The Midwinter Book 13/14

For the past few years I've kept a seperate journal during my Christmas vacation and this time was no different. I usually call this a midwinter book. It's always a different kind of book and this time I decided to use the small Dylusions journal that I had gotten at Kreadoe.

The first thing I did was alter it a little so it would look more like a ... well... Midwinter Book!

I did manage to fill the entire book in a little over two weeks, but most of it was writing, so even though that was very good for me it's not very interesting to look at for you.

But I did do some visual things here and there and here's a selection of some of those more colourful or interesting pages.

 

I really liked the paper in this book and its size. It was very handy to take with you and it could take just about any medium okay, although it's best suited for pencil and pens. I might be hesitant with lots of watercolour layers, it did seem to get roughened up a bit if it got too wet. But still, I think I will buy more of these journals as they seem pretty all round to me.

The drawings of the branches are my personal favorites in this journal. They were done from my imagination after seeing some twirly twisty branches on my walks and being intrigued by them. It also reminded me of my love for simple pencil drawings. It had been a long time since I did any of those. By the way, don't confuse simple with fast, because especially the second one took forever to finish with all that crosshatching for the background. ;-)

The journal was a good companion in a very reflective time so I am quite happy I filled most of it with writing. It helped me think things through and really get to the bottom of stuff I'm currently dealing with. It also reminded me a journal is not for pretty pages, but an instrument for personal expression and reflection. That's easy to forget sometimes, especially if you're used to sharing your pages on your blog.

I hope you enjoyed this peek in my vacation journal and I wish you a wonderful and artsy Wednesday!

This place I call home

Most of my vacation was spent at home. And when I say at home I don't just mean my house, I mean my island of course. I have no idea how many miles I walked during those two and a half weeks off, but they were many. And so of course also the amount of photographs I took were many. And when I say  many I mean a little over 900!

Don't worry, I'm not going to show you all of them. In fact you will be proud of me when I say I've managed to bring them down to a small enough amount for this one post, 18 to be exact.

It helps that often the weather was too gray to really take good photographs, so most of them weren't that great anyway. ;-)

Here's a few that I really liked:

I don't think I'll ever tire of this place I call home. It keeps astounding me with its beauty and its wide open spaces. I may also never tire of taking pictures of it, if only to help me remember how fortunate I am that I get to live here.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy weekend!

The Birds

I really took truckloads of photographs during my vacation. I guess you know by now I always take truckloads of pictures, but now I pretty much had my good camera around my neck non stop.

One of the things I like to look at on my walks are the birds. With my phone it's not so easy to take good pictures of them, because I can't zoom in, but with my camera I can. Of course it's not exactly the level of photography you'd find in National Geographic, but it will do.

Here's a selection of some bird pictures I took during my weeks off.

I have to admit that the one with the chaos of gulls is my absolute favorite!
I also like how you can tell that it was windy from the couple of pictures where all birds are standing in the same direction with their backs to the wind. ;-)

Now here's a bonus bird:

Um...wait...that's not a bird! That's a seal!
I showed you the seals before and I have taken more pictures of them, but frankly in most of them they have their backs turned to me and were not interested at all in being my personal models. By now the young ones have become grown up enough to swim and lost all their white cutie fur. So last Monday when I checked there were no seals left on our beach. Still, I have had the opportunity to truly enjoy them and observe them and I feel priviliged they were here for such a long time to begin with.

Wishing you all a wonderful day!

Harlingen

During my vacation I took several day trips to the main land. Unfortunately on most of those the weather wasn't all that great, so I didn't take many pictures. But on a daytrip to Harlingen I got lucky and was able to take some shots.

Harlingen is a quaint little port town with a wonderful atmosphere. It's also the town where the ferry puts us islanders on the main land. I come there quite often, but have never really gone out of my way to take pictures of it. Today I'd like to make up for that a little. ;-)

`























I didn't get to walk around there as much as I wanted, because that night a storm was coming in and I wanted to get home before it hit. I'm still hoping though to one day take a very extensive city walk through this place and really take in every detail. But that's for another time.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy week!

