goodbye for a while

Finally it is going to happen: my boyfriend and I are moving in together! After a lot of stress we found a nice place to live and I've been busy packing my things.  So it is a busy and exiting start in the new year. I'm ready to go now and I'll be back as soon as possible. It will take a while before everything has been set up,  get my computer started and to start drawing again. I hope you will be patience with me and that I'll see you back here very soon. Thank you for the last year: your comments and support on my work and new ideas. That you take the time to write your thoughts when I doubt myself or my work. It truly means a lot to me! See you soon my friends, I'll catch up soon!

And I wish you all the very best for 2014, may it be a great year!

very merry!

I want to wish all of you a very, merry christmas! I hope you have some nice days without to much stress, together with the ones you love. This little angel is available in my shop, a bit late for this christmas, but maybe next year ;-) Enjoy these days and don't eat to much!

drawing challenge

This weeks host of the DC is the great Nadine and her theme is "garland". I only put up garlands at birthdays, never at christmas, but since it is that time of the year I thought I make a garland with a christmas-touch! I think garlands make a party very festive, that is the feeling I got with this theme. So I tried to make a festive drawing: girls wearing beautiful dresses, nice hair and red lips and a fancy couch in the room. But the first thing a thought about with this theme was the balance act I always have to make while putting the garland up! Or is that just me? Finding the right spot to put it and putting it that way that is doesn't fall down. Balancing on a chair because I don't want to get the ladder. So that was the most important thing I wanted to draw. Off course I don't have fancy shoes in my other hand, then it would all go wrong!

For my other blog about food I had a reason this week to put up a garland. If you want to know why, click here (in dutch and english).

For more garlands, please visit the wonderful TinyWoolf blog!

a sweet memory

I just wanted to say "thanks" to all of you who left a comment on my last post. You all took the time to write something about what the painting did to you. I really touched me to read your words. I wasn't emotional or melancholic when I wrote it, I just had a wonderful memory with it. But somehow you felt what I mend with my little words. Sometimes I still get overwhelmed that it is possible to share emotions over the internet, to meet nice people who care and understand what you are trying to do. This painting is from the same series with oil crayons, I thought I share one more with you. Thank you again and have a good week!

drawing challenge

This weeks host for the DC is my dear friend Stefanie and her theme is "swanlights", the title of a music piece by Antony Hegarty. I didn't know his music and the things that inspired me to show you this work of mine were the words that popped into my head while reading Stefanies words, see the images of her invitation and listen to this music piece: blurry, mystical, not clear, foggy and melancholy. Maybe the last word has something to do with the "swanlights". I get the feeling of lost days, things that happend and you can't turn it back. I had to think about some of my older paintings. I made these when I just finished the art academy in Switzerland and moved back to my parents house. I started to paint again, this time with oil-pastels, which is more like drawing with your fingers... I tried to make these paintings blurry, with no hard lines. In these days my mother was sick again and I remember her coming to my studio to see what I was doing. This girl in the painting is trying to catch something, maybe some swanlights....

For more "swanlights" please go to Stefanies blog!  Her work is wonderful so you should browse through her blog anayway ;-)

don't be afraid...

...of the big bad wolf. That is the title of this new drawing. I tried something new, this time with ink. And I must say I really like working with it. So maybe there is a hidden thing in this title: don't be afraid to try new things ;-) I know that I have to tell this myself so now and then, just try and lets see how it turns out!

drawing challenge

This weeks host of the DC is Kristen and her theme is "Everyday Objects". I once told you that I sometimes make these cabinets. I use my own drawings for them and my collection of (vintage) toys. I love small toys! Maybe you think that toys are not really everyday objects, for kids maybe. But let me tell you that for me they are! My room is full of them ;-) For this cabinet I used to drawing I posted for my birthday and added some balloons to it. I put the little "smurf" with the gift in front of it and empty my punch-machine for the confetti effect. Some of the colored ones I glued to the glass on the front. It is hard to take good pictures of these cabinets because of the reflections in the glass, I hope you get the idea. In the next two pictures you can see that I can move the confetti the way that I like it:

If you want to know what the others made for this DC go to the wonderful blog of Kristen!

in the mean time...

