and winter comes

My little holiday is over and it was great. We went to a national park were you can make wonderful walks. And if you're lucky and it's very cold and snowy, you can sleigh and do some ice-skating. And in the week before we left, winter started over here! The weather was perfect, just very cold and the landscape beautiful. And because I love snow, I wanted to make something. Just to bad: the snow wouldn't stick. I couln't build I giant Pippi-snow-girl out of it. So I tried to make a polar bear coming out of the water, haha!

take it from here

I thought I show you a piece of my "inspiration wall", where I collect newspaper articles, pictures of magazines, sentences that I find interesting and some of my sketches. I like to see this kind of stuff when I'm in a studio of someone. The problem I have with my wall is that I find it difficult to change it, put some of it down and hang something new. I always get so used to it.

everywhere I go

Early in december I gave these stickers of one of my drawings away. I never told you why I made them and for what I will use them. I planned to start a small Pippi invasion. I want them to appear all over town. I started in the city Heerlen where at the moment the exhibition is where you can see my drawings. Maybe someone who visited the exhibition will notice a sticker and wonder...

quite happily

Today I was walking in our garden and wondering about the beautiful colours of autumn. I just love the brightness of yellow, orange and red. Amazing what nature can show us. Over here in The Netherlands we had a wonderful October and now even in November it's really warm. I guess it soon will be over, but for know there still are some flowers:

And even my red-hot-chilli-pepper-plants are still alive and that in November! Amazing!

oh so sweet

I found this picture of me at the age of 4, sitting behind my dad's drawing table and working really hard... I made this drawing inspired by it. I like it, but maybe that is just because it's so nostalgic for me?

it's quite a slow disaster

In June I told you that we are renovating a part of the house: the sun room. It had to be finished in July and now it's......Yes, Sepember! And still it's not done. I'm not going to annoy you with boring stories about everything that has gone wrong and dealing with construction business. The bad thing is that I can't really concentrate on drawing when people are working in the house.  Last weekend we decided to start painting the walls ourselves, so that is the painting I do at the moment, haha! And if your wondering about the blue walls: they delivered the wrong colour and we're waiting for the correct ones. I feel like I'm in an aquarium!

going nuts

We have a walnut-tree in our garden and what a coincident: since my last post about autumn the walnuts have started to fall down! It's guite some work to collect them all and it takes a while before they're all fallen down. Then they have to dry and well.....  I give them away to family and friends, because I'm allergic to nuts (see my post where I tell 7 things about myself). And every year I put a table outside and sell them.  When you drive around here you can find people selling their fruits, vegetables and nuts.We live in this house for 4 years now and in all this time only two persons did'nt put the money in the money box I ask for the nuts. So most people are honest ;-)

picture perfect

Your reactions on my post where I showed you these photo's of me while I'm drawing one of my big pippi-drawings, made me realize how important it is to see the drawings together with a human being. In the very beginning I told you how big the drawings are, but I guess you all realized it when you saw me drawing. As you all know I love working on the floor and at the moment it's actually the only way for me to draw. So I "faked" a photo of me while I'm working at a drawing, so you can see the whole drawing while someone is standing in front of it. You can see all of the drawings I made untill now on my website, including the titles I gave them. You can also see this one without me blocking the view... (I like this one because of the energy the girl has in her movement). What I'm trying to say is: thank you for your nice and helpfull comments, it means a lot to me!

know a colour

The last weeks I made 5 of those big (150 x 230 cm) Pippi-drawings and I used only 7 red pencils, which I find amazing. Apparently you can draw a lot with one pencil. I think I'm going to make more of these drawings and after a few years I can make a special cabinet for the pencils.
This weekend I took pictures of the last 3 drawings I made and I hopefully post the first one by the end of the week.

very pink superhero girl!

 Let me introduce you to Mega Mindy: she's a children's supernatural-superhero and very popular by young girls in Belgium and the Netherlands. A friend of mine asked me if I would make a painting for het daughter (age 5) for her new room and it had to be Mega Mindy!
The story of the television show reminds me a lot at Batman... mmmm. It revolves around Mieke, a girl who lives with her grandparents and works as a police officer but also has a secret identity as superhero Mega Mindy. She tries to keep it a secret, but falls in love with Toby who also works at the police. He is in love with Mega Mindy and doesn't know that Mieke secretly likes him and is actually Mega Mindy. She tries to find a way to balance between work and being a superhero, but it isn't always easy. (haha)
Well, I hope I made a young girl happy and I've seen enough pink for a while....

International Women's Day (8th of March)

One day to early, but now you can all prepare for:

International Women's Day (IWD), originally called International Working Women’s Day is marked on the 8th of March every year. It is a major day of global celebration of women. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political and social achievements.

The new millennium has witnessed a significant change and attitudinal shift in both women's and society's thoughts about women's equality and emancipation. Many from a younger generation feel that 'all the battles have been won for women' while many feminists from the 1970's know only too well the longevity and ingrained complexity of patriarchy. With more women in the boardroom, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased critical mass of women's visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life, one could think that women have gained true equality. The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.

