Abstract Sunrise

A few posts ago I shared some pictures from one of my morning walks. You can see those here.

The walk was taken partly during sunrise and I wondered if I could photograph the sun up close. So I used my zoom camera to get as close as possible and took some shots. Since I didn't have a tripod or anything to rest my camera on a lot of them are out of focus, but I can't help it...I love them!

This is the only one that came out perfect.

They are somehow like abstract art and make me wish I was a better painter so I could render these in oil paint or something, even the blurry ones. Or pastel maybe. Oh please, say there's an accomplished painter amongst you who will try it out? A girl can dream right?

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

From the Morning Book

As I write this I have already spent about 170 mornings in my Morning book. That's 85 hours! The control freak in me likes the fact that I can measure this by just counting the days and setting a timer every morning.

The over achiever in me kind of misses the feeling of accomplishment that I had with my morning paintings last year where I would finish a painting every day no matter what, since I don't have 170 pages done, not by a long shot! But at least I'm enjoying myself and trying to appreciate the slow pace with which this book is being filled.

Here are six more finished pages.

This is one of my favorite patterns ever!

The first four were done in Faber Castell Pittpens and the last two were done in Tombow Dual Brush Markers, which were washed with water in the one with the lettering. I sometimes wonder if my love for all these patterns will ever fade, but so far I feel I've only scratched the surface. :-)

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

The last of the Scrap Book (a journal)

Before my July break my regular journal was the Scrap Book, a big book with different types of pages, envelopes and fold outs. I liked it a lot, even though it wasn't always very practical. For my July break however I wanted everything as simple as possible so I started journaling in a much smaller notebook which I really enjoyed and somehow I never looked back.

That new journal is for another post, but it did mean that quite unexpectedly I finished my Scrap Book before the book was full. That's a very unusual thing for me to do, but I'm okay with it. It helps that I didn't have that many pages left to go and that the book was already becoming too bulky even though I removed a bunch of its pages.

So here is the last of the Scrap Book for your viewing pleasure.

For those who are curious and don't read Dutch, I'd say about 90% of what was written on these pages is about the diabetes struggle and starting insuline. Whatever I'm preoccupied with will naturally find its way into my journal, but what else are journals for? :-)

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

Early Morning Walk

In general the summer of 2016 has been a pretty cool one so far, but the last few days we are having a bit of  a heatwave in The Netherlands. As somebody who loves to walk, but loathes the heat I try to go out extra early to get my share of still fresh air and nature before the sun gets too high.

So this morning I left the house at 6:45 and enjoyed a sunrise, a foggy atmosphere (it's very humid here) and ... some photography. This post is of course about all three of those things for your enjoyment (and mine!). ;-)

For some reasons there were a lot of birds on posts this morning.

All the boats are only there in the summer. Vacations are almost over and I'm already looking forward to less busy times over here. Next weekend is the music and art festival Into The Great Wide Open and with that usually the main season pretty much ends. Wonderful. I like having my island mostly to myself. ;-)

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy weekend!

From the Morning Book

My morning art practice is slowly becoming like my journal: something that sort of continues on it's own whatever else may happen and whatever else may or may not get done. I really enjoy starting my day with art and writing.

Here are some pages I finished a while ago:

Apart from the first one all of these took several mornings to finish. Now when I say 'mornings' I mean several sessions of half an hour, since that is how long I work on this book every morning. I always set a timer. It's slow going sometimes this way, but I like the rhythm it gives to my days.

I seem to be mostly working in markers in this book. I think it's partly because I simply enjoy markers right now, but also because the paper in this sketchbook really lends itself to them.  The first four pages were a try out of new to me Spectrum Aqua markers, which are watersoluble (as you can clearly see in the first one). I liked them, but still prefer my Tombows for this type of marker. The brushtip of the Tombows simply feels more pleasant to me.

The latter two pages were done with Pitt (Big) Brush pens, which are filled with india ink and waterproof and basically my favorite markers in the whole wide world. If the art gods declared I could only use one type of marker for the rest of my life it would be them. ;-)

Would love to know what your favorite art supply is right now (if you have one). Let me know about it in the comments and have a wonderful and artsy day.