Best wishes

 

Wishing you happy holidays, enjoy the small moments of happiness, we all need them! Looking forward to more creativity in the New Year. Thank you for following along, let's make beautiful things.

Bye for now, Christien

These December days

 Currently in Christmas mode... I have had several Open Studio days, and have also been making Christmas cards. This is one of the handpainted designs.

I have tried to keep my schedule pretty free, because I want to work on some paintings in the studio and also enjoy the days before Christmas. I am also looking forward to the new year and am making plans.

 We have got grey weather all week, but it was warm and cozy inside the studio: 

This abstract painting is for sale, it is made on a wooden panel with acrylic paint. Contact me for info if you are interested. 

Current read

In a charity shop I found this little book, with a lot of information about primitive art and drawings. It has always fascinated me to see how people thousands of years ago started to express themselves. In this book there is a lot of information about the drawings found in caves all over Europe. It makes me want to go and visit those places. In Scandinavia also a lot of drawings were found, they tell so much about the people who made them.

These last drawings were found in California.

Using charcoal or red clay or dirt, they drew their surroundings, their world. Persons, animals and later the stories came about the capture of a herd of animals. Interesting to read how it developed.

A winter hat

 Yes, it is time for those winter accessories like gloves, scarves and... hats. So I took one page in the sketchbook to draw some of them. When I take some time I think I could draw a lot more of them, but this was the start:

My other theme was Christmas cards, I like making a new design each year. Overall just making and producing a nice product enlarges my creativity. Because: what if I made this in another colour... or in another shape? This is one I made, starting with the purple blend and adding on sparks to make it look like a starry sky.

On my desk

 Last week I have been working on a painting of a Tundra-landscape, and my desk looked like this:

I made some small adjustments but I think the painting is finished :). It has been a while to take time to paint. But the weather was brutal and I decided to just go for it, to find the pleasure in creating and see where it all leads to.

Maybe I'll keep the painting for a while, to look at it, or it might appear in my shop.

Wishing you a good week!

Mondriaan

 This week I visited the Mondriaanhuis, the house where the painter Mondriaan was born. It is a small museum with a shop and coffee corner. It gave a peak into his life. 

Piet Mondriaan took classes at the Academy in Amsterdam, here you see how all painters-to-be had to draw the male model. One of his teachers was Nicolaas van der Waay.

A quote from him was inspiring: 

We artists can point humans the way, to show how you can find balance between contrasts through our work. That way the world could be so much prettier.

Discount in my ETSY-shop

 Hi, currently there is a 15% discount in my ETSY-shop, valid until Wednesday November13th. It is on all items, so cards and paintings. Look here.

Trees

On my walks I have been looking at trees a lot, looking at their size (some are huge), at their shape, at their colour and their leaves. Sometimes I take pictures because I think it would be fun to do something with it, or use it as a reference for a drawing. But I find it quite difficult to draw trees..., so even better to just start and take notes. This is a drawing I made in my sketchbook, well it is not quite a drawing but more a way for me to look at lines, size and depth and how this all works in a forest full of trees (I kind of get lost). My next step would be to make a drawing, or rather a painting I think, and see where I end up.

This picture is from a majestic beech tree, catching the golden light of Autumn. And when you stand directly under it and look up, you feel the upward movement of the branches leading your eye to the sky.

For some Autumn inspiration

I have been outside a lot where Autumn is showing her colours, so just some pictures to enjoy. After a holiday I will now be working in the studio again, working on some paintings, making some designs for Christmas and updating my ETSY-shop. 

Small

Just some drawings in the smallest sketchbook I have, an A6-size. I used my permanent markers, so relaxing to do this, draw away!

 

Autumn

Enjoying the Autumn colours: a bit of pink, ocre, orange and burgundy. Trying to catch some of them in pictures. Before you know it they are gone. 

Try-out

 On my desk: a try-out of some colours, prints and Christmas ideas. I want to design something new for Christmas but I have not found it YET... So I wrote down some ideas, then tried something with paint and multiple colours and still have not found it ;). Still I enjoy this process and it is often by trial and error that I will come to something. 

Sometimes the brilliant idea in your head turns out as a disappointment in reality, therefore I always make multiple versions.

It is also how this series came about, by experimenting with painted paper and collage. I also had an idea... and went to make it, and this is how it turned out: Christmas cards (for sale in my ETSY-shop). It was so much fun to design and make them :).

Out and about

 Autumn has started here and we made a hike through the woods to enjoy the crisp air, and to have a look for mushrooms. It has been a dry summer, a wet September, and still quite warm. So when will the mushrooms appear?

And yes, they are popping up slowly now (two weeks ago there was nothing). We saw some beautiful Porcini mushrooms, and a bright yellow one of which I do not know the name. Let's see how this season will be.

I took this photo below for the shape of the tree, as a reference or reminder to just draw its shape at home at my desk.

Sketchbook moments

 Another page in my sketchbook, on the right you see some carpet designs. Just for the fun of it! I start with some paint on paper and then turn them into a carpet. Endless possibilities of course...

