MYM

It's been almost two weeks since this blog has seen any action from me... Lots of comments though, thank you so much :D

I've been a little - okay, a lot! - busy with Pikaland's Making Your Mark e-course. It's a course that promises to help you find or investigate your personal style in various ways, and so far that's true. There is a new assignment every week, and there is plenty of room to stretch yourself, if you choose to. It's interesting! Last week I had to create an image from a combination of one item on a list of things I KNOW and one item off a list of things I LOVE, and then recreate that image in both pen & ink and collage! It was a total challenge, especially to get it all finished within a week ;) But I did, and I love the way it coaxed me out of my comfort zone - especially the black and white image that was supposed to include tones and values. Man, tones and values are hard! I knew that, I've only just begun trying to add more light and shadows to my watercolour pieces, but then to decide whether red is lighter than blue, and how to represent that in ink lines? Hard!

Here is what I did in my 'medium of choice'. My 'items' were "I LOVE going outside with my kid on his balance bike - he's given me new eyes and a new lease on wonder", and "I KNOW my kid is half South-African". The elephant was annoying - I miscoloured it, then re-coloured it, which didn't work as well as I'd hoped, and then I tried to rescue the whole blessed overworked thing with coloured pencils. Let's just say he's got a skin condition and be done with it ;) And let's say I'm able to draw an elephant that looks like an elephant, because in the end, that impressed me most :D As well as how I drew my kid :D Sure, there is something not quite right with his hairline, but hey - we all need areas of practise, right?! ;)

This week's assignment will be fun too, I think and hope! We were meant to go to a museum or art gallery, and revisit an existing work of art. And while that sounds like fun (can't remember the last time I went to a museum - shame on me!), I don't really see when I could be doing that and finish some art work before Monday. And then I remembered (funny how these things work, really!) that there is a whole ado around here about a couple of months that Claude Monet spent in Zaandam back in 1871! I investigated and found out there is a little book about it, so I went out and got that - and there are quite a couple of surprises there :D But I won't spoil the fun just yet - I'll post about that when I'm able to illustrate my findings ;)

Yes, I'm enjoying MYM, for sure! I love a good challenge! I am a little disappointed in the lacking sense of community there though. After both assignments, I've been going out of my way to find something constructive to say about each and every piece of art work posted - because I feel that's part of the deal, and because I enjoy seeing what others come up with, for inspiration and at times awe, but hardly anyone bothers to come back and do the same. Apart from Koosje & Jodi - much appreciated :) Of course that is what it is, but in the end, I feel I've paid a lot of money for just a challenge and some feedback from the course's creators - who don't come back for a bit of dialogue either. But it is what it is. All that said and paid for, I will enjoy the challenge, and see what I can get out of Monet in Zaandam. Because honestly? I probably never would have investigated what the ado was about if it wasn't for MYM :)

Are you straying outside your comfort zone in any way? I'd love to hear and see!!

boring

I've been drawing & painting like mad over the past few days. I'd love to show and tell, but there's a lot of angst and negativity involved and I feel like I've been overstating that side of me, lately... These are times of transition, of growth and growing pains for me. I'm channelling lots of stuff into my art journal in stead of into words, and that's a huge step up. I'm slowly letting go of the idea that - if I can word things, I can grasp and control them. So I'm drawing them. It feels good, and I'm getting drawing practise in at the same time :)

But while dealing with things - or: look, pick apart, disect and study the remains - is a big part of who I've always been, life definitely isn't all bad. There's just not enough time in a day to draw all that and sweet smelling roses!

So for the sake of something completely different, I'm sharing our smallest room with you today :)

I'm trying to make it a happier place, seeing that we spend so many hours there, in a lifetime. The (ceramic) houses and cars are the latest addition, I stuck them up with double sided tape just this morning. We brought them home from South Africa, as an odd souvenir :)

My awesome neighbour and friend Tamar says Dutch toilets are the cleanest, but also the most boring in the world. She ought to know, she's a self-proclaimed, well-travelled expert on the subject ;)*
I started decorating toilets long before I met her, and it's a work in progress, but I'm bent on proving her wrong, anyway :)

*she said so in this awesome bit of stand-up comedy (sadly only for the Dutch speakers among you!):

aloe

toy

On our first day in South Africa, Squirt got a wire car. A toyota, even! A gift from his grandad ('oupa Afrika') that had been waiting for him for months :) Within hours, he was fluent with the steering wheel, and he never left it anywhere he couldn't see it :) It really was awesome to watch him with that thing!

Of course, I couldn't leave it out of my 'Africa sketchbook', so I drew it. Eventually ;) It took a while to build up the courage to tackle this thing! And it took me hours...

I was convinced that if I could draw this, I could draw anything. Of course, that's not exactly true - I've already proven that to myself ;) But it was - probably - the hardest think I ever tried to draw, and I'm definitely proud of how it turned out!

back

It's been a while. Euphemistically put. Life got in the way, as it does from time to time. I've been living in my head. My art supplies had to wait it all out. They didnt like it, and neither did I - hindsight, anyway.

I've been doing a lot of thinking, a lot of growing. I had another miscarriage in June (my second) and fell apart a little. I picked myself back up and looked at the grand scheme of things. Browsed a book or five and kept what was useful. I got deeply into acupuncture - or should I say it got deeply into me? - and am a lot better for it. I went to Africa and learned some more life lessons. One of them is that my brushes need me. Or I need them, but that's semantics ;) I started volunteering at the local Fair Trade giftshop & love it. Despite the fact that it's an expensive hobby ;) & last but not least: my baby is potty trained and ready for the world. He loved Africa, too.

I've got quite a few drawings waiting to be posted. And I fully intend to do more :)
This? This is a start :)

Thank you so much for still being here...