... I'm also still working on some drawings with girls with a weird pippi-tail-hat.
Hope you all have a good week!

drawing challenge

This weeks host is Ariane and her theme is "Autumn". I can be very short about this one: I love autumn! I love the color of the leaves, the very special, beautiful light when the sun is shining and I don't mind that it gets darker and the days shorter. I like putting on my warm sweaters and drink lots of tea, very cosy on the couch ;-)

For more autumn impressions, visit the wonderful Rose blog!

and something new...

...in my shop! I made some new pendants and rings in a different style. Inspired by the old days, haha! Like the circus, cancan girls and some old dresses to dance in. I like them, hope you do too ;-) Click here for my shop!

something old...

While searching for some paper to make a new drawing I found some old drawings, made with watercolors. I forgot I tried that once. I wasn't happy with them at the time, so I stopped. But now I actually like them... including the angry looking baby, haha! So I thought I show them to you. I also posted them on my Instagram account which I started in June. If you are out there as well or just want to take a look, click here.

it's my party...

...and I cry if I want to!

Well, I hope not, but you never know, right? It has been a busy week but I hope I'm fit to celebrate my birthday on sunday. I'll turn 33 on monday so that will be a day of as well ;-) Wish you a nice weekend!

test 1,2,3...

A while ago I told you here about this great gift I got to make enamel jewelery. Well....I started to read about it in the vintage books that came allong with it, checked the internet and it turned out that nothing has changed or became easier in the process. So the books are still a good way to learn, even in the old-fashion dutch ;-) And what a process it is, it took a while to figure it out and still a lot goes wrong or I'm not happy with the result. In the picture above you see the first pieces I made and in the picture below you see a piece were I'm a little bit happy with, so I framed it for a necklace. What do you think about them?

I love my

A while ago I showed you here the beginning of a new drawing and I totally forgot to show how it turned out. Well, here is is! This is drawing number 2 with a girl with a weird pipi-tail-hat. (click here for number 1). I'm working on some more drawings, also with pen and airbrush and I'm thinking about ink. I'm still not sure if I should continue this new series, I just keep drawing and then I'll decide if it worth keeping....
Wish you a good weekend!

sneak peek...

...in my sketchbook to start this new week. Thank you for the nice comments the last few weeks to my exhibition, paintings and drawings, it really means a lot to me that you still take the time to write something! Wish you all a good start on this monday!

"miss wespentaille" means "miss wasp waist"

a combination or two

In this nice room are my paintings now for a month. This is a picture before the opening. It is always a combination of a musician and an artist. After the concert, most of the time it is classical music, is the opening of the exhibition. In my case there was a piano concert as you can see. This is a really bright room and I like my work in there. From the point where I took the picture, so in my back, there is a restaurant and some of my paintings are in there, which works as well, which I didn't expect...

drawing challenge

This weeks host is Kristen and her theme is "homage". I have a lot of things I would love to bring a homage to, like pencils, paint brushes, paper and so on. But of course I want to dedicate this to an artist. I get a lot of inspiration by woman artist, also because of their theme's, like Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Kiki Smith, Cindy Sherman, Jenny Saville and Niki de Saint Phalle (click here for my love for her work). But my homage goes to Pipilotti Rist, a video artist. I studied video and performance art in Basel, Zwitserland from 2003 til 2006. I was already a big fan of her work. In my second year I found out that she had studied at the same school in the eighties! And one of my teachers was in a band with her. I loved to hear the stories and see the images of that. Anyway, as I finished school I made some animations and then started drawing again. In 2009 I heard about a competition were you could make a video inspired by Rist. I did that and it was the last video I made. But who knows... I love the colors she uses and I tried to show that in my video which you can view here. Not my best work but I wanted you to see it ;-) I always acted myself in the videos but in this one it's my sister. It has sound!

For more homages please go to the lovely blog of Kristen and have a wonderful weekend!

because we cancancan!

That is a sentence of the song by Fatboy Slim for the movie "Moulin Rouge" where they dance the cancan. I like that song ;-) 

Anyway, I made 2 designs for the brabantia design competition: the "cancancan" girls and the strong weightlifters. You can still vote for one of them if you like them. For the girls click here and for the weightlifter here. If you do, I say Thank You! 

