Haiku book project

Great news! I'm working on a book together with Flemish author / poet Geert De Kockere.

It will be a luxurous book, more than 600 pages. A combination of 1001 haiku's and my drawings. Old and new ones. This could be a possible cover:

We did work together before on the 'real face book project'. Remember?

This cooperation is a fun and interesting creative process. Sometimes Geert makes haiku's inspired by my drawings. and sometimes I  make drawings inspired by his haiku's. So I draw a lot lately, which I love doing.

The text will be all in Dutch and unfortunately difficult to translate.
Will be continued :-)

Swanwalk December 2014

Here are some pictures of our pop-up shop during the Swanwalk last weekend.

I made this photo collage, a closer look here

...an accordioniste was playing in the street and visited our shop to sing a song...

...our display window during daytime...

...our display window by night...

...some of mt Red Cheeks Factory postcards...

...Affirmation Angela, which was (again) a bestseller :-)....

...one of the walking swans I painted on the display window...

...some of my Red Cheeks Factory prints...

...the shop from the other side: leather bags made by Evelyne Hofman
of beleef je verbeelding,  necklaces made by Paula van Loon and
Christmas ornamentsmade by Diny Hofman...

...my postcards in postcard racks...

...and another view on the whole shop...

Today we gonna clear the room again  It was a fun experiment to have a real shop for one weekend. To meet nice and kind people, shop owners, artists and customers.

...and now I'm happy to go back  to my drawing work again :-)

Swanwalk kersteditie

This weekend I will join the Swanwalk christmas edition. It's a shopping event around het Zwaanshals, one of the nicest streets of Rotterdam and in my neighbourhood!

Together with 'Beleef je verbeelding', Paula de Loor and Diny Hofman, we have our own pop-up shop. Today we gonna set up this shop. I'm gonna paint on the window :-)

...and so I did....

The result of a part of the window. Funny, because you have to make the text the other way around. I worked first with a beamer, projected the text on my wall and painted the reversed text on paper.


....and here are the shopping swans. The rest of the etalage we do tomorrow.

Will be continued....

Three Little Kittens

I join this weeks Spoonflower competition. Theme: kittenns in mittens.
I made this pattern after the nursery rhyme of Mother the Goose: three little kittens.
If you like it, you can support me and vote for it here
Thanks in advance!

I didn't know this rhyme, but I love it!

Three little kittens

The three little kittens, they lost their mittens,
And they began to cry,
"Oh, mother dear, we sadly fear,
That we have lost our mittens."
"What!   Lost your mittens, you naughty kittens!
Then you shall have no pie."
"Meow, meow, meow."
"Then you shall have no pie."

The three little kittens, they found their mittens,
And they began to cry,
"Oh, mother dear, see here, see here,
For we have found our mittens."
"Put on your mittens, you silly kittens,
And you shall have some pie."
"Purr, purr, purr,
Oh, let us have some pie."

The three little kittens put on their mittens,
And soon ate up the pie,
"Oh, mother dear, we greatly fear,
That we have soiled our mittens."
"What, soiled your mittens, you naughty kittens!"
Then they began to sigh,
"Meow, meow, meow,"
Then they began to sigh.

The three little kittens, they washed their mittens,
And hung them out to dry,
"Oh, mother dear, do you not hear,
That we have washed our mittens?"
"What, washed your mittens, then you're good kittens,
But I smell a rat close by."
"Meow, meow, meow,
We smell a rat close by."

hip hip hooray!

Hip hip hoorayyyyy, just reached 100 sales in my Etsy shop todayyyyy!

...and I'm not sold out yet...  You are welcome!

Red Cheeks Factory on Instagram

It took a long time, but you can find me now also on Instagram

You are welcome to follow me there, if you like :-)
Have a nice day!

Autumn Party - week 5 - Make Art That Sells

This was the very last week of the inspiring Make Art That Sells course. Finito! Completed!

This last week was about the party paper market. We had to create a round party plate and a square party napkin with a flower theme. (You can  see a bigger version here)

First we were asked to gather some flora  from your environment. I was very busy with other things this week, so I only googled and drew some flora. It's autumn here, that means a lot of warm and beautiful colors. Some of my doodles:

When we got the assignment I had to find a nice concept for a plate. Because of it's round shape I thought of wavy hair. I made this girl face in combination with autumn leaves:

During the first part of the week I also made this autumn leaves pattern. I could use it later for this cup. I never designed one before, but it was really fun to do.

Because I love birds, I also wanted to add a bird to my design.  I repeated the round border of the plate in the napkin, so they fit together nicely.

And now this incredible inspiring course is over. It has been a great learning!
But I also know I can learn so much more.

Next year there will be a Bootcamp again. My plan is to join and continuing on this fun path. Lilla Rogers is a great teacher with a lot of knowledge and enthusiasm. So I say again, even if the course is over: will be continued... :-)

Red Cheeks Factory in de Winterwinkel

On the 7th of November was the opening of the Winterwinkel in Amsterdam. I was there and took photographs, but they didn't turn out very well. (wrong settings on my camera, stupid!!)

But I was lucky enough my favorite brother was so sweet to visit this lovely shop and took some nice pictures. Thank you very much, Jan, highly appreciated!