A new year, a new word

Well hello my blogsy people!

It's high time to end my blog break since my vacation is now really really over and I have been to work again for the first time this week.

I had a wonderful time during my time off though and I really got to relax and unwind which I truly needed to do. I spent my days in a lovely quiet tempo and got to walk, read, write, photograph, draw and sleep to my hearts content. I filled a small journal. I went on a couple of daytrips too.

These were a good two and a half weeks all around. I didn't do a whole lot of art, but I did do a truckload of writing and writing helps me think and my last post may have made clear I really needed to think about stuff, haha.

I will show you a selection of the hundreds of photographs I took sometime next week and of course you'll also get a peek into the journal I filled, but today I wanted to start where I left off last time.

A very relaxed assistant.

Let me just tell you you are an amazing bunch of people! I cannot tell you how much I appreciate all the suggestions for words for 2014 I got. In a way all of them were appropriate, they really helped me to think about what I wanted for the coming year. In the end of course I didn't choose any of them (haha!) and the word just came to me the way it did last year during my vacation.

I was rereading Christina Rosalies lovely little book 'A field guide to now', because it helps me to remember that we must observe our own lives to see the good in them. We need to be more mindfull, more present in the everyday. It's a good book to read at the end of the year, at least for me, because that for me is always the most reflective time. The book offered a couple of good options for words for 2014 too, but it wasn't until I read the following passage that I knew what my word would be:

My most important work ofen begins when I'm not working. Creativity wells up when I give myself the present. When I go with eyes wide under open skies and allow the world to split me open.

The more you open yourself like this, the more you give yourself to the rawness of world, outdoors and uncharted, the more your work will work for you. It's a game of cause and effect where the whole universe plays along.

When I read the words 'split me open' it really resonated inside and I knew my word for 2014 would be 'OPEN'.

A very relaxed seal baby.

This word can be interpreted in more than one way and that is exactly why I like it. I feel like I need to open up in the sense of listening more to my life, my body, my soul. To be more observant and less judgemental. To appreciate what is there and be open to the good stuff.
I also need to surrender to open time, time that is not planned to the brim with activities no matter how much I want to do them or think I should do them.
I need to be open to finding my own style in my art and writing, see what happens when I create from the inside instead of letting outside influences ... um ... influence me.  I want to be inspired by my own life, surroundings and ideas and not so much by others, no matter how much I love their art.
I need to open up when it comes to my own expectations, this also involves letting go of many preconceptions of how I should be and how I should live. I need to be open to the flow of life just the way it is.
In short I need to get out of my own way!

However 'open' works both ways. It's a way to receive, but it's also a way to give. So I intend to be more open toward the world around me. Share more both in person and here on my blog. Try to be more vulnerable. I have found over the past years that the posts where I get the most personal are the ones that resonate the most with others. Being open about yourself brings forth a connection to others.
I also want to keep sharing about my process and my art and philosophies. I reaffirmed for myself that I don't want to be a professional payed artist, but want to share freely in what I do and make so others feel they can do the same and maybe be inspired a little to look for the smaller pleasures in life that make all the difference. I find there is way too much focus on money, marketing and business in the art blog world.

Working towards a very relaxed Caatje! ;-)

I'm not setting any specific goals and I'm not making any big plans for change. I think I mostly want to sit back a little and look at my life for a while and see what comes up. Document it, write about it, take pictures, if only for my journal.

I think what it means is that I want to settle down comfortably in my own life. To be able to do that I have to be open to it.

This should be an interesting year. I have no delusions that a year from now all my stressy issues and inner conflicts will be gone, but I hope to have gained some insight as to how to deal with them better. In fact I think a word like 'OPEN' could serve a person for a lifetime!

If you picked a word for 2014 I'd love to hear what it is and why. Hope you like mine and wish you all a wonderful and artsy new year!