This is what the designs look like if they are not in the preview on the tin:

drawing challenge

This weeks host is birthday girl Stefanie, so first of all a big HIP HIP HURRAAAYY! Happy birthday to you my dear and I hope you have a wonderful day!

Her theme is "cup" inspired by the great artist Meret Oppenheim and to bring your own cup to the birthday party. I thought about what to show you here, because I have this love for cups and crockery. I have several favorite cups for my tea: new ones, but also from my childhood and some of them are so precious I don't use them, I only look at them. But then I remembered a drawing I made a while ago for my society6 shop. A drawing with tea cups in combination with a sentence I love. So this one it is.

I wish you all a great weekend, with some creativity and tea, and for more cups please go to Stefanie's blog!

sometimes...

... you meet such nice and friendly people. It's a shame that I feel that I should write a post about it, that it's such a rare thing these days if something nice from others happends to you. A lot of people are so grumpy, not happy and don't want to share anything any more. If someone gives you something for free without wanting anything back, that is just great! I got two boxes full of material to make enamel jewelery or others things with. I got it from the woman who invited me to take part in the art route a month ago. I didn't know her at all. She turned out to be very nice and we got along very well. At the end of day she said to me that she got these boxes full of material. She got them from a nun who made jewelery while living in a convent. The nun past away and she got the material. The boxes standing there for years and she just doesn't have the time to figure out how it works. She saw my jewelery and asked if I want to have these boxes because she felt that I would do something with it. And now I have these wonderful things! All the material to make new things, the enamel powders and the old vintage books how to make it. Just to own this is great, it's like going back in time, to see a glimpse of what this nun made and did. Old letters of her and the orders she placed for new powders. I still have to figure out how it works, it sounds really not that easy! I hope I soon have some more time to work with it and I hope I manage to make something out of it. At least make a piece for this lovely lady who gave it to me.

this and that and then

This is a detail of another small drawing I started about 2 weeks ago. I can't seem to find the time to finish it, so just a detail for now... At the moment it feels like I'm doing al kind of things at the same time, but I try not to think about that to much, it is what it is. Not bad, not good. I also started some new designs for my jewelery. The first ones are rings with a cancan-girl and a weightlifter. I like them myself :-)

And this week a got the news that my drawing -that I showed to you here-which was in an exhibition has been sold. I hope it got a nice home!

drawing challenge

This weeks host is Patrice and her theme is "Maria". And what a challenge it is! At least for me, because I'm not religious. And that is a bit of an understatement because I think it is absolutely not okay the way religions treat woman. They are not equal to men, they are unclean and have nothing to say at all.  I think the problems we have with women's rights are partly because of religions. But that is not the theme, is it? And I could go on and on and on about this;-) So I thought a bit about that poor Maria... who had to give birth to a baby without having sex. They had to make up a story so at least one woman in this world could be clean and holy. But I think she knows what really happened and was not allowed to tell and had to live with that secret.

To see more Maria's, check out the blog of Patrice!
(and I'm sorry if I offended anyone with my Maria drawing, but that is sometimes what art does, isn't it?).

how it went this time...

I had a very busy weekend with the art-tour, I had to be there myself all the time.  But that was a good thing! First of all talk to people, answering questions about my work and it's interesting what some people see in it... I like the picture above because of the matching flowers in the vase and the little lamp above my painting. It just looks like it belonged there. And second of all it was good to be there, because my jewelery was also there and I sold a lot;-) which was nice. The picture below shows a brooch which I made as a test. I wasn't sure about it, but it was the first thing I sold. So now I'm thinking to make some more and put it in my shop. I wish you al a good week and maybe I'll see you this weekend at the next drawing challenge, host of this week is Patrice!

the order of the day

No new things this week. I'm busy preparing for an art tour this weekend. This is a picture of a part of my studio and I have to decide which paintings I'll show. At the same time I'm making my goodies out of plastic which I also going to be selling there. I already burned myself twice at the door of the oven because I'm just to hectic;-) Below a bad picture of a detail of my desk at the moment. Putting all my pendants, magnets and earrings on labels.






