pink ribbon

In the Netherlands October is the month of Pink Ribbon: an organisation who creates  a worldwide awareness for breast cancer. I'm not sure if it's the same in the rest of the world. Some of you know that my mother died of the effects of breast cancer. Because of this and just to make sure I have to go the docter myself every two years for a check up. This is not in October, my mother's birthday or the day she past away isn't in October but I'm still very aware of it in this month and I just think a bit in pink. That's way this drawing.

And just to make this post not to heavy: I posted a funny quote on my other blog and placed the "follow-link" which I forgot;-) I wish you all a good start in this new week!

something different and new!

I'm quite exited because I started another blog! It's not that different because I still post drawings but it's all about food. On this blog you can find recipes and quotes about food. Maybe you'll ask yourself "why?". To answer this I'll have to tell you something about myself: I have some really bad food allergies. When I eat peanuts or nuts you'll have to bring me to the hospital because I can't breathe. When I eat yeast, sugar or milkproducts it will make me sick after a few months: daily stomach ache, headache and very tired. If I tell people this the maint point is often that they focus on the allergies and not what I can eat and that they feel sorry for me. Even if I tell them that they don't have to be because I feel better this way because I'm not sick. Even on the internet the focus is often so negative that I wanted a change for me and maybe even for other people who can't eat this stuff. So I started this blog with a lot of positive energie and my way to share recipes: by drawings! Maybe you want to have a look, leave a comment, or even follow it... Maybe you even have a tip-off! I just started so there're only 4 post yet. The drawings are in dutch, but you can find the english version on the bottom of every post.
The name of the blog is "plant-aardig", which means in dutch as much as "vegetable" but in dutch it has the word "nice" in it.

Maybe I'll see you there ( if you want te know the whole recipe of the drawing above you'l have to take a look ;-)) and otherwise I wish you a nice weekend!

drawing challenge

This weeks drawing challenge is hosted by the lovely Mano and she has a great theme: driftwood!
I absolutely love wood and in particular the wood I find. In our home we have lots of wood we found and we made things out of it or just put it somewhere as decoration. I also love furniture made of driftwood, my dream is to have a nice cupboard made of it. For this challenge I tried something new: I took a photo and put it together with a drawing of mine. I like the atmosphere in it. For more driftwood inputs check out Mano's blog! (which you should do anayway!).

And to start the weekend: some changes on my blog!

lovable lions

Last weekend we had some of the last beautiful, sunny days. Since then it's just rain, rain and some more rain. So we made a walk through Maastricht and visited the lions of Marjolein Mandersloot. She made these sculpures for a part of Maastricht that has been renewed and I just love them! They are made of cast iron but they look like stuffed animals and very cuddly. I wish you all a nice weekend, sunny or rainy: it really doesn't matter, just enjoy it!

know a colour blue

After my frustrations with the spirograph I turned back to what I love to do at the moment: making some more dinner-plates. I really like making them so I think I'll make some more and try out some other plates. I realized that if you find something you like do draw or make, you'll get into some kind of flow. No stress, no thinking, just the colour blue and the drawing. It doesnt't always work that way off course but for the moment this was my Mandala, it just looks different!

drawing challenge

And what a challenge it was!!! This time the challenge was hosted by wonderfull WOOLF and her theme is "Mandala" and the good old spirograph (find out more about these two things on the tinyWOOLF blog). I immediatly got excited because I did get a spirograph as a kid. I search for it and found it! And because I'm working on a personal challenge to get more relaxed and less stressed out, the Mandala theme was perfect! So it seems... My positive energy was gone in 5 minutes and I really got frustrated: I simply couldn't make nice Mandala's! My pen slipped away and I ruined one after another. I'm not made for doing this! I'm the kind of girl who finds peace in colouring Mandala's someone else has made, that's peacefull! Maybe I'll give it anoher try someday. Thank you for this challenge: I again have learned something about myself: I really have to work on my stress-level;-) And I'm sorry, this was the best I could do:

