Just a quick sign of life so you know I didn't fall off the face of the earth

Hey my blogsy people,

As you can see I have not blogged for about two weeks. It's actually been longer than that because my last few posts were preplanned and done about a month ago.  I haven't even responded to some of your comments and for that I'm sorry.

All this is partly because of good things and partly not so good. The good things were a family visit and my birthday week in which I got spoiled rotten. The not so good is more health related and something that is still under investigation. It could be nothing, it could be something, probably some sort of infection in my belly (my blood test says my CRP values are too high), but it's all guess work right now. More tests to come,  yay!

Anyway, I'm not really feeling up to keeping up the blog and I'm sure you understand. I will be back as soon as things settle down a little or I know more about what I'm dealing with. Until then I wish you all a wonderful and artsy time!

PS I am on Instagram and Facebook, so I may post a pic there from time to time while we figure out what's going on.

Spooky has nothing to do with this post, but he's so cute that I just had to put him in here. ;-) 

Abstract experiment

I am trying to expand my horizon and try new things. I have been interested in abstract drawing and am fascinated by people who can do it well. Especially if those people are on the more minimalistic side.

I am neither good at abstract freestyle drawing nor at minimalism (I'm a maximalist through and through!), but I did try a bit of abstract drawing recently.

I had no idea what I was doing, I was just winging it. Here's the result of that drawing:

I used different media. The back is in watercolour and the drawing itself is mostly coloured pencil. There's no rhyme or reason to this, but it does remind me of some weird kind of treasure map.

I think it becomes more interesting in the details:

Is this any good? I doubt it.
Did I have a lot of fun doing it? You bet!

Since this one I have tried some other drawings and I will show those to you in time after I have a few more. The point is that I am venturing into something new that is all insecure and strange to me. The not knowing what I am doing is somehow thrilling.

I have no idea what this means or where it will take me, but for now I am just enjoying the ride.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day.

Tiny Mandalas

They are small, they are simple, they are fast and they live together in a tiny sketchbook. I'm talking about my tiny mandalas. I draw them every now and then to take a break from my (not so fast at all!)
patterns.

They  measure about 7 to 8 cm in diameter (that's about 3 inches), so they are like the exact opposite of my elaborate patterns in every way, except maybe in the joy it brings me to draw them.

Here's a couple for you to see:

As you can see I went from coloured in ones to just drawing some with different coloured lines. I like the effect that gives and will surely experiment with it more.

All these were done with felt tip pens, on my couch, because the couch is where it's at when it comes to relaxed drawing. ;-)

Hope you enjoyed these little drawings and wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day.

Ice Sculpture Festival

In February I visited the annual Ice Sculpture Festival (IJsbeeldenfestival) in Zwolle.

It's exactly what it sounds like. A (very cold) exhibit of ice sculptures. Every year there is a different theme. This year that theme was 'stories', so most sculptures referred to all kinds of well known international stories, varying from Dracula and Frankenstein to Harry Potter and Game of Thrones,

Here's an impression of my visit:

Yes, that doormat kind of ruins the effect, but I loved the coffin so much anyway.

'Villa Kakelbont 'is the Dutch name of Pippi Longstockings house.

The pattern lover in me found plenty to love as well.

The exhibit was not very large, but there was a lot to see and you could walk the route as often as you liked. Twice was enough for me, if just for the fact that you are basically waking in a huge freezer. Brrrr.

But it was an enjoyable experience and I hope you enjoyed seeing it with me from the warmth of your own home.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

A peek in the journal

Here's another peek in my third Leuchtturm1917 journal. It's one I worked in about a year ago. It's always interesting to see where I was mentally and emotionally a while back. Journals provide a good insight into your own development, even if that development does often consist of a lot (A Lot) of repetition. ;-)

I am still way behind on showing my journal on the blog, but I hope to slowly catch up by posting about it a bit more. We'll see how that goes. I am currently three journals ahead in real life from the above pictures. The journal always always always continues. :-)

Hope you enjoyed this peek into my everyday writing and I wish you all a wonderful and artsy day!