Collages

Next to drawing abstract doodles and patterns, my biggest love is collage. From time to time I take out my colourful scrapbook and make a small series and I also like doing collage cards for snail mail.

Today is about my scrapbook though. Here are six collages I recently finished.

I think the ones with the black paper background are my favorites. It makes me think about buying a black paper scrapbook just for collage. But maybe I should just finish up this one first, haha. 

Hope you are all playing with paper, scisscors and glue, and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day!

Opposites

In my A5 pattern book which I often use for my morning art sessions (but not just for that) I have been fascinated with what I like to call opposites. It's where the pattern on the left page is in one form or another the counterpart of the page on the right. 

Here's what I mean:

I like how after al these years I am still not done experimenting with these pattern drawings on squared grid paper. I never tire of them and I keep getting differend ideas that always start with 'what if?'.

All these were done in felt tip pens by the way. Still my favorite medium to work with when I draw patterns. 

Hope you are enjoying something so much you can just keep playing at it forever, and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day. 

Around here lately

 Just some random photographs from my daily life in the past few months. 

The assistant fell asleep on the job, which happens very often.

Christmas at Casa Caatje. 

These were my christmas presents to myself. Thanks to Galen Leather. 

Of course I immediately had to put it all to use. 

Intruder Cat is becoming quite affectionate lately.

Putting the seals in my journal.

Together with a bunch of friends we folded origami cranes to support a sick friend. These were mine. 

Jane and I are in complete agreement. 

At the end of december storm Bella raged around the house and I made myself extra cosy. 

The journals of 2020 all together in one stack.

Morning art with an awake assistant for a change. 

New walking shoes, my old ones were starting to fall apart. 

Putting the spirit of Christmas back in its box.

The port of Harlingen in the early morning as I left for my vacation.

More journaling. Who ever would have thought I would  put mask packaging inside?

This was the night after I came home from my vacation to Schiermonnikoog. Home sweet home.

A workers meeting at the home office. 

More affection from Intruder Cat. 

Looking back on these pictures there's a lot of homey stuff in there and that's because I hardly leave the island these days with corona still going strong everywhere. I don't mind all that much, I know how to entertain myself, but it would be nice to go on a trip to a museum, visit friends or family, or do something else fun for a day or so every now and then. I am very much a homebody, but even I like a bit of variety and new impressions sometimes. 

Hopefully as this year goes along and vaccinations spread just like corona did, we will be able to get slowly back to a bit of normalcy. But we're not there yet. Patience patience...

Hope you are all coping wherever you are and looking for the good things in your life (and maybe take a picture of them) and wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day. 

Botanical somethings on the iPad

Since I got an iPad Pro at the end of last year I have been trying out different things than just my regular patterns. I'm still trying to find my way into new areas and maybe they won't stick, but that's not the point. The point is to experiment and to have fun with my art. 

Here are three drawings I did in Procreate with a botanical theme:

This is a good way to work with different brushes and practice layers and other features that make drawing digitally so interesting and so different from analogue drawing. 

Hope you are experimenting with something you enjoy and wishing you a wonderful and artsy day!

The Schierbook - part two of two

Creative work in my vacations is usually hit or miss. Sometimes I don't do anything at all, sometimes I just keep a regular journal and sometimes, like this time on Schiermonnikoog, I do some very specific creative work in a travel journal every day. Sometimes my only memories are my photographs and sometimes I have a very specific book for a very specific vacation.

I'm quite happy that this time I made a very physical reminder of these two weeks, but it is by no means certain that I will be doing that again next time. It all depends on my mood and intentions.

Anyway, here is the second part of my travel journal/sketchbook from Schiermonnikoog:

I spoke in my last post about how challenging I find landscapes and that hasn't changed, but during the weeks gradually I did learn to enjoy making them a little more. I also learned that many problems can be solved by a little bit of opaque white paint. For some reason that gives the whole thing a little more depth. All these paintings had stages where I jus knew I totally ruined it and somehow they all ended up okay anyway. 

All the paintings were done after my own photographs in the comfort of my appartment. I am not a plein air painter or sketcher at all. I like to sit behind a table in a warm space with no wind, and trust me, on the islands wind is pretty much a given. 

Just a little credit where it's due: the beautiful postcards that I pasted in here and there are made by Marieke Feenstra. They were so stunning I just had to add them to my journal. If you want to see more of her work go here: https://www.mariekefeenstra.com

Well, that's all I have to share about Schiermonnikoog. I will probably turn my own photography postcards of my first two posts into a photobook as a companion to this travel journal. 

As I post this my vacation freedom has been over for several weeks already and I am back to work and the daily grind. But I'm sure I'll have plenty of art and photography to show you in the coming time from my own home. 

For now I wish you all a wonderful and artsy day.