Best wishes!

 Wishing you peace in your heart and life and a new year full of colour! Let's keep sharing ART and using our creativity for a better world.

Mark-making in the sketchbook

Just some fun with paint :) and masking tape ;).

Go try for yourself!

 

To remember

 My new Posca-paint sticks came in this paper bag by Talens, and look what it says:

Do you agree? 

I think nowadays a lot of people would disagree, and disregard creativity. But if you have known the joy and possibilities creativity gives to yourself and to the world, you can only underline this quote... Creativity is needed to find new ways, to invent, to soothe, to spread joy.

And when you meet someone who understands this, it is a soulful moment.

Fun idea for the sketchbook

 As you know I like drawing hands, and I thought it would be fun to do it this way, as if you are holding a painting or picture.

As you can see I painted over the first drawing, just to see what stronger colours would do. It is after all my sketchbook :), so let's experiment.

Tis the season...

 Yes, it is the holiday season again and I am happily making Christmas cards, in different designs and colours. Let's send each other a warm greeting!

A gift...

Last Friday, during my Open Studio, the soft rays of sunshine felt like a gift to me. The grapevine just in front of the window in golden colours and then this soft light. It was picture-worthy... 

This Friday my studio will be open again, 11-16 hours. Welcome!

Piet Mondriaan

In September I followed a course about the painter Mondriaan and since then I was looking for a book on his work and paintings. I found one in the library and it was inspiring. This is his picture, and I made a portrait drawing of him :). 

These two works of him caught my eye. He is known for his late abstract work but he made so many portraits and landscapes as well.

In this last portrait he boldly uses blue and orange, and by not painting it so densely it becomes translucent. I think it is very creative and beautiful.

Before and after

 This is a page in my sketchbook. I glued on some paper before... 

and then used the base as a part of this portrait drawing.

It is an A6-size sketchbook, so a little drawing.

The colours of the Scottish landscape

We've been away for a holiday in Scotland. We were a bit unfortunate with the weather, with gales, rain, storm and so on. But you go out anyway and enjoy the dramatic and beautiful landscape with its colours:

 

Page from my sketchbook

 Portrait drawing made with a marker and coloured pencil. You do not need much space to practice...

The artist Mondriaan

 I joined a workshop on the artist Piet Mondriaan, known for his really abstract and kubistic work. But I have seen some of his earlier work and really enjoyed these. The workshop was hosted by Talens Experience Centre. After an introduction on the several phases of his work we started to paint. And as always the results of each participant were so different. You could choose a still-life or a tree. I chose this picture of a tree:

And translated it into this painting:

And look at all the results:

Now I am intrigued to learn more about his work and visit the Museum Mondriaanhuis.

Layer after layer

 How things work: I'd like to show you my process of layering. For me it is about having fun experimenting. So here you see each layer being added. I used acrylic paint, a brush and stamp:

I am not a pattern maker, and I am not sure what I will do with this result. It is a colour combination I do not use a lot so it was fun to see what results this would give. Get out of your comfort zone and enjoy the creative process.

Ehm, what is the season?

 Yes, well, Autumn is coming, temperatures are like Summer and my thoughts are in December. A bit difficult to skip forward to December but I wanted to make some new Christmas Cards. And to come up with new ideas I am always trying different techniques, sketches and colour combinations. These cards are the first results, and I enjoyed making them which is also important... Layered acrylics with a splash of gold on top.

Autumn is in the air

 

Autumn is in the air: the temperatures feel tropical but the leaves are telling me we are moving into Autumn. This tree usually turns red but I think it has skipped that stage this year and is shedding its leaves. And an unusual surprise: an orange flowering plant, new and never seen before, but joining in the autumnal colours ;). 

Tomorrow I will be working in my studio. I have had an inspiring day with creative entrepreneurs, and so it is time to be creative and to look ahead. September is also filled with other activities: voluntary work and moving family to their new home.

