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!!

loot

These are the drawings I came home with after working outside - or at least in public ;) - last week :D

This was lunch on the 26th, on an art date with a friend :) We did lots of walking and talking, and we even managed to draw some :) Lovely day!!

Another art date on Saturday, with a friend in Gouda, to make up for the missed Sketchcrawl the week before :) We sat on a park bench in the garden of a museum, surrounded by beautiful old buildings - but I ended up challenging myself with angles again. I figure the only way to get better is to keep trying ;)

On the way back from Gouda, we ended up in a traffic jam because of road works. And I decided to take out my sketchbook :D I'm really starting to dig the idea of bringing it everywhere :D

And here's my lovely boy. His back, anyway ;) I am having such a hard time with realistic faces... I maimed him in the drawing I did before (which I tore out of my sketchbook, totally going against principles. It really was that bad!). But then I was struck with the brilliant idea that I could focus on his cute little backside ;) The pockets on this pair of jeans are stitched low - just so you know - that wasn't me missing the truth again ;)

That last drawing, on Queen's Day (celebrating the Dutch Queen's BD, fleamarkets everywhere and people wearing lots of orange)? I did it in the park, on the playground, sat on a bench, surrounded by throngs of people! I'm definitely getting braver, and I'm really starting to love just going with the flow! Sure, I hesitated, but I did it, anyway :D

When last did you do something anyway? I'd love to hear :)

Birthday Boy

1976

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!

artist

directions

"Hey mister Snowman! Good to see you! But what are you doing here? You weren't here before!"

"Oh man, you're a little lost! If you go out the gate and through the alley, up the 3 steps, cross the square, roughly that-a-way, there's a supermarket right there that has a frozen foods section!"

"What's that? Oh, no worries, mister Snowman! Good to see you! Just you go and enjoy your pizza!"

two

Mr Funny Pants turned TWO last Saturday! Two whole years of having this beautiful boy in my life, two years since becoming a mamma! It's been amazing, awesome, wonderful, crazy, weird (in a good way, mostly!), wild; it's a continuous learning curve that's blowing my socks off!

I love it! I LOVE my baby boy, who is most definitely not a baby boy anymore, but will forever be my baby boy :)

Thank you so much for being you & being here, Squirt! You've made my world a much better, more fun, happier, softer & kinder place to dwell in :)

photo challenge: NUMBERS

The latest assignment in the photo challenge Mridula & I set up a while ago - numbers...
It was another tough one, but that might be just me. There are numbers around, plenty of them, but I have this silly notion numbers need to mean something. So while it's always fun to scout for photo opportunities, I wasn't easily satisfied with what I came up with. Most numbers in the collage above might make sense to their owners of sorts - though still not to me - but the number 75 on Squirt's top means nothing! He wasn't born in 1975, nor were me or Man, and he, nor us, nor his grandparents are yet 75. We don't live at number 75 and I can't think of any other way this number will soon make sense to any one of us. That's what I mean, it's wrong. Which is why this top is already on its way to the second hand shop (we're about to move and it's clear-out time, by way of an excuse, and anyway - it was a very cheap 'needs must'-buy of the diaper-wearing-related kind, but that's all by the by)!

So I kept looking for numbers to speak to me, and then I saw this! A car of sorts, one of Squirt's favourites! He calls it 'red weird car'. He also has a yellow version, so that clears that up ;) But the number! It's 32! We'll be living at number 32 in the new house!

But that was all I could come up with, as far as physical numbers are concerned. Like I said, me and my odd notions (yes, I count steps at times, too!)... It doesn't make life easier, at least not all the time :)

But then I saw how Squirt liked walking around in my shoes :) And I decided that, like with SPARKLE, I could take it out of the literal and into the illustrative of sorts! He had fun here, I promise - no little kid got hurt in the taking of these pictures ;) - and I got ample opportunity to take as many shots as I wanted!

The caption would read: Size is but a number. Sometimes, numbers matter. Does this count?

Please pop over to Mridula's to see what she came up with!

I know it's my turn to come up with a new assignment, but I haven't. Not yet. Sorry! Brain mush... I'm going to take today to come up with something and add it as an edit to this post tonight. The deadline will be Monday 25th October, and you're very welcome to join if you want to!

Edit, three days later...
I didn't forget and I didn't flake out as such. I have been racking my brain to come up with a new theme, and it's just not happening! So frustrating!!
So I've decided to keep things relatively simple: this round, photograph what makes you happy. Either constantly and long term, or something fleeting like a ray of sun - as long as it makes you feel good :)

sight

Silly assignment, to decorate a pair of glasses.
Isn't this so cute, in a weird, almost disturbing way?!

foot

I've had this shot in my head since I found out I was pregnant... It just took me untill this beautiful warm, sunny late Summer Sunday to take it!

There is something infinitely touching about a bare baby foot dangling...