The last journal spreads from Flora

Well, it's official: Flora is finished! I did the last spread about two weeks ago. You may remember poor  Flora had a bit of a rough start (you can read all about that here), but now she is fully filled up and has been thoroughly enjoyed by me (and hopefully by you too).

Here are the last spreads of the only journal I ever referred to as a 'her' instead of an 'it'. ;-)

Now she can go live with all the other journals and every now and then I will leaf through her and think of her fondly for housing all my thoughts and imagery so faithfully.

Meanwhile I have moved on to another journal. A smaller one in size this time, since I crave variety.
But that's for another time and another post, although if you look very carefully at the last photo, you may just be able to guess which book I'm using now, haha.

Have a wonderful and artsy day!

Morning Paintings

I can't believe it. I've been doing morning paintings for four weeks now!

Every morning I start by going to my studio and then I paint one page in the little Seawhite Eco Sketchbook. It's almost full already, but then again it only has 32 pages. Still I'm pretty proud of myself for keeping it up so long, because trust me, for me this is long. ;-)

Here are the paintings I did between January 24 and 31.

24 + 25 January

#8 - rainbow mandala (done on the ferry)

#9 - stuffed toy at sister's house

26 + 27 January

#10 - diamond pattern

#11 - dorrebomen (bare trees)

28 + 29 January

#12 - circle pattern

#13 - imaginary vase with flowers

30 + 31 January

#30 - kaasjeskruid (sorry don't know the english name)

#15 - War Horse (at Mercure Hotel Groningen, yes we saw it!)

Most of these were done in gouache, except the ones where I was not at home, those were done in watercolour, because that's more practical on the go.

As much as I don't like getting up early I always enjoy doing these paintings. They are actually worth getting up for. I really get this feeling of 'flow' when I work on these.

Now that this sketchbook is slowly coming to an end (well for me anyway, I still have to show half of it on the blog) I am starting to think of what to do next and what sketchbook to use. I haven't figured it all out yet, but I will keep you posted the minute I do! I do know that this act of painting every morning feels really good so far, so I want to keep it up.

Hope you're doing something fun in your neck of the woods. Have a wonderful and artsy weekend all!

From the Sketchbook

My Fabriano Sketchbook doesn't get used as much as I would like, but I think that's the case with all of my books. I just have too many of them and my creative interests are just too varied. But every now and then I do manage to fill a page or two in all of them.

Here are some spreads that I filled recently in the sketchbook:

Shells in graphite pencil and a girl in coloured pencil. (The girl I already showed you before in a step by step post here.)

Attempts at sketching my assistant.

The same shells as above in watercolour and my Remy stuffed toy that my family gave me years ago.

Every time I actually take the time to draw something from life I wonder why I don't do it more often, because it's really enjoyable and even though not everything is great (who knew shells were so hard to capture?) I like having a record of things that speak to me visually. Even with all the time I have (and I have loads of it) it seems there just aren't enough hours in the day. But maybe that's a good thing. I know I will never ever get bored! ;-)

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day.

From the Doodle Book

Every time I post the progress of one of my coloured doodle drawings on Facebook one or two people will comment on my patience and how they have none. Well, let me just inform you that I am not a patient person either. I would love for these drawings to be done in like half an hour and move on to the next. In fact when I'm in the middle of one I often wonder why I'm doing these at all. They really take me out of my comfort zone.

But that's kind of the point of them (that and just that I like the result): they are a training in patience. They are the paper version of embroidery (even though that takes even more patience, at least for me). I am someone who is very result oriented as much as I hate to be that way. So this kind of work is teaching me about quality over quantity and about living the process instead of focusing on 'productivity'. In the end productivity should be measured in the time spent enjoying art and making things and not in the amount of pages filled or work produced.

Here are two of my latest doodle drawings:

These drawings measure 25x25 cm (that's 10x10 inches). They were both drawn with Stabilo 68 felt tip pens and coloured in with coloured pencils. The pictures (especially the close ups) make the pencils seem a bit less opaque than they really are. They actually give quite a nice overall coverage.

I hope you are testing your patience in an artsy way and enjoying it too. Wishing you a wonderful day!

Snow!

If you've been reading this blog for a while you know I am a big lover of winter and you also know that over the past two years we've had very little of it over here. But...Thursday we actually had some snow and it was also actually cold enough to still be there on Friday. And since Friday is a no work day for me, off to walking I went. Of course I brought my camera too, so I could take you all along with me. You're welcome.

Now as you can see there wasn't a truck load of the white stuff, but at least I was able to capture and enjoy a little winter this year. As I'm writing this most of it has already melted away again, but at least I have the pictures to prove it was really there.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy weekend!