they seem so very tough

I'm still a bit in the vibe of the last drawing challenge and playing with drawing and words. This one can be read in many ways I think. Maybe a bit to serious for post number 301! Juhuuuu!

drawing challenge

These weeks host of the drawing challenge is Patrice and her theme is Proverb or Saying. Or any other text or sentence that means something to you or in your work. Well.... I don't have a favourite sentence: I have a whole booklet! I already told you once that I collect sentences or text pieces that inspire me. I'm very bad with words, so I collect them and then make something new out of them. I always have been fascinated by drawings or paintings with text pieces in them. I also made a lot of these drawings. Especially the ones I make on the computer. I like to play with it and see where the text can fit into the drawing and become a part of it. Some of them become very personal and others have my theme: woman in art and how they are threated and judged and so on. My favourite line is "Whatever kind of art I'll make, it will be labeled feminine". Just to bad that that is my favourite one, but as long as I meet people who think that's important to tell me so, I feel the feminist inside me, haha! Also important: humor, as in the drawing on top. And a little bit in the second one, humor and a little bit true. And last but not least: a picture of one of the cabinets I made a few years ago, some of them I already posted. A combination of drawing and a small object. The text is "fuck geluk" in reversed writing which means fuck happiness in dutch, but in dutch it rhymes and sounds funny. I like it especially when I'm angry and those "happy people" irritate me, sorry...

I just noticed I wrote a lot here...mmmm, Patrice I think your theme made me think again about some things! Please check out her blog for all the players in this challenge!

a sweet memory

For the last 3 days you could visit my home and my work. Most of the local artist opend their doors for public. I put some work in front of the house, so people could see that there was something happening and that they`re welcome to visit. And yes, that's me in front of the garage;-) I put a lot of my paintings in there as you can see in the next picture:

After that you enter the sun room where I put a table with the jewelry I make and a mannequin who's wearing a t-shirt with one of my designs:

I had some really busy days but it was worth it! Lots of people visited my place and I got some really nice and good comments, some discussions, sold some things and maybe a new exhibition coming up. I just wanted to show you a tiny impression and now I have to clean the house and bring everything back to it's original place and eveything is back to normal. I wish you all a good week!

drawing challenge

Liebe Stefanie, this one is for you! I hope you don't think or feel that I crossed a line here, that it's to personal, but I wanted to make a drawing for you and your brother Philipp. I hope you have some beautiful memories of you two and I tried to draw one: two children playing in the garden in the summer, posing for their father or mother who wants to take a picture. Of course I don't know how you two looked like as children, so I made them a little abstact. I want to give you something happy and not sad.

For more participants, please visit Stefanie's beautiful blog!

Before the real challenge

The next drawing challenge is hosted by Stefanie and she has a theme that can be interpreted in many, many ways: Philipp, a fillip. I thought, Philipp means the friend of horses. So you might let yourself be inspired by...? The music and the lyrics by muse, the name, your brother, a horse, a fingerplay, isn´t that fillip enough?

So I just finished this drawing for my society6 shop and I thought that it just fitted perfectly in a weird way to post it as a early input, haha! If you like this one, you can order it at my shop as a t-shirt, bag, pillow or print.

drawing challenge

This weeks host for the drawing challenge is Barbara and her theme is "smell"! A very interesting one because smell has everything to do with feelings and senses and what it does to you. You can smell something and remember something you thought you forgot, or travel back in time to your childhood. There are a lot of beautiful smells, like rain after a sunny day, or the smell of your skin in the sun, fresh baked bread or appels with cinamon. As I started drawing I realized my drawings are not that positive as the things I thought of... I let you decided;-) I think it has to do with the fact that my sense of smell, lets just say it's very well developed, the same goes for my sense of hearing. So it can turn into something negative very fast, even nice smells or sounds. I drive the people arround me crazy sometimes because they can't smell or hear it.

For more "smelly" things check out Barbara's blog, I'll see you there!

wild cart inside

Just to stay a little bit in the atmosphere of the last drawing challenge (burlesque), I show you one of my paintings with the title "waterfalls and booty calls".

drawing challeng

This weeks host for the drawing challenge is Tania and what a theme! The last theme was "dance" and this week we dance a little slower, sensually and erotically: Burlesque! And I love it, as Tania said: "burlesque is sensuality, is feminity, is playing. Striptease without stripping off completely, showing and hiding, openness and secret, coquetry, frivolity, erotic without obscenity, joy of seduction."
I like the clothes, the music and the fun of it and one of the queens of burlesque Dita von Teese.

For more Burlesque please go to Tania's blog and enjoy, I know I'm curious!

as silly as fun

I just made these glass jars with painted animals on top. I think they look like fun and they make me smile. I want to keep these for myself but I thougt it's nice to make a lot more of them when I have my open studio and sell them. So now my studio is covered with painted plastic animals and I must say they're good company ;-)

drawing challenge

This weeks host for the drawing challenge is Patrice and her fantastic theme is "Dance". I can not tell you how much I love to dance...oh yes I can tell you and I already did at this post, so if you want to read about my love for dancing give it a go! So I don't have to tell you how happy I am with this theme and I just had to post my "little tango bunny". Some of you know her already, but she's perfect for this challenge. She also has a sexy big sister:

If you want to see the versions of these computer-drawings made with watercolour, acrylic and airbrush click here.

