Published!

I knew this was coming for almost two years, but now it's finally here: Dawn Devries Sokol's A world of Artist Jounal Pages.

Lookit:

It's a gorgeous book with an enormous amount of journal pages from all over the world. It's like going to an exhibition without having to leave your house! A lot of the work in there is just stunning, so you can imagine that I'm pretty excited about being in there too!
 

The lovely page on the bottom right is made by Sandra van den Bogaard, but the rest is all mine.

Having your pages in somebody else's book is a strange experience. First when you get picked you are really excited and happy, but then follows a long time in which nothing seems to happen. Well, a lot is happening of course, it's just that you are not personally a part of it, and you almost forget about it. Also I am the type of person who doesn't really really believe it until she sees it in print.

The good part about that is that you get to be all freshly excited again when the book shows up in your mailbox! I love this book and will spend (and have already spent) many hours drooling over all those beautiful pages. It's good to be in such amazing company. It's also good to know so many people out there are filling pages in journals and how differently they all do it. It really makes you realize there is not one way to art journal, just like there's not one way to do art.

If you are a lover of journals you might want to pick up or borrow this book and have yourself a nice long sitdown with a cup of tea and cookies. The book is pretty big, so be sure to take your time.

Have a wonderful and artsy weekend, my blogsy people!

Watercolour and a masking fluid marker (from the Fodder Book)

I have mentioned here before how very much I love my molotow masking fluid marker. It's like the tool I never knew I wanted and now can't live without.

I'm mostly using it for making patterns in the Fodder Book. In case you don't remember: the Fodder Book is an A4 sized moleskine watercolour book that I use mostly for playing with watercolour patterns or as I like to call it 'watercolour nonsense'. ;-)

Here are five pages where I used beautiful deep watercolours and the masking fluid marker.

In case you were wondering if I'm some sort of prodigy who can actually draw a straight line and pretty perfect circles: no of course I'm not. I use a circle template and a ruler like any other normal  person would. ;-)

Using tools with the masking fluid marker means you have to clean them along the way very often, because the rubbery substance sticks to them, also I regularly have to clean the tip of the marker to keep it free from little crumbs of rubber. But hey, it's worth the hassle if the result is so nice, right?

Have you ever come across a tool or art supply that you never even knew existed and that you can not live without now? I'd love to read about it in the comments!

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day.

Morning Paintings #81-90

This batch of morning paintings was also the start of my third morning paintings sketchbook. As I've said before I use a small photo album for these paintings and it seems to work fine.

Here are paintings number 81 to 90.

#81 - Dots

#82 - Dots with dashes

#83 - Spring

#84 - Flowers

#85 - More flowers

#86 - Happy King's Day!

#87 - Bouquet

#88 - Pattern

#89 - Rainbow dashes

#90 - Flower pattern with ink

I guess you can tell that with this batch I went into a flowery phase! ;-) Maybe it's the spring air, who knows? I have been painting a lot more flowers since, so apparently I am enjoying them.

All paintings were done in gouache which I still like working with very much even though I can tell that now my box of pan colours is getting emptier the pigments are kind of going back too. As if the filler of the paint all sank to the bottom of the pans or something. Strange.

I'm considering switching to tubed gouache when the box is empty, but I'm not sure yet. We'll see. I do have some wonderful tubed gouache, but I haven't used it for my morning paintings yet, mostly because the pans are so much more practical for working quickly in the early morning. There's still plenty of time to think about that. I do like how I'm making these plans though, as if I actually think I will reach the end of the box instead of still wondering if I will keep this practice up. It's slowly becoming ingrained in my system it seems and that makes me happy.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy weekend!

From the Canson Book (the journal)

I really haven't shown you very much of my journal lately. It's not that I'm not journaling, it's just that I'm not doing a lot of decorative stuff to it and most pages are just writing with an image here and there like a postcard I like or some stickers or ephemera.

I also have been pasting in a lot of photographs, but they are photographs that I already showed on the blog, so nothing new there.
I did do the odd sketch and drawing or doodling and a little collage, but not much.