You can find more Mandala's on WOOLF's blog. I wish you all a nice weekend!

my own little world

While searching for something at our addic I found an old wooden wine box of my dad. A box were they transport wine in if you buy it. The more expensive the wine, the more beautiful and better the box is.  I ask him if I could have the box and transformed it into another nice little rack for my little stuff (and I have a lot of it!) I painted it white but on the side you can still see the " grand vin du france". I put in on a wall which I papered with mostly pages of the dutch magazine Flow. These small things make me happy. I wish you a all a good week!

no, this is not a test

Well, that is not completely truth: at first this dinner plate was a test, including the plates I made before this one. All because of my search for a water resistant marker to draw on porcelain. And now I found one and I started drawing on an old dinner service of my grandma. To be honest I'm really happy with it, I like the colour blue and also the combination of my drawing and the flowers on the plate. Now I start drawing on the rest of the set and I also want to try out some other plates. It will be water resistant but not scratch resistant...
What do you think of it?

Pippi and Mister Nilsson

Yesterday this beautiful necklace arrived, it made my day! It's so perfect, like it's especially made for me to wear it. It fits beautiful with the drawings I make, perfect inspiration and funny and the same time. It's made by Karamboola. If you like nostalgic jewellery you should definitly check out her shop!
I wish you all a nice weekend!

searching for cheese

Actually, these two cute little mouses are searching for chocolate. This weekend we had a family trip to a amusement park in Germany. I still don't feel like my old self but I really wanted to go and just have a nice day. And this park had a new ride "maus au chocolate" about a backery which has trouble with mouses and you can find the two in my drawing at the entrance.

And thank you for the nice comments on my last post, it really does a lot for my self-confidence!

closer and closer

The summer is sneaking away and you can feel that autumn is slowly coming. In the morning and in the evening it's already a bit colder. I don't mind, I love the autumn with its beautiful colours. So I made this drawing to welcome a hopefully beautiful autumn in about three weeks. I wish you all a good start in the new week!

photogenic Pollock

This is another experiment with a lomo-camera. This time is not a fisheye, but a camera which has 4 lenses. The camera takes 4 pictures each time you push the button. It takes the pictures very fast and on one print you get 4 pictures. Each picture of my rabbit Pollock is as big as a creditcard and together they make a normal size print. What you see above is a normal photo. You never know exactly what the lenses capture, especially when the oject moves, like Pollock. It was a lot of fun taking pictures of Pollock, he just wanted to see if he could eat the camera...

news! news! news!

Now I'm also one of those people who have their own online-shop, but I'm still pretty exhited! I don't have much items to sell yet and I'm not sure where it's going, but still: something new!
One of the items I'm selling is the "to die for" pocket-mirror: size 7,6 cm and perfect for your handbag or pocket. And to celebrate the opening of my shop I'll give one pocket-mirror away! If you leave a comment you can win this one! Next week I'll let you know who the lucky one is...
Please let me know what you think of my shop!

the fisheye view 2

I few weeks ago I showed you some experiments with a lomo-camera. We took the camera with us to our trip to Norway and here are some results. It's not so easy, you have to experiment a lot. If the horizon line is exactly in the middle you hardly see a difference from a normal photo. I still think it's quite funny, especially the one with the boat made me smile. Below a picture of our car, we drove 3.800 km on our trip...

draw a moment

These are some pages of my sketchbook that I took with me on my trip to Norway. Every night I wrote down what we did and what we saw. I don't take it with we during the day, because I find it very hard to draw or write in public or at the moment that I'm walking in such wonderful landscape. And actually I write more then that I draw, so it's more "write a moment".... I found out that it brings back memories sometimes even more then looking at photo's. I try to do the same thing at home but at the end I don't do it, probably because every day is a bit the same.

liebster blog

 I have been tagged my Malle for the Liebster Blog Award. The Liebster Blog Award is given to upcoming bloggers who have 200 followers or less. I think it's very sweet of her, so thank you Malle!

