Collages

In 2017 as part of my morning art practice (which I have at least momentarily stopped for now) I filled up a sketchbook with nothing but collages. It's still one of my favorite projects of that year. I enjoyed it enough to buy a colourful scrapbook from Paperchase and start a new collage book.

Of course this book will be filled at a much slower speed than the morning art one, since I don't do collage all that often in general. But when I do I enjoy it very much. Here are the first six collages I did in that book over the past four or five months.

Working on such brightly coloured paper really gives the collages a bit of extra ....um....colour! :-)
The book measures about 20x20 cm (8x8 inches). It will probably take me forever to fill it, but I am not sorry I bought it. Just looking at these brings me a lot of satisfaction.

Hope you are doing joyful things wherever you are and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day.

Another Zelhem Vacation

On average twice a year I get to stay a week in my sisters house in Zelhem (which is in the East of the Netherlands) while she and her husband are on vacation. Sometimes I take care of her dog, sometimes I just house sit. Not that the house needs it, but I do!

Last June I got to go there for a glorious week and had her dog for company. It was a very quiet and peaceful vacation, with mostly lots of walks and lots of reading. Here's a little photographic impression of that week.

The journal supplies I took with me. 

Announcing my vacation in my journal.

First long walk.

My little foster dog Jinte, she's as adorable as she looks. 

Second long walk.

Jinte pretending she's a meerkat.

Third long walk plus a bike ride.

Fourth long walk.

A lot of time was spent like this. Me reading and Jinte sleeping in sisters patio.

Fifth long walk. Jinte must have walked (run!) at least five times as far as me. 

Sixth long walk.

The weather varied from pleasantly warm to very warm and it was quite humid and cloudy sometimes, but at least it was not too warm to go out and about. Jinte had the time of her life coming with me every day for a long extensive stroll. Especially when she was allowed to run free, which she did. A lot.

And of course the landscape there is absolutely beautiful and was very green still back then. All in all I had a lovely time.

Lucky for me in October I get to go there again. This time there will be no dog and I get to explore a little further out into new places. I already bought some walking maps to prepare myself. Can't wait!

Hope you are exploring and enjoying wherever you are and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day.

Pattern Drawings

The time of my absence was a rather warm one, so I didn't spend much time in my studio. It's not like I never went there, but it was minimal. I mostly did my drawing and colouring on the couch, so I did a bunch of pattern drawings in my Moleskine XL Squared notebook to pass many a pleasant time.


Here's a bunch of those drawings finished up:

I absolutely love doing these, even if they are incredibly time consuming and I never know how they will turn out when I start them.


I have been experimenting with doing drawings like thise without the black dashed outlines that have become a bit of a staple in my own work. So the last two were set up in pencil instead of drawing pen. I like the result.


As always these types of drawings are meditative and calming and a very good remedy for my ever racing thoughts. Plus they give me the time to listen to my favorite podcasts, so there's that. :-)


Hope you enjoyed this peek in my sketchbook and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day.

Back on the blog!

Well, hello there my blogsy people!

It's high time I gave you a sign of life, so here it is. Yes, I know I said I would probably be back by July and yes, I know it's August already, but truth be told it was kinda nice not to have to do the blog for a while. As much as I enjoy blogging, it also can be a bit of a chore sometimes and it was nice to let it slide for a few months.

Also, we are having a very long and warm spring/summer thing going on this year, with several heatwaves and so being the winter person that I am I was not really at my most energetic. This also has been the driest summer in the Netherlands sinds halfway the seventies, so everything seems rather scorched. Only in the past week things seem to be cooling down a little and have we had actual rain. The first rain we had in ages actually scared Spooky so much he sat under the couch for hours to recover from the shock! That's how unusual it had gotten. ;-)

The past months have been a mixed bag for me personally. Good times, bad times, stressy times, peaceful times. I don't like to dwell on the negative on my blog, but I'm still trying to find some more calm and contentment when it comes to job stuff and one day it goes better than the next, but that's life. I have started to look into a mindfulness practice and hope it will help me a little to put things in perspective and see things for what they are instead of thinking up twelve thousand scenario's of everything that may or may not happen of have happened. It's busy up there in my head!

Anyway, now the weather seems to be getting a bit more normal and summer is slowly moving on, and I think it's time I picked up the old blog again and get to posting.

I'll start today with some everyday pics from the last few months so you can take a peek at what has been doing around here lately:

The first half of 2018 I have been mostly rereading old favorites. This was one of them. Still fabulous and impressive.

No journal is complete without a cat on it. Spooky knows this.

Bought a set of inktense watercolours and tested them right away.

Spend a day drawing 'actual things' instead of patterns.

My personal truth when it comes to making art as written by Liz Gilbert.

Visited the amazing David LaChapelle exhibition in Groningen. Highly recommended.

Trying out new patterns.



Neighbourhood cat decided to kill a homing pigeon it my back yard. It was a horror show!

A moment of quiet at sister's house during a family visit.

Spooky is ready for his close up.

Finished another journal and started a new one. The journal never ends!

Homing pigeon killer taking over my planner. He's a regular intruder at my house.

Drawing in the Ceramics Museum Princessehof in Leeuwarden.

Drank plenty of outdoor lattes on pleasant locations.

Setting up a grid drawing in my Moleskine XL in pencil.

Spooky sticking himself to a collage.

Two worktables in the house and still I prefer to journal at my small coffee table while sitting on the couch.

Out and about with a friend, chatting, drawing and ice coffee drinking.

He can be so adorable.

There was a sort of semi readathon in July that I sort of semi participated in.

The heat turned Spooky into a vampire!

The heat made the studio too warm to really work in, so guess where I went the minute things cooled down a little?

Prepping journal pages for writing.

The first time I got to wear socks again after it having been too hot for them for weeks/months on end. It's the simple things.

Taking pictures like these always helps me to keep an eye out for the good things in life, because there really are plenty of those. My personal challenge is not to get too overwhelmed by the more...um...challenging stuff. Gotta keep working on that.

Anyhow, the past few months have flown by. I want to thank those of you who contacted me one way or another to tell me you missed my blog for your kindness and also thank everybody for their patience. Looks like I'm back and let's see where the coming months will take us!

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!