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!!

Day 9

Yesterday, we went on a little Road Trip by Bike! Inspired by Stephanie Levy & her awesome Creative Courage e-course. Taking a detour to go shopping, looking at things we would normally just pass, stopping where we wouldn't on a run-of-the-mill Wednesday :) We had a lovely time, me & Squirt, and when it was time for bed, he asked me if we could do another day like this tomorrow :) That was probably partly inspired by the fact that we had poffertjes (sort of small puffy pancakes served with melting butter and powdered sugar) for lunch, but still! We had fun together!

Gratitude for today? Definitely, for taking the time to slow down. There is a drawing in this, but it's in the Work in Progress-stages still. I'll share it when it's done!

Day 8

On Tuesday, I spent my creativity on creating these mice for Squirt :) In the Netherlands, it's customary to share a little treat with your class mates when you've had a birthday, and Squirt went for... cheese! Which is quite funny when you know he tells me (and everyone who'll listen) on a daily basis that he really doesn't like cheese! On occasion while munching on a piece of cheese. Adding that he likes this cheese, but most definitely not 'the other cheese', whatever that means ;)

Gratitude only in the fact that I finished them on time :)

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!):

fire

I am not a huge rugby fan. & rugby, she's not hot, really, here in the Low Countries. But husband is South African, so I get... contaminated, every now & then ;)

Just this morning, apropos of nothing much, I got this image in my head: a dog lives in the center of the Universe. And it barks and bites. Not a comfortable image to start the day with. For all sorts of reasons, better left undisturbed ;) But then I saw this:



I love watching the All Blacks perform the Haka!! I can't even begin to explain how this sets fire to my insides, so I won't ;) But I've decided to play this for myself, first thing in the morning, for as long as the dog refuses to wag its tail & do a happy dance!

tourists

Chinese tourists, mostly. People 'seeing Europe in 14 days'. They're off to do this:

Plastic culture! It's forgivable in tourists. It really is. Most of us have substituted the Real Thing for instant culture, somewhere - I know I have, anyway. But is it okay for locals?! I'm not so sure. Yet where we are now, we're a 20-minute bike ride away from this place (click). And all those typical Zaans-green gables? That's the colour of my roots... (although I prefer looking at those little bits of heritage 'in the wild', so to speak; find the gems right next to an industrial monstrosity for example. But I know you can't 'do Europe in a fortnight' and have time for a treasure hunt like that. I get that!) I was born around here, and got my first flashes of people and the world in these parts. I never thought it mattered, but I'm slowly finding out it does.

So. I don't have an excuse. It was a gut-inspired moment of... 'I have to'. Squirt in all his glory, intimately acquainting himself with wooden shoes. Slightly too big. You would have, too. Admit it!

looking

How gorgeous is this?! And it's pretty much at the end of our street! Sketchbook Delight is inspiring me to look around, and to look up, too. I took my camera along on the walk to the grocery store, and there is plenty to see! See, this is why I wanted to come back to old land again. Well, it's one of the reasons. But through the mayhem of the last months, I forgot. And I forgot to really look, too.

But: how awesome!

faceless

I'm a bit scared to draw in the face... But apart from that, pretty pleased about how this came out! And it actually happened, wet bum & all ;)

(click on image to see it larger)

dutch

Ah. We lost the World Cup to the Spanish. It was a sad day in soccer history, but I've learned to live with it by now. Between that, the signing of the contract - deed, whatever it's called - for the house (provided the mortgage comes through, we own a house! Yay!) and the chaos in my head, I haven't been able to squeeze out a meaningful blog post till now. But here I am!

Last Monday, my Moroccan friend N - she of the real Moroccan mint tea in my profile - naturalised to this frog country! Despite the sad soccer loss! She was so proud, I was so happy for her :)

Me & Squirt were there, applauding her and other applicants into the fold, listening to half-truths and flat-out lies about what it means to be Dutch. That's hindsight though. As it goes with these things, I was so sucked in at the time that I bellowed the National Anthem along with my new neighbours. Making sure not to look at the piece of paper seemingly lost for words, lest someone thought I was a Dutch soccer player. Actually, actually, for the first time ever I think, feeling traces of goosebumps. While singing the National Anthem. Yes. Ahem. But the moment passed and I'm fine. Dutch, but fine.

I was moved enough to pull out some of the culturally clichéd imagery to create an appropriate card of congratulations for N though. But only because I know she knows we don't all leave our windmills in the morning to walk the dikes wearing our wooden shoes, on our way to our day's work in the R.ed L.ight D.istrict. And we don't hang about picking tulips every day either! Just so you know!