If you happen to be in Maastricht this weekend and want to visit me (!), click here for more information.

How come you never go there?

...she wonders....

I'm starting a new series of small drawings. A combination of pen and airbrush. I'm not sure what will come out of it and about this first one. We'll see, right?

A good weekend to all of you!

How it went

Last saturday was the opening of the exhibition where one of my drawings is in.  There is not much to tell you: they did a nice job putting it up, there were lots of people and I was just happy that my drawing was doing fine, haha!  One more picture of an impression of the space which is really nice I think. 

the kindest of kisses

I made this drawing after visiting the zoo and I wanted to post it for last weeks drawing challenge "Nature" (check tinyWoolf!). Animals and humans are nature as well and I think we should be nicer to them and ourselves, but that is another story. This drawing gives me a calm and nice feeling and I wanted to post it anyway. Mostly because I need to be calm: I'm a bit nervous about this weekend. The exhibition where one of my drawing is opends on saturday...
I wish you all a good weekend and thank you for your comments on my last post. I hope this group picture becomes real;-)

drawing challenge

This weeks host for the drawing challenge is the lovely Nadine and her theme is "Nature". As I saw the invitation for this DC the first part of it was about our collective dream of meeting up and experiencing our weekly drawing challenge live! I was so exhited about this part and that Nadine really thought about it and wants to take it to the next level, that I made this drawing. I don't know you bloggers of the Dc in real live, but I imagine us meeting and having a wonderful time and this drawing could turn into a  group photo;-) I wasn't sure if should post this drawing because the theme is "nature" but then I just gave the girl in the middle a shirt with some colourful, abstract flowers!

Please go to the tinyWoolf blog for more nature, and have a good weekend!

plastic fantastic!

As I told you before I'm really having fun with the shrink-plastic at the moment. I posted the little magnets already and the bunny earrings. These are some other things I made: pendants and some more earrings. I like the simple way of drawing on it and then watch to see how it turns out in the oven. These are all for sale in my shop and there are some other products who have a 30% discount now.
Wish you all a good week!

drawing to the big city

happiness hit her, 150x230cm

Last week I found out that this drawing of me has been selected for an exhibition. I'm happy with that because it's in the city Den Haag in a well-known kind of gallery. The exhibition is called "Body in motion" and the funny thing is that it's about sport, hihi! The opening is in two weeks and I'll let you know how it turned out...
If you want to see all my drawings, click here.

me, myself and...

..a giraffe!
This is me about 12 years ago and in my dreadlocks-period, I was still in art school and I had to make something for photography class. We went to a bridge which is over a railway but at that time the railway was closed for trains;-)
We put a swing on the bridge and a ladder underneath it, beacause there was no way that I could get on the swing without a ladder. I put on my mother's wedding dress and started swinging. It was so much fun! My teacher was not impressed.... Anyway, I just found the pictures and the video about this project and wel.... suddenly this giraffe turned up....
Good weekend to you all!

think, think, think!

That's the question, right? I often drive myself crazy thinking too much and then there's this point where you just don't know what to do. But I like these guys: two old toys of mine;-) I like to play around with toys, drawing and quotes these days. This design you can also find on my society6 page as a shirt, bag and more...
I wish you all a good week!

drawing challenge

This weeks host for the drawing challenge is Norma and her theme is "farn". I thought about their big, green leaves and I immediately had to think about a girl holding a fan in front of her face. You know, like in the old days, haha! When it's really hot outside and you saw the women with an attitude blowing cold wind in their faces using a fan. Maybe it's because it's so hot over here at the moment that I had this idea while the theme is a plant....mmmm, that makes me think. Anyway, I just had to draw this girl, holding the leaves and some of the attitude is still there....

For more farn please go to the wonderful blog of Norma!

the winner and another go!

And the winner of the 2 magnets is Fados do lar! Congratulations and I will contact you for your address.

For those of you who didn't win: you have another chance at the facebook page of Atelier Spunk where I give these bunny-earings away! So if you want them: give it another go;-)