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!

Abstract Sunrise

A few posts ago I shared some pictures from one of my morning walks. You can see those here.

The walk was taken partly during sunrise and I wondered if I could photograph the sun up close. So I used my zoom camera to get as close as possible and took some shots. Since I didn't have a tripod or anything to rest my camera on a lot of them are out of focus, but I can't help it...I love them!

This is the only one that came out perfect.

They are somehow like abstract art and make me wish I was a better painter so I could render these in oil paint or something, even the blurry ones. Or pastel maybe. Oh please, say there's an accomplished painter amongst you who will try it out? A girl can dream right?

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!

From the Morning Book

As I write this I have already spent about 170 mornings in my Morning book. That's 85 hours! The control freak in me likes the fact that I can measure this by just counting the days and setting a timer every morning.

The over achiever in me kind of misses the feeling of accomplishment that I had with my morning paintings last year where I would finish a painting every day no matter what, since I don't have 170 pages done, not by a long shot! But at least I'm enjoying myself and trying to appreciate the slow pace with which this book is being filled.

Here are six more finished pages.

This is one of my favorite patterns ever!

The first four were done in Faber Castell Pittpens and the last two were done in Tombow Dual Brush Markers, which were washed with water in the one with the lettering. I sometimes wonder if my love for all these patterns will ever fade, but so far I feel I've only scratched the surface. :-)

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!