If you have any joy in using your creativity, it may be drawing, writing, poems or just some super ideas/solutions, I encourage you to start a sketch-notebook and just write/draw everything down. This will help you to find focus, to develop, and fuel your creativity. It may never be used as a creative endproduct, but creative thinking is necessary in this world, in your work, in social interaction, in politics etc.

Have a nice week!

Scribbles

 Found some time for scribbles in my sketchbook. I saved a picture of peppers from a magazine, and I drew them with a calligraphy marker in this composition. I then coloured them with my vintage caran d' ache pencils :). It makes a nice page in the sketchbook.

I am growing my own peppers as well, and they now finally seem to produce. So I have got a plant full of spicy peppers.

The art of a creative life

Recently I read this book:

 It was recommended in the magazine Mashtag, a company by Maaike who coaches creative businesses. I liked the book, Elizabeth Gilbert identifies creativity in your life and writes about the value of it. She sees it as an ever-existing idea of creativity which you should grab when it comes along. 

Be available to be creative... but do not overvalue it, do not think that every creative act is gonna win you the lottery, or give you the best idea ever. It may be part of a process, of a step you take.

So yes, I would recommend it. It makes you think on your own connection to creativity, your expectations and your availability.

Cafe walls

We took a day off and went to a small fisher village called Volendam. It is known for its fisherboats, the musicians and traditional costume. But it has also been an inspiration for artists, which was shown in the cafe where we took a break from the blazing hot sun. The walls were filled with paintings and art. 

I know these cafes from France where the famous artists paid their bills in the form of paintings which resulted in beautiful walls. I had never seen it in the Netherlands though. It is also interesting because the fishermen all along the lake used to decorate their houses a lot: bright colour combinations, paintings on wooden boxes, art. It seems appropriate that there should be such a cafe. And they served a nice beer ;)... The name of the cafe is a strange one: Bappie Pietje and can be found in the harbour of Volendam.

Step by step

 I took photos of the steps I took in painting this portrait. In painting there are constant moments of making decisions, and one of those decisions is when to stop... I think you only learn by doing and staying true to your intuition. This portrait was made on a small piece of paper and it was for me to find joy in painting. But of course you want to be pleased with the end result... I think I am a little. I find that I should stop sooner to hold on to a bit of magic instead of continuing into too much detail.

Here I should have stopped I think, but I continued and made the skintone somewhat lighter. But this made it also loose its depth.

This is one way of starting a portrait, it is not based on any rules, so there is probably a lot wrong with it. And next time it would be totally different, but fun it was!

Walking through August

 I've had some muscle issues lately, and pain in my left leg. So now I need to do my exercises daily, and I decided to go out into the forest for a walk. Some of the trees are changing colours, this one lit up in the misty light. I thought I'd share it here. We are moving into Autumn almost...

but I am hoping for some Summer energy to be creative and work on some canvas paintings.

Different stuff in the sketchbook

 Just some pages from the sketchbook. This first one is  a page which I filled with a landscape.

The next one is a page with acrylic paint, trying out some color combinations and mixes.

And this last one is a fun one, using markers and just 1 colourpencil:

Have a nice week!

George Breitner

 George Breitner (1857-1923) is a Dutch fine artist and I visited a special exhibition on his work in Museum Singer. He was known for his cavelry paintings and his paintings of daily life in Amsterdam. And he was known for the girl with the kimono.

I especially liked looking at his details, his composition and repetition of color. He just made some beautiful paintings. 

This is the Girl with kimono, and a detail of the face. See how many patterns he combined in the painting? Dress, carpet and wall:

Here you see one of his pencil sketches where he is making explicit drawings of details, the hand, the fabric of clothes.

And here is a peek into the Museum garden, designed by Piet Oudolf. It is worth it to see it in every season. So we enjoyed a cup of coffee!

Summer activities

 This Summer is one of sun, rain, grey, sun, rain and so on. I am catching up on reading, meeting with friends and family, cleaning up spaces and trying to enjoy the outdoors in between. Today I took the time to make a small drawing in my sketchbook to capture a coffee moment in a lovely green setting. The garden with seats, trees, hedges and a bit of sunshine was very inviting ;).

Hoping you are enjoying the coffee moments as well!

People or animals?

Someone asked me the other day, what do you do for a living? I make art I said, and I love doing this. What type of art do you make? I make abstract work in layers, and portraits, amongst others. Oh, and what do you like more: painting animals or people? People I said. It turned out she was an artist too and loved drawing animals. She took out her phone and showed me, a very precise cat painting. Oh I said, nice, my own style is more loose, not so much into detail. I did not take out my phone to show my artwork, I forgot about it or I feel a bit shy about it. Anyways, we parted ways. And yes I like drawing people, so many variety, I like it. Here is a tiny portrait from my sketchbook:

Woman portrait by ZIZOlabel

 This makes me think of another artist who makes teeny tiny people drawings: @thesneakyartist on Instagram. I really like them! And so do others because his drawings appeared on the merchandise of a cafe he visited. This way art enters the everyday life.