From the Morning Book (and a blog break announcement)

At the time this post is published I will have worked in my Morning Book for about 200 days! It's like a tiny miracle how the days add up with a regular morning practice, almost on their own. I just show up every morning and the book gets filled. Slowly, but steadily. It feels a bit like wielding some kind of artistic magic.

Here are six recently finished pages:

The two portraits are part of my endless mail order catalogue girl series. No models hold still so perfectly as those that just come through my mailbox. ;-) They were drawn with a Pentel Pocket Brush and further defined with a graphite pencil. Some colour was added with Pittpens (the Big Brush kind).

The patterns were all drawn with markers and in the last two I also added extra colour with coloured pencils. Especially the grid ones took a lot of patience to finish. I sometimes wonder how it's possible that someone who is at nature a very impatient person can have an endless amount of patience when it comes to drawing patterns and how do I translate that to real life? It would certainly come in handy! ;-)

And now for something completely different: I have a vacation coming up! Yay!
Like every year I will spend a free vacation at my sister's house just exploring the beautiful area she lives in while she and her husband explore another place away from home. This year I will have the added bonus of a furry companion in the form of their sweet dog Jinte.

She's the sweetest scruffiest little border terrier and I intend to bring her on my walks. We'll see how it goes.

My own furry companion will have a lovely cat sitter, so no worries about that.

I will be back on the blog somewhere halfway October, no doubt with some slideshows of the photographs I took. Until then I wish you all a wonderful and artsy time!

A bit of collage

I love doing collage so much, but somehow never get around to actually doing it much. Maybe it's because it takes a bit more effort than just grabbing a pen and some colours and setting up a pattern or doodle.

The way I do collage I use a lot of different media and it's something I really need to take my time for.

Recently I did these two collages in my Collage Book, which is a Moleskine XL Cahier.

I felt very rusty when doing them, but I do like how they turned out. I used anything from stencils, coloured pencils, gouache, washi tape to circle templates, magazine images, wrapping materials and paint markers. To me collage is like doing a big mix and match game.

I never have a plan up front I just start somewhere and the most important question is always 'what's next?', never 'what will this lead to?'. I think that's bascically how I do most of my art. Executing a well laid out plan just seems boring to me, even though with certain things you kind of have to. But not with collage. It's a very organic process and I like that.

Anyway, I finally added a new spread to my Collage Book and that's all that really matters after all. That, and that I had a good time doing it. ;-)

Hope you are all doing something you enjoy and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day!

Walking Pictures

Nothing keeps me more grateful than walking around my island. I am constantly aware of the beauty that surrounds me and how fortunate I am to live right in the middle of all this gorgeous landscape. Taking pictures keeps me even more aware of it all, because it helps me look around instead of getting lost in my own thoughts.

So, let's go walking!

 

These pictures were taken (with my phone) on the west side of the island which is a bit further away for me, so I usually take the bus there. It was one of those days with sunshine and lots of clouds that are always perfect for reflections on the water.


Hope you enjoyed strolling along with me and wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

From the Morning Book

I am slowly closing on on 200 days of working in my Morning Book. Every morning right after I get up or right after breakfast (depending on the day) I set my timer for 30 minutes and work in this sketchbook. I have filled about 70 pages that way. It's kind of slow going, but it's also a very steady practice and that is a good thing.

Here are some finished pages for your viewing pleasure (I hope):

All of these were done in Faber Castell Pittpens (brushpens). These markers work really well with the smooth paper of the Dylusions journal I'm using.

I am especially fond of the mandalas in this series. There's something very satisfying about both drawing them and colouring them in. And they're pretty, so there's that. ;-)

Hope you are doing something to keep your creative self busy and wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!l

Pattern Variations

Pattern Variations. I can't stop doing them in my extra large moleskine squared book. The grid is just too inviting to not play with. All it takes is a colour combination that speaks to me made up of a couple of felt tip pens and I'm ready to go.

After doing a bunch of pages with four colours I have started experimenting with five. It is a bit of challenge, because it means things are divided and counted differently.

Drawing patterns takes a lot of focus. I think that is why I like it, it literally focuses the mind on one thing.This doesn't mean I don't make mistakes (bwahahaa), but mostly I can integrate the mistakes into the pattern, changing it slightly so nobody notices. I can tell you that at least half of these patterns turned out differently than I originally intended because of that. :-)

Hope you are doing something interesting in you neck of the woods and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day.

Tiny mandalas

From time to time I like to draw tiny mandalas in a tiny sketchbook that is fully dedicated to them.

Here are some of my latest:

All of these measure about 9x9 cm, which is less than 4x4 inches. The little sketchbook is a Canson Art Book 180. The mandalas are always drawn freehand with a drawing pen (a pigma micron in this case) and coloured in with felt tip pens (stabilo 68).

This is the perfect art to do on the couch. In fact I don't think I've ever done a tiny mandala anywhere else, haha.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

ITGWO 2016

Every year in the first weekend of September the island hosts a lovely music and art festival called Into The Great Wide Open (ITGWO). The east side of the island turns into one big mix of all kinds of stages (both outdoors and indoors), musical genres and interesting people.

It's also one of the most busy weekends of the year and that is the reason I don't always go. Last year I actually avoided the festival altogether and went on a weekend trip to one of the other islands, but most years I pick one day to visit and ignore the rest.

This year however I was really in the mood for it and I was lucky enough to get a free all in ticket through my job. So for three and a half days I immersed myself in lots of music and even a little art.  I must admit I did not see most of the art installations exhibited, because I needed all my energy just to keep up with the performances I wanted to see.

This post is basically a photo impression of that weekend, even though most were taken on the final day. I did not feel like dragging a camera around all the time. I just wanted to enjoy the shows.

Still, I thought it might be nice to give you an impression of ITGWO 2016. Maybe one day you would like to come! ;-)

One of the smaller outdoor stages. Yes, right among the trees.

The location of the island really adds to the atmosphere.

In line for  piano concert in the church. I was the very last one to get in!

Signage everywhere. "Toilets and First Aid"

Which way to go for some of the stages.

"Modder" means "mud", it's a play on words  obviously, and you could paint with mud on the canvas.

A little piece of woods to recharge yourself. Literally it says 'Recharge forest'.

In line for coffee and cakes.

There were tons of stalls where you could get food and drink. Good stuff too.

The big central stage. This is on our sports field.

I loved the look of these lights.

While taking some shelter from the rain, my eyes fell on these paper lanterns.

"Don't climb the trees."

"Exit"

The last day was somewhat rainy as you can see by the capes some people are wearing.

The trees were basically used for everything.

Every day a bunch of kids would make a newspaper.

The central field, away from the stage.

Lots of walking between stages.

Lovely lamp.

Here and there they put up hammocks between the trees.

How lots of people got around. Bikes, bikes, bikes.

Final performance on the central stage. Rag 'n Bone Man. Fabulous!

ITGWO with it's thousands of visitors also often closes the summer season. School vacations are over so the enormous amounts of tourists have pretty much left. There is always a lingering after season and in general of course there are always visitors here all year round, but that brings a very different type of crowd and a much smaller one, so I'm kind of happy we are entering a less busy time.

I hope you enjoyed this peek into our festival and I wish you all a wonderful and artsy weekend!