For more "dance" go to Patrice's blog and let's dance!

waiting room...

...for my "Atelier Spunk" sign. This is actually a part of our garage. If I have to airbrush something bigger, I'll do that in the garage. My computer is also in my studio and it's not very healthy fot it to airbrush in front of it. Behind the bike you can see that I used this wall more then once... I just liked this picture: paint and work just where ever you can!

full of play

This is a drawing of me and my sister, look carefully, then you'll see us. I'm the one waving at you! We had so much fun during our walk in a field a couple of years ago. We have to wait a bit untill summer before the grass is that high again, but the weather has been so nice the last couple of days that I think this is the perfect drawing to wish you all a wonderfull weekend!

question of the week

Today I got the leaflet of the "Art-tour" where I'm showing my work. My studio will be open for 3 days. More then 80 artist will show their work and they picked one of my paintings for the front.  Do you recognize it? I hope so ;-)

drawing challenge

This weeks host for the drawing challenge is Nadine from the wonderful tinyWoolf blog.  And what a challenge it is this week! Her theme is "in the line of beauty" and I thought about it all week. You can take this challenge in so many directions, so many interpretations that I almost got lost in my own head, haha! And I don't know if I made this one easy for me or really hard. I found out that beauty for me has everything to do with personal feelings, like finding old pictures of an art-experiment where I'm wearing my mother's wedding dress on a swing, which didn't mean a thing at that time, but it does now. Bautiful flowers in the garden, sweet Pollock kissing my little sister, cuddling with friendly animals, drawing pictures of me and my mom, dancing. Being a little proud of yourself of the things you make, even if that's hard, getting a beautiful smile from the one you love. A bad picture of the moon, but you remember how beautiful it was at the time. My so loved stuffed sheep. Getting beautiful cards of wonderful blog friends. Being sick and getting better and turn it into something good for other people and discover on the way that you're doing not so bad with your own food-problems. A hand-made card for your birthday. Beauty lies in so many things, sometimes you need a challenge to see it!

For more beauty please go to tinyWoolf!

open studio...soon

No drawing or painting this time, not much to see as well. I have to start airbrushing to make a sign and a flag. I'm taking part in an "art-tour" of our community by the end of may. 80 artist show their work and you can also visit some of their studio's. I'm opening my house and work space for 3 days. I really wonder how it's going to be but I still have some work to do. I also show my jewellery pieces and that's the first time I'll get reactions of people directly. Now you can only see them on the internet. Maybe that will help me to develop them or maybe the opposite of that and stop making them. Anyway: back to work!

something new...again!

Lately I have so much fun drawing new illustrations on my computer that I decided to do it even a bit more ;-) I noticed that I like making the drawings for my food-blog, especially the quotes. I used to do a lot with words in my drawings and paintings. Now I picked that up again and it's just feels good right now. You can also see that a bit in the jewellery I make. And now you can buy some of these illustrations, juhuuu! And you can choose how you want them printed: on canvas, on paper or rather framed, as gift cards, tote bag, iPhone cases, t-shirts or as a pillow (which is my favourite I think...) There are only a few designs online right now but I'm working on more. If you want to take a look, click here and I wish you all a good weekend!

and we wait a bit more

Oh nice, warm april sun were are you? I don't like complaining to much about the weather but now even I start doing that. It's much to cold over here for this time of the year, much to grey and no tulips yet. Spring is late and for now she's only inside my home.

bunny time!

"endings are always happy", 100x150 cm

I want to wish every one a very happy, nice and maybe sunny Easter! Enjoy your weekend with family, friends or whatever your plans are and don't eat to much chocolate or eggs!

"ass-kissing mercy-missing" 100x120 cm

Spunk Update

I haven't posted a while about Atelier Spunk. I don't know if you remember: I started to make jewellery. Lately I get all kinds of new ideas to make, which makes it very fun to keep Spunk going. I have to try a lot to see if it works, for example the medallions where the illustrations are covered in casting resin. It's a bit frustrating sometimes but of course the feeling you get when it works, rules!
And I'm also developing stuff to make it look nice when I sell it: like Spunk's own stamp, price-labels and my own masking tape, which I love (with thanks to Mano for the tipp!).

drawing challenge

This weeks host for the drawing challenge is Norma and her theme is "Egg", which fits perfectly so close before easter!
In the Netherlands we have these small, chocolade eggs in all kinds of flavours: white, dark, white-crisp, white-rasberry, dark-crisp, dark-rasberry, rasberry-caramel and so on and on. I think it's the same in other country's but I'm not sure so I explain it... Each flavour has his own colour where the chocolade is wrapped in. Just dark chocolate is mostly red, but this can be different in another store, which can be very confusing. You think you have your favourite taste, but this shop wrapped the caramel-pineappel in yellow instead of gold. We have really some easter problems over here! I based my drawing on that and let the girl search for her favourite small, chocolate treat...with a lot of concentration!

Please check out Norma's blog for some more eggs and I wish you all a wonderful weekend!