Around here lately...

Just some random pictures of the past few months, because that is my life too....

The things you can do while a mechanic is replacing the electricity meter.

Feeling watched at a restaurant.

Being extra cute when your human writes about you is always the smart thing to do.

A weekend trip to Amsterdam. The view from the A'dam Tower

The Museum Plein in Amsterdam. I visited the Van Gogh Museum. Highly recommended.

Participated in Dewey's 24 hour readathon. These are the essential ingredients!

Spooky thinks readathons are made for cats, since there is fulll time lap space.

Decorating the journal again.

The beach after a huge fall storm. This is actually low tide!

Changeable weather leads to many rainbows. This one didn't fit in the picture. 

Cutting up  magazines for collage fodder.

Journal writing, it never gets old.

Making collage sheets out of painted paper and stamps.

And then cutting them up of course, so they are ready for use.

Christmas in November. Okay then.

Work has been stressy lately, but life in general has been good, so I can't complain.

Hope you are content in your neck of the woods and that life is giving you some good times in between the everyday nonsense we all have to face one way or another. ;-) Sending good vibes your way.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

The Media Journal

A while back I stumbled upon a YouTube video by Dina Wakley where she showed an art journal that I absolutely fell in love with at first sight.

Did I need another sketchbook/journal? Hell no! But sketchbooks (and art supplies in general) are to me what clothes and shoes are to most other women. You may have dozens of them, but you don't have this one yet! So yeah, I bought it.

It's about B5 size (I love the B sizes more than the A sizes for some reason, don't ask me why)

It has thick white cotton paper....

...and burlap pages....

...and canvas pages...

....and kraft paper pages!

It's the different surfaces that lured me in. If you are even remotely as greedy as me when it comes to sketchbooks, I'm sure you understand.

So far I have only worked on the first four pages which are made of the white thick cotton paper. The paper holds up very well to different media, so I love it so far.

Here's a look at what I did:

Abstract in watercolour.

Doodle drawing in markers and gel pens.

Collage with paper, and flowers in coloured pencil.

Collage with gouache and decorative papers.

 I used all sorts of media on it, from wet to dry and collage as well and it's all going down fine.

The next page I have to do is a burlap one and I have ideas of using embroidery thread on it. I'll let you know how that goes.

For now I'm pretty pleased with my purchase and I look forward to seeing where this book will take me.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

A last peek at the Leuchtturm (a journal)

About a month ago I finished my Leuchtturm1917 dotted journal. I worked in it for about three months and I loved loved loved it! In fact I loved it so much, that when the end of the journal was drawing near I bought another Leuchtturm to replace it. That one is for another post, but it was the first time in my personal journaling history that I decided to let the next book be exactly the same as the previous one. That should tell you something about how much I love these notebooks.

Another thing that will tell you how much I love a book is how stuffed it gets with...well...stuff. When I look at the filled up book I can see it's well used, but it doesn't seem all that oversized. That is until I put it side by side with the new book, like this:

When it's not bound with the cover elastic it's even thicker! The new book still looks so pristine in this picture, but it has now been used for a month and is already getting that cosy look of a journal well used, so that's good.

Anyway, the first Leuchtturm is full. Before I fully closed it I still had to decorate the inside covers and decided to use some photographs of our local lighthouse to do that. Leuchtturm after all is the German word for lighthouse. Here's how that turned out:

And here is selection of spreads from the last part of this well loved journal. You can see the other two parts here and here. Enjoy!

As you can see I did a bit of everything in this book, even some drawing and sketching. The paper is ideal for felttip pens and drawing pens and those are my favorite materials right now. I would however not recommend this book if you like wet media or mixed media, it's definitely not an allround sketchbook, it's very much a good quality notebook. The sketches above were done at an exhibit in Rotterdam about masks. 

This journal was also used as my travel journal in October plus I took it with me on a weekend trip to Amsterdam. Because the book is quite compact it is easy to take with you everywhere which I really liked. I think of a journal as a type of daily companion book and that is a lot easier to do if it's not too big. Still, I'm sure in time I will do huge books again, that's just my need for variation. For now I am just grateful for this newly filled up book that I enjoyed using so much.

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my daily journal and I wish you all a wonderful and artsy day.

Tiny Mandalas

Tiny mandalas must be the most convenient art form. They are simple, they don't require a lot of materials, they can be done relatively easy and they are...well...tiny! That means they always fit, both timewise and sizewise.

Lately that is even more true, because my cat Spooky has decided to become a bit of a lap cat and especially likes doing that when I am drawing on the couch with my feet up. So when a big cat is already taking up most of your lap space it's nice to have a small hardbound sketchbook you can just hold up easily to work in.

Here are some recent mandalas, some done with the help of a cat and some done without:

All these were drawn with a Sakura Micron pen (size 05) and coloured in with Stabilo 68 felttip pens. The mandalas measure about 7 cm across (3 inches tops) and they are very fun to do and a good way to add some colour at the end of a busy day.

Hope you are adding some colour to your life and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day!