First a photo of one of my newest products: Affirmation Angela.
I've heard she's a bestseller in the Winterwinkel :-)

Below a photo of the etalage of the shop in the Oudezijdse Achterburgwal 121:

One of my prints in a frame: 'ode to the bird':

Some more Red Cheeks Factory giclee prints, presented in a very special way on these modern wooden plates with nicely colored typography:

You can also buy my DIY Dress Cat Mathilde and Ralph and ofcourse the Red Cheeks Factory Magnificent Magnets:

Below: my cactus giclee print has a nice spot in the shop, on the photo you also can see Barbara on the photo. She's one of the Ka-Ching Collectief members who are organizing this nice event:

There are a lot of fun postcards available, also Handsome Herbert, the one with real breasthair:

Below a view on the Red Cheeks Factory 'çolor your world' Zebra poster (which I had printed especially for the Winterwinkel).and  a nice view on  the shop:

And ofcourse you can buy the Muscle Man Paper Doll (one of the bestsellers from last year :-))

Ofcourse there are lots of other nice products from 25 other participants available in the Winterwinkel. It was nice to meet a few of them during the opening!

The shop will be open till 24th of December. From Wednesday till Sunday, 12.00 - 18.00 hour.

If you visit the shop, give Barbara, Babette, Annabel or Margriet of the Ka-ching collectief my kind regards :-))

Colorful Rotterdam - week 4 - Make Art That Sells

The fourth week of part B of the inspiring Make Art That Sells course was about the editorial market. Illustrations for magazines, books and newspapers. Our assignment was to make a map of your own city or from a city that you love. I live in Rotterdam and I love my city, so I made this map of colorful Rotterdam:

 If you like, you can see it in a bigger size for more details here

First we did some handlettering of the name of your chosen town. I started in black and white. Then I started to play with color and made these letters. This was the big inspiration for my map:

Rotterdam has beautiful architecture, but what I love the most of my city is that it's multicultural. So many colors and a variety of cultures. I wanted to show the richness of all these colors in my map. I took that as a theme. I love to draw people,  that's why there are so many on my map:

I place some of them here seperately so you can have a closer look:

We also have a nice zoo, named 'Blijdorp' with a beautiful garden. Some years ago I went there very often and  took many many photographs of all the animals. I have a nice archive.

Because of the color theme I also included a scene of the Summer Carnaval. It's a special event in Summer: a tropical streetparade with lots of colors and happy people:

I also tried to draw different nationalities, which is new to me. Also a  nice challenge:

If you look well, you can also see a selfportrait in the map: Me on my bike.
I always do everything by bike:

 Another lady walking with her two dogs:

I really loved this assignment. It was a lot of work, but such a great challenge to draw some well known Rotterdam buildings and all those different people. The editorial market  seems an attractive market to me!

Now we only have one week left. The party paper week. It's a pity it goes that quickly. I love this course. So inspiring and challenging!! Will be continued....!

As times go by - week 3 - Make Art That Sells

This was already the third week of part B of the inspiring Make Art That Sells course. We learned about the scrapbooking market. This is again a totally new market for me. I'm not sure if I made something appropriate for scrapbooking, but the challenge was also to create something you like yourself.

And I am not a scrapbook maker / user. Scrapbook people are making memory / photo albums using all kind of  'icons',  to brighten up their pages. The assignment  was to create a vintage correspondence themed scrapbook collection, which incorporates clocks.

As usual on Monday we first got  a theme to draw, which were vintage clocks this week. So I googled and drew some of the gathered material.

On Wednesday we received the assignment. To create a scrapbook collection, not only using vintage clocks, but it also had to be a correspondence themed collection... This was a bit confusing at first. What have clocks to do with correspondence?

I first wrote down some associations with time. Such as: quality time, creating time, timeless,  no time, anytime, as times go by, summertime, time flies, tea-time, coffee-time, bed-time, spare time, slow down, time for change, take your time, present time...

I didn't think a lot about it, but began to draw. I started with this meditation girl: 

Meditation has everything to do with time and timelessness. My first association with quality time.

I also began to draw some icons with the correspondence theme. As I was busy drawing and putting the icons in one file, the two themes surprisingly came together very well.

I show you some of my drawings / icons a bit bigger, so you can see them better.
I loved these envelope parade I made:

And ofcourse I also drew some  pigeon carriers. Nice to see how he is also associated with time. No quick e-mails, but a pigeon who has to fly all the way to bring the post, which takes time...

I may be new to this Market, but I loved the assignment! It was quite a challenge to fit all the icons into a nice composition. I'm happy with the result. I posted on Flickr a bigger version of the assignment.What you think of it?

Next week we gonna look to the editorial market. Also interesting. Will be continued!

Announcement Opening WinterWinkel in Amsterdam

Today La Grande Opening of the WinterWinkel in Amsterdam. Just as last year the ladies of the Ka-Ching Collectief  organised a pop-up Shop in the center of Amsterdam. I'm happy Red Cheeks Factory is selected to join with 25 other participants!

Here's a photo I took of the building when I brought my products last Friday:

It's in a nice building (a former pleausure house ;-)) with 3 levels. Enouph room for a shop, an office and a workshop space. The opening is from 16.00 till 18.00 hour at the Oudezijdse Achterburgwal 121. You are all invited!

Above a photo from last year's WinterWinkel with my prints.

The shop will be open till the 24th of December.