Anyway, the Canson Book (my current journal) is in full use and pretty full already, but I have not deemed most of it very interesting for you to look at. Still, I believe that is in itself interesting too. I think it's important to show real life journals and not those that are fit for a magazine or a book. A journal is supposed to be an instrument of reflection and expression and if it's doing that for you it really doesn't matter what it looks like.

So for the sake of 'keeping it real', here is a selection of some spreads of the Canson book from the last few months.

About 75% of the journal looks like the first three spreads. Writing and some imagery or ephemera without any further decoration. The sketching and painting happens very very rarely. I cannot emphasise that enough, haha.

Keep your journal in a way that works for you. Don't be blinded by all the amazing stuff people are showing on the internet. Blogs, magazines and books have a way of warping the truth and making you think that all worth while journals are art books with exceptional art page after page.

A journal is amazing because it is a reflection of you and your life story. It serves its purpose if you feel you can put yourself on the page in whatever form that is working for you. For me that means a lot of writing, for you it might mean a lot of doodling. It's all good.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day, with or without your journal. ;-)

Mail art + an update on the Snail Mail List

About ten days ago I introduced you to the Snail Mail List, my new ongoing list of adresses to send my snail mail to.  You can read all about it here. The list has about 30 people on it now (thank you my blogsy people!), and that is a very nice amount for someone who makes about six to eight cards at a time every few weeks.

Here's the latest bunch of collage cards that I made:

I really enjoyed working with these browns and beiges and ochres. Now two of these have already been taken for other occasions, but the rest of them will be going to the first six people on the Snail Mail List! I guess that means the list is now officially in operation. ;-)

If you have not signed up yet and would like to, check out the rules in this post and then mail me at c.m.j.winkelman[at]home.nl or pm me through Facebook or leave a message through the contact form in the sidebar. You will find the rules are pretty much non existent for the both of us. ;-)

Hope you are all getting wonderful mail or making some, be it snail or otherwise.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

Morning paintings #71-80

As I am writing this post I have just finished my 100th morning painting! It's so strange to me that it almost feels like some abstract number that I made up, but it actually represents a hundred pages spread over two and a half sketchbook! I always wondered how people who do this type of thing actually do it and the answer is so simple you'll want to slap me: one - day - at - a - time. ;-)

I'd like to think the reason that I keep it up says something about my amazing discipline and dedication, but I think it says more about the fun I'm having with it than anything else. They are simply worth doing for doing's sake, I have no other explanation.

On this here blog I'm a little behind on showing you the paintings, because...well...I do other stuff too and I don't have the energy to blog every day to keep up with them. However I do post every painting every morning on facebook and instagram (oh yeah, I'm back on instagram again) so if you want to keep up with them real time you can follow me there.

Anyway, here are paintings number 71 to 80:

#71 - Hearts (done in a hotel in watercolour)

#72 - Dashing Waves

#73 - Sunrise (Yes, this one got damaged at the bottom.)

#74 - Balls in Blue

#75 - Black Birds

#76 - Hand

#77 - Flower Mandala

#78 - Circles on Ochre

#79 - Scales

#80 - Eighty

All of these paintings, except #71, were done in gouache. Where there are small details and decorations I also used acrylic paint markers (UniPosca).

A fun side effect of this daily painting is that you really get to see how far a paint box will take you. So far I can tell you that a Caran d'Ache pan gouache box with 14 colours takes you far beyond a hundred paintings, haha. That's good to know, right?

With the finishing of painting #80 I also finished my second sketchbook. Here it is all filled up:

My morning painting sketchbook is actually an A5 sized photo album. I chose this format because of the protective sheets between the pages. That way the paint doesn't rub off on the opposite page, because gouache has a tendency to do that. The paper does buckle a little, but it does not bleed and it works really well with gouache, at least for my purposes.

So my third sketcbook (which is already half full) is also one of these photo-albums and the fourth one has already been purchased. Presumptuous much? Yep, definitely! ;-)

Hope you enjoyed this peek at yet another ten morning paintings and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day.