However, great improvements have been made. We do have female astronauts and prime ministers, school girls are welcomed into university, women can work and have a family, women have real choices. And so the tone and nature of IWD has, for the past few years, moved from being a reminder about the negatives to a celebration of the positives.

Annually on 8 March, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate achievements. A global web of rich and diverse local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities and networking events through to local women's craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more. The United States even designates the whole month of March as 'Women's History Month'.

More info at internationalwomensday.

amsterdamned

I was in Amsterdam this weekend, unfortunatly is was raining but it was still very nice. There are so much nice shops with interesting and very creative windows. Of course they are often blocked by the typical dutch bikes.

A completely useless fact: "amsterdamned" is a dutch movie (1988) by Dick Maas about a mysterious diver hiding in Amsterdam's canal system embarks on a rampage of gruesome murders, terrifying city officials and leaving few clues for the city's best detective, who doesn't suspect that both his new girlfriend and twelve-year-old daughter may be closer than he is to finding the killer.

Oh, and I met some inspiring old, dutch painters ;-)

something different

This is going to be a weird post about my toilet, haha! I thought it could use something fun to look at. We have a small mirror hanging on the wall, so I took the mirror and made a bird out of it. I made the bird out of pur foam, it's a great material but not easy to control. I had fun making it and the toilet looks also better I quess ;-)

know a colour

These are the ink bottles of Winsor & Newton and I just really like them. I don't draw a lot with ink but the few bottles I have of them are standing on my desk, most of the time just to look at. It's the drawings on the bottles I love: each colour has a different drawing. Some of them are beautiful and others I think are funny. Winsor & Newton has 26 drawing inkt colours and one day I would like to have all bottles! Not really to use, but then I have all the drawings for inspiration!

And the boxes the bottles are in are just as nice.

Pawel Althamer

Today I went to the Ludwig Forum in Aachen (Germany). It's a museum for modern art and they are now showing work of Pawel Althamer. He is a polish artist who won "The Aachen Art Prize". I really like his sculptures, but the exhibition was a bit disapointing. The museum is preparing for a big exhibition in march so a lot of ereas are closed. But Art Prize is a big thing and they have only three works of Althamer: the film "the golden knight" and the same-titled sculpture and a installation, which you could see in the neighbouring church.

The funny thing is, as I was studying in Basel (Switzerland) Pawel was a guest teacher at the academy in the year 2003. I remember that he didn`t say very much, but he told us that he thinks that walking is very important to watch and observe things, especially in the city. So he made us walk through Basel for three days! At day three the most students didn't even show up. He told us that he had organized a exhibition in "Stadtkino Basel" and we had to make sculptures out of clay, inspired by our walks. So the picture below shows the weird baby-thing I made in his workshop. The baby is holding a plastic bal with a dog inside. I don't know what I was thinking, but making sculptures isn't my calling, haha! I didn't speak a lot with Pawel, but the weird thing is that I remember his workshop and walking through the city.

what is learnt early...

I found this picture of me drawing at the working table of my dad. I think I'm 3 or 4 years old. My father is a graphic designer who used to work a lot at home in his studio. I look very concentrated...
Oh, and my painting is almost done!

preview on my new painting

yesterday I worked on my new painting. Although I do have a easel, I like working on the floor. It's not very good voor my back or knees. I tried to work with the canvas on the easel, but it seems impossible at the moment. It's my favourite way to paint so I have to deal with the uncomfortable position. As I write it down it's sounds like a very conflicting way of working, haha. Anyway, I hope I can finish this painting this week.

in a world of puppets

In the last publication of the magazine FLOW, there was an artikel about Karen Saaman. She is the owner of Popjes Art and she gets inspired by vintage dolls of the sixties, on her website and shop you can find the dolls, but also cards and buttons. The magazine printed a picture of an old vintage cabinet where she had put het dolls and figures in. And I remembered that I have the same kind of cabinet on the attic! This is a great idea to put all my old puppets in my room again. I had them now all in different boxes and somethimes I would look at them. This kind of stuff makes me happy!
On the small picture below  you can see the whole cabinet, as you can see I still have some room left!

stairway to....bed?

In the house we live there are really small stairs that go to the second floor, where my studio and the bedrooms are. It's not a space where you can do much: to small for paintings and to high to hang something beautiful. So about a year ago we thought we make some kind of artwork in it. We found a nice branch to hang all kind of stuff in it. Old works of me and my dad got a new purpose! My dad even "destroyed" some of his old drawings to make a new work as a background for the branch. We put some lights in it which makes is look a little bit like christmas, perfect for this time of the year! (but it also looks great in the summer!)
In the picture below you can see how the stairs go up, to put all of this in perspective...

gingerbread-house

This year I made a gingerbread-house! As I finished it I thought by myself: the house needs an environment, it looks so empty and lonely. So  it became a big project! So now it has woods, and rabbits and all kind of figures and of course a bad witch inside the house! It ended up to be a lot of work, but it was fun to do.
I hope you all have a nice christmas and don`t eat to much of everything!