off to finish some other things!