I'm back...

… from my holiday. I don't do much drawing when I'm on vacation, just keeping a travel journal of what I did and saw.  This is one of the pages and below is the table and view I had while drawing. Very beautiful and relaxing.

Hope you are all doing fine and I try the catch up this week!

request: underwater...

Because so many of you asked for my underwater pictures I search for them. Then I realized that maybe you thought I had beautiful pictures of an underwater world with nice fish and a coral reef or something like that… But I never was in such places to take such photo's so I have to disappoint you if that is what you expected. We always just had fun taking pictures of each other and because of the cheap camera's we had (just use one time) you are never really sure what kind of pictures you get. Is the person on it or not. So I selected two pictures of me which aren't that explicit or with weird swimming moves, so sorry for that: I self-censorshiped-me ;-) This picture was taken in Spain in a lake and the picture below in Finland. So you can really see the difference in light. The best pictures of course you get in a swimming pool but that is not so much fun. You always see the tiles or stuff like that. Hope you  still enjoy this post ;-)

around the world

A few months ago The Great Roberto came up with an idea. He would start drawing on a card and send it to me. I continue drawing and send it to the next person. 5 Persons participated on this wonderful project and the fun thing was that all 5 of us started a card. So 5 cards were posted and started their journey around the world. This weekend I got my card back that I started and it was excited to see what the others had made of it.  I really enjoyed this project. People I only know because of their blogs, started something "real". I now have a card with drawings of 4 people around the world and I really like that... Thank you Roberto, Stefanie, Hedwig and Rossichka.      

On the back of the card we each wrote something to the drawing or just what came up into our mind, to start a story you maybe can read when seeing the drawing:

about days off, real life and beautiful gifts

This week I had a few days of so I tried to relax and do some nice things.  At day one we went to beach. The weather was so beautiful ans sunny but we froze our ... of because there was so much wind, haha! We didn't bring our sweathers because in the city it was really nice and as we arrived at the beach we wondered why all the people came back and didn't stay. Well, we found out as soon we saw some sand, brrrr!

At day two I went to an exhibion and I saw the work of Nelleke! It was really nice to see it in "real life" and I also met Nelleke, which was really fun because we follow each other for a while now here in blog-land and we know things about each other and now we each have a face to go with it!

I also went to an exhibition in Amsterdam about Pixar which was really gooooood! You can see the sketches, drawings, paintings and storyboards they make for each movie. So it's not about the finished movies, but the work they do before that. All the hand-made drawings. And wow these people can draw! That was really inspiring. Unfortunately you're not allowed to take pictures, but this little guy wanted to come home with us and took a look arround in the train:

And the perfect ending for my days off was when I came home and a package of Stefanie arrived. I'm now the proud owner of some postcards, her beautiful little booklet and some jewelery made by her. Men, I'm happy! Thank you Stefanie!

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!

sort things by colour

I'm back! I can't wait to see what happend on your blogs, even it was only a week. That's the proof of how you can get addicted to new media...
Now have to do my laundry, even after a small trip it's possible to make a lot of stuff dirty;-)
So everything is almost back to normal and I wish you already a good weekend!

full speed baby

I want to wish you all a very nice weekend and a good start in the next week! I'll be away for the next couple of days, visiting the beautiful city Rotterdam. I can't visit a lot of your blogs that week, so sorry for that and hopefully I'll be able to post the next thing by the end of next week. Thank you for the nice comments on my last two blogpost!

snow slips under the door

With this blog-post I just want to let you know that I love snow! And that's all... The pictures above are all taken in our garden and off course is that my rabbit Pollock, he doesn't mind the snow. The only thing he doesn't like about it is that he can't eat any grass, so he tries to dig the snow away;-) The picture below is taken during a walk, near our village you can find a black scottish highlandcattle and this one came very close!

bittersweet

This is a sketch of my mum and me. I drew it when we came back of a holiday in Finland in 2006. We went swimming and had so much fun with a underwatercamera and diving goggles. The sketch isn't very good but everytime I see it it makes me smile, because of the silly stuff we did. Today it's 5 years ago that she past away and I'm glad that I made this weird sketch of us.

circle of life

I few weeks ago I told you about my visit to the Gaia Zoo. Now I want to show you a beautiful sculpure they own. The artist Roger Geraerdts made it. About two years ago you could see the "Elephants Parade" in the city Heerlen. The Elephants Parade is the world's largest open air exhibition of decorated elephant statues that seeks to attract public awareness and support for Asian elephant conservation. As an artist you get a grey elephant statue and you can do with it as you like. The wonderful thing about this sculpture is that you really have to look twice and then you'll see what's going on...He build a lion out of wood and iron around the elephant. I just think it's great. And apparently more people thought that so the Zoo ordered a baby sculpture.

animals are always right

No, this is not my rabbit Pollock or a new friend of him (which would be nice) but a Belgian hare in the Gaia Zoo, where I spend my sunday moring. This zoo was started in 2005 and it's about 15 minutes by car from where we live. I don't like the concept of a zoo that much, especially the old fashion cages, but because this zoo is so new they have a new concept. They used nature environment and everything is made of wood or glass. No iron cages or weird rocks for lions but big places for the animals so there is a risk that you can't see them. And it's just great that it's so nearby that we can visit it anytime and see it develop and the newborn animals. And we can buy this cheap card which we can use the whole year. I couldn't resist: here are some more animal pictures:

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!

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!

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.

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 ;-)

drawing challenge

This week the drawing challenge is hosted by Patrice and her theme is "I". She asked herself: who am I, outside and inside, what do I show and what not?

Well, I loose myself in these questions. I think we are a lot of different "things", it depends on the situation which one you are. I'm a different person if I deliver the mail or if I sit with my family. And the next question is: what do you show of yourself: at work or at friends and then the next level: at your blog. Everyone can see that and what do you want people to see? I had a lot of different ideas for this theme, also of course a self portrait and even a photo, but I guess I'm not really ready for that... And then I thought I just make a combination of ideas: I'm away for the weekend, I make a little trip to Rotterdam and I have to wait at the train station for my train. So that's the drawing and it also tells you something else about me: where ever I go, if it's far or only the waiting room at the docter office: I always carry books, magazines or newspapers around. You hardly catch me without one. I can totally loose myself in stories or articles, even if I'm at a public place like a train station...


Because I'm away tomorrow this drawing is posted a day early. Tomorrow on saturday you can find more about this challenge on Patrice blog!

happiness for a day or two

We have this tradition in my family that every year we spend a weekend together. We rent a large house (I have a big family) somewere in The Neherlands and spend two days together. We started this as my grandparents died and we didn't see much of eachother. My grandparents were the ones who kept us all together. I'm a real family girl so I love it and in two hours this year's weekend starts. I have to go and pack my bags. I wish you all I nice weekend!

rules of the queen

Every year on the last day of April, the Netherlands celebrates the birthday of the Queen’s mother. On this day, all Dutch cities, small or big, are bustling with street parties and other festive events.  There are also parades, craft shows, flea markets, freemarkets, children’s parties, free music performances, street theatres and fireworks.
We dress up in orange-themed outfits, locals and tourists gather in the streets for this internationally renowned celebration, which goes on until the evening or even until the next day. We start celebrating Queen's Day from the evening before the Queen's Day itself. Usually, the parties start from 7pm and go on until the early hours of Queen's Day. So It's going to be a busy weekend and monday: we don't have to work on Queen's Day! Wish you also a nice weekend, whatever your plans are.