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.

The process

 Just have fun! I find it hard to concentrate on large paintings and projects at the moment, so I am now making time for small projects on the side. Just to keep the creativity going and to find joy in making things. So I chose three bold colours: ocre yellow, blue and neon pink (I felt the need for some sparks...). I taped my paper, painted and when I felt it was okay I removed the tape:

Very tiny

This is my tiniest sketchbook, it is smaller than A6-size. But still, even the tiniest space can be a start for something creative. So I used some watercolour paint to make a base, I think I will use coloured pencil for the next layer and see what happens.

The sketchbook-sets I made for the holiday are still available, €8.50 for a set of 1 sketchbook, some thick paper, a Sharpie, some drawing ideas and pictures. Contact me if you are interested.