Appeartly there are some rules you must follow for this:

1. Each person must post 11 random facts about themselves.

2. Answer 11 questions the tagger has given you and give 11 questions for the people you tagged.

3. Choose 11 persons and link them to your post.

4. Tell them you've tagged them. Remember, no tag backs.

Well ; I don't like rule number 3 , because I like so many blogs and so many of you who follow me. So: everyone who leaves a comment to this post can take over the Liebster blog! But please tell 11 facts about yoursels and if you want take over Malle's questions. 

Because I don't want to choose I made my own rule, sorry for that...

Facts:

1.    I’m an artist.

2.    I deliver mail to pay the bills.

3.    My rabbits name is Pollock.

4.    I love sheep.

5.    I drink lots of tea.

6.    I’m a fan of Wallace and Gromit and of course Shaun the sheep.

7.    I can loose myself in books, I read everywhere.

8.    I grow my own tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and so on.

9.    I’m tall: 1.78 cm

10.  I would like to wear black clothes, but I always end up in colourfull stuff…

11.  I like to frame pictures.

Malle's questions:

1.What is your favourite thing to cook?

I like making cookies or cake, sweet stuff.

2. What is something you dream of?

That I can pay my bills and make a living by selling my art.

3. Are you an introvert, extrovert or else?

It depends of the people I’m with and the situation I’m in, I can be both.

4. If you could have different kind of hair colour, which one would you choose?

Red and curly!!!

5. Where do you like to hang out most often in your free time?

In my studio or in the garden.

6. Tell me some of your favourite films of all time.

Lola rennt, Being John Malcovich, Adam’s apples, Mary and Max

7. How would you let foreigners know about your country? (What significant things about your culture would you tell them first?)

Well, if I tell people I’m from Holland they immediatly say: “oh yes, Amsterdam and marihuana, and wooden shoes and tulips! And oh yes: Vincent van Gogh”

I do my best telling that that’s not all, but what can I say?

8. Are you more of a tomboy or a girly girl?

A bit of both…I still like climbing trees but also dress up in a fancy dress.

9. How many siblings do you have?

I have one sister.

10. If you could have more time to do one thing, what would it be?

Draw more!

11. Have you ever heard anything of Estonia before? (lol, I just had to.)

mmm, not really….

I'm back!

I'm home again and just sorted out the pictures of Norway. It's a beautiful country and I did see so many beautiful things: mountains, glaciers, fjords. Nature is so beautiful over there. And now I don't know what to show to you...
I'm looking forward to blog again and I hope you're all doing fine! And one last picture for you, one of my favourites because I like sheep.

blog vacation

Tomorrow morning I'm going away on holiday: to Norway! I'll be back by the end of July. In the mean time I wish you all the best and maybe you'll miss my blog just a little bit ;-)

the fisheye view

Ever heard of Lomography? Well, I didn't untill my dad came home with a lomo-camera...

In the early 1990s a couple of students discovered a small, enigmatic Russian camera, the Lomo Kompakt Automat, and created a new style of artistic experimental photography with their first unorthodoy snapshot cavortings. The approach: taking as many photographs (lomographs) as possible in the most impossible of situations possible and from the most unusual positions and then having them developed as cheaply as possible. Exhibitions, interactive projects, events and live visual performances have been the most significant forms of Lomographic communication over 12 years. The basic Lomographic idea is: be fast, don't think, be open-minded towards your enviroment, absorb everything.

You can buy the most extraordinary snapshot cameras: 4-lensed cameras, colorsplash, holga or the fisheye camera, which you can see in the first try-out photo's above.... And I must say, it's really a lot of fun. You never know what the result will be, it's a lot different then taking a picture with your digital camera.

drawing challenge

Mano invited me for the drawing challenge of this week. Her theme was: Letters. So I made a drawing inspired by an older Pippi-drawing of mine. I like what came out of it: is the girl happy because she got so many letters, is she throwing them away or is she handing them out?
If you want to see more of the drawing challenge of this week, check out Mano's blog for all the participants.