in memory...

...of my beautiful mother. This year your lost seems even harder, maybe because of the changes in my life which I can not share with you. All I can do is think of you, bring you flowers or light a candle, make you a drawing.

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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?).

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!

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!

hot like crazy

I want to dive in a swimmingpool, lake or in the sea! We had bad weather for such a long time, so I don't complain.... but I want a pool badly;-)
Wish you a good start in this week!

finally...and sorry!

Finally some sun and I hope where ever you are there is some sun too! That inspired me to take a picture in my garden with my pink slippers and draw my feet in them;)

And sorry that I don't leave a lot of comments on your blogs at the time. At lot of stuff is happening and I have been busy. But even if I don't comment, I still take a look at what you're all doing.
I wish you all a nice week!

oh girl...

Last week I told you about my new love: drawing in photo's. That has already developed into something new, hihi! Besides the love for drawing I took my collection of small vintage toys, my collections of quotes and made it into something new, put it al together. And I can tell you: this makes me smile as well! Lets see what happens next week with all my love for things, mmm...

If you like it you can click here, I already made cards, t-shirts and prints out of 2 designs.

picture perfect...

...well, almost. I found a new love: drawing in my photo's. I always liked taking photo's, but I don't think I'm very good at it. And now I discovered Instagram. I don't know why, but putting my photo's out there this way, makes it easy and I just have so much fun doing it. And that is something I also discovered lately: I like making things that make me feel good, no "heavy art" work or girls with guns. And that is something new. I found out that I made this kind of art with a message as I personally felt good. Now I don't feel very good (but don't worry;-) and I want to make "feel good" stuff. Before this gets to much inside my head: if you want to see more photo's like this, click here.
And yes, that is me in the photo...

drawing challenge

This weeks host for the drawing challenge is Kristen and her theme is "Solstice". I think it's a beautiful theme and very well choosen for this time of the year. I had to think very hard what it meand to me, do I have traditions or mind sets with the changing seasons, do I have plans? Funny is that I always have to think about the word "midsummer" and country's like Sweden or Norway. Pictures of places where is doesn't get dark, dancing around tree's and fairy's, haha! I realized that I don't do anything special at this point of the year, only hoping that we get some kind of summer and a couple of nice days or even weeks! The last few years our summers in The Netherlands were really bad, before you knew it was already fall. We were happy with 6 days of sun! So for this solstice I dream of reading a good book while sitting in the grass, enjoy the sun and just let the time go by. Please give us some weeks of summer!

For more changing of the seasons please go the sunny spot (what a perfect name the blog has for this challenge!).

go back and forward

That is the question.... back to my drawings, forward with something else or both... At the moment I'm not sure what to do, so I try not to think to much about it and just let see what will happen. The truth is I hate that feeling! At least I gave the girl in my drawing a pair of sunglasses, becauses sunny it's going to be this week and that's good news. I wish you all a good start in this new week!

drawing challenge

This weeks host is Ariane and her theme is "mood bord". I never made a mood bord in the way it's ment to be I guess. I see myself as a walking mood bord, haha! My head is full of images for different situations and thinks I want to have or do. I have a book for my collection of words and text. My door to my studio is full of images as an inspiaration for my large "pippi" drawings. I collect pictures out of newspapers and magazines. I could have show you all of that, but the line that made me think in the invations of Ariane was "any projects like the redesign of a room or painting or visualisation of a plan for the future". I made a drawing of the visualisation of the future but not exactly: only halve of the plan. The other chair is ment to be for my boyfriend. We're planning to move in together. I don't know when or how it will happen and it's pretty exciting. I'm ready for it and at the same time I'm not, so that's why I'm still alone in the drawing.

For more mood bords go the Ariane's blog and I wish you all a good week!