Opening exhibition Ilustrarte in Lisbon

Last week we visited the big Ilustrarte exhibition in Lisbon, where also my work is part of. It's a big honour to be one of the 50 selected illustrators of more than 1700 participants from 72 countries

We took a flight on Wednesday the 20th, so we were in time for the opening on Thursday evening the 21st. It was quite an experience! What an inspiring exhibition.

We arrived at the Electricity Museum some time before the exhibition started. So I had the chance to meet some people, like Ingrid Godon, a Flemish illustrator. I knew her work, but never met her in person. And of course one of the enthusiastic organizers Eduardo Filipe.

 

Just as the Ilustrarte 12 exhibition in Ghent, which I visited some years ago, the works are presented in a very original way. On tables / houses with lights especially made for this occasion. Each illustrator has one, two or three tables. It depends on the size of their work.

There's also an inspiring solo exhibition of illustrator Serge Bloch, who is a member of the jury.

There were a lot of people at the opening. The speech was in Portugese, so unfortuately I didn't understand a word of it.

My work 'Fishermen' and 'bird friends' presented together on a table with the book 'Stil verwateren'
It's  nice