Make Art That Sells - Happy Holidays

Remember I joined the Make Art That Sells course with Lilla Rogers last spring? I'm now taking part B. Another five weeks cover five different markets: paper goods, baby apparel, scrapbooking, editorial and party paper

I just had my first week: paper goods. Here's the result.of the first assignment: a winter holidays postcard featuring penguins:

First we got the mini assignment to loosen up, trying different techniques and get to know the subject. So I was diving into the world of the penguins. I love these animals, their clumsiness is funny. I never saw a baby penguin before, they are  so cute. I would love to see them in real.

Baby penguins where not the only ones I drew. I also made these red cheeks variations:

Below more experiments, now I added some more color:

I also discovered this new technique. I drew lines with a sharpie, scanned them in, reversed the black lines into white ones and added the colors with some monoprint brushes I created. I like the effect, I think I'm gonna try this technique more often:

After all these penguin drawings we had to create a winter holiday postcard. The assignment was open. Only thing given was the subject and the size. It needed to be a portrait format. Funny I had several ideas which would fit better in a landscape format...

My challenge was to add a lot of 'icons'. To make a kind of winter holidays collection and still try to keep it organized. Would you buy a card like this?

Next week we gonna take a look at the baby apparel market. I'm already curious!
Will be continued!

Exhibition Mark Rothko

Today I went with my brother to the exhibition of Mark Rothko.(1903-1970)
in Gemeentemuseum The Hague. It was a nice experience!

We went early because we had heard the exhibition attracted a lot of visitors. But Saturday morning at 10 o'clock you have the chance to see his paintings without lots of people walking in front of them.


Here's a visitor in black watching one of Rothko's black paintings:

The exhibition gives a good overview from his earlier work, the development to the abstraction and the inmense colored squares, which became more and more dark at the end of his life.


Here's one of his brighter paintings, which I love:

It was a bit difficult to make photographs, because the museum rooms were not so light. That's how Rothko wanted to show his work. On eye level on the walls in a dimmed light, so the visitor has the chance to absorb his work more.

And as always, with such a huge exhibition, they make up some commercial items. I'm always curious where they come up with. Besides postcards, they also sold Rothko bon bons :-) I wonder what Mark Rothko would have thought of that...

You have the chance to vist this inspiring exhibition till the first of March.
So if you are in the neigbourhood, grab your chance!

My 'umbrella mix' in the Spoonflower top 10!

Remember my umbrella mix? I asked for your votes and it did help!
My design is number 4 in this weeks Spoonflower contest.
See the whole top 10 here

I'm extra happy, because there were a lot of entrees this time.
My umbrella mix  got 431 votes! Thank you all very much!!
I really appreciate your support :-))

Affirmation Angela

Let me introduce you to: Affirmation Angela, supporter of positive thinking. 

Positive thinking

I'm not always good in positive thinking. I know it helps to do so, but sometimes negative thoughts take the overhand. Some time ago I've read the book positivity from Barbara Fredrickson. Inspiring!

It really helps to transform negative thoughts into positive ones. Or to get inspired by a nice and stimulating sentence as: 'make it happen!' It makes me happy ;-)

New product

Because I know I'm certainly not the only one busy with this subject, I thought it would be nice, to develop a product to support people on their journey. And what could be more supportive than  a kind of 'guardian' angel. So I developed this little angel Affirmation Angela. 

You can cut her out, fold her following the instructions. Put her on your desk, on your kitchen table, in your bookshelf or wherever you want. She can hold an affirmation card on her lap. To inspire you or to remind you to be positive.

Affirmation cards

The package includes 8 cards, 12 different affirmations.
(4 on the backside, also 4 blanc cards to fill in your own positive texts)

If you like some positive support or you know someone who can use it,
Affirmation Angela is available here

umbrella mix

It's voting time again! I can use your help and would be very happy with it! (again ;-))
Here's my entree for these weeks spoonflower contest. Theme: umbrella.
You can vote for it by clicking this link and scroll to find my umbrella mix.

I've tried to make a cheerfull design in contrast with those grey rainy days...
Ofcourse I also made an illustration to show the pattern on a dress:

Here you can see the umbrella mix on a cushion:

Because I liked the umbrella theme very much I made some more patterns on this theme.
'Cats and umbrellas' is one of them:

Here you can see the cats and their yellow umbrellas and boots on a cushion:

And another one: it's raining umbrellas. This was the last one I made.
Also a cheerful design:

The 'it's raining umbrellas' pattern on a cushion:

Because you can only add one design per week to the spoonflower competition, I had to choose. I didn't find that easy, but I chose for the umbrella mix (see the first image of this post). I'm curious: which one do you like the most?

galerie XS

Some of my works are part of a special exhibition in galerie XS. It is the smallest galerie of Delft (close to Rotterdam in the Netherlands). It 's the first exhibition of this tiny gallery with the theme: illustrations.

The organisator of this event is Margo Weijer a creative and enthusiastic artist. She invited me to join this exhibition. She selected some very nice artists, like Karolien van der Stappen and Eveline Ester Thijs. It's an honour to be amongst them.

Coming Saterday the 11th of October there will be the opening at 15.00 hour.

I think it will be quite a happening and I'm looking forward to it :-)

If you are in the neighbourhood, you are very welcome!
You can find Galerie XS in the Voorstraat 16 in Delft.

quote of the day

 Look at this: Featured today on the Make It In Design blog as quote of the day :-)

Thank you!!!!

Unfortunately I didn't reach the top 10 in the spoonflower table and chairs contest.

BUT....

I reached the top 20 with my mad tea party pattern! Not bad, huh?

Thanks to your votes! I'm grateful for your support!
Here you can find the winners. Congratulations to them!