Abundance

 It is that time of year when suddenly there is sunshine and an overflow of fruit. These plums have been harvested and now we are waiting for the apples. I like the colour combination of the green, pink, yellow and a touch of blue.

Mark-making

 

Mark-making is a hot topic at the moment in the artist world. The term is mentioned in a lot of articles about art, but what does it mean exactly? The term sort of says it all: you are making marks, you are using your specific marks in your art... 

I looked for a definition and found it on www.tate.org.uk: 

Mark making describes the different lines, dots, marks, patterns, and textures we create in an artwork. It can be loose and gestural or controlled and neat. It can apply to any material used on any surface: paint on canvas, ink or pencil on paper, a scratched mark on plaster, a digital paint tool on a screen, a tattooed mark on skin…even a sound can be a form of mark making. Artists use gesture to express their feeling and emotions in response to something seen or something felt – or gestural qualities can be used to create a purely abstract composition.

I think I have been mark-making a lot without knowing the term... I like to make abstract work where you are not overthinking the marks or strokes you are making. And I have been making a lot of cards in a dotted pattern, just because I like to make repeating patterns in different colour combinations, it is a sort of meditation for me.

In the picture above you see pages from my sketchbook: marks on the left, a soft layer of colours on the right with a portrait taped on top. Don't you just love CREATING...?

Little portrait in blue

 In my sketchbook I make these little portrait drawings, in a corner, with coloured pencil. They just pop up whenever I see some interesting face or have the time to sit and concentrate.

They always surprise me because errors are included, you have to nail it just in one go. And of course this fails sometimes but even then there might be something interesting in it.

Calligraphy pen sketch

 Drawing with a calligraphy pen can give nice effects, try using all sides to give something extra to your portrait. I like how this small drawing turned out. 

Colourful interiors

 In the same museum as my last post this also caught my eye: the colourful interiors, and the explicit combinations. Today most Dutch interiors have a white base and some additional colours, but in the previous centuries they were not afraid of colour!

This is a small candy-store, the complete blue colour cheers you up.

These carpets caught my attention because of the colour combination: brown black and red, alternating in stripes.

And this simple hallway is painted in pink, blue and green. It does give character to a house!

Dutch folk art

 One of my favourite museums in the Netherlands is the Zuiderzeemuseum, which represents the life of the small fishing villages. They have built a village with all sorts of houses, enterprises, a school, church, cheese store and so on. There is lots to see.

They also show some of the baskets which people used in their small houses to store precious clothing. These were painted with the most colourful patterns. People did not own much but treasured their small belongings. Here are some pictures:

The beige basket in the picture above is a modern interpretation by a Dutch designer.

And these are quite rare to find, but whole artworks were painted on some furniture, what a treasure to have!

Here is the link to the museum-website.

If you could use one additional colour...

 what would it be? I saw drawings of an artist who used yellow as the one additional colour in her sketchbook (next to the black pen) and it had a strong feeling to it. However, I find yellow quite a difficult colour so I decided to experiment and see which colour I would choose. I started with the same base:

And then added pink, grey and yellow:

Okay, so light brown, blue and purple.

So I am not convinced and haven't found my additional colour yet... I'll keep trying. Yellow is the one that pops out.

A painting full of pattern

 This time I want to share a painting by Jo Koster (1868-1944), a Dutch female painter. I saw this painting in the newest exhibition in the Singer Museum, it is all about "Love for colour", see here for more information. The exhibition shows some lovely paintings from a private collection and their own collection, I liked a lot of them. 

But I noticed this painting by Jo Koster because of the colour use and all the patterns she put into it.

Here is a close-up of the patterns: the dress is checkered, and the landscape is dotted and striped. So there is a lot of pattern combined and still it does not bother me. You want to look up close and study the pattern. It must have been a lot of work to get it right. But I think it is beautiful.

In class I once had to paint in dots, I started enthusiastically on an island landscape but sort of got lost along the way. Such an intense technique is quite a challenge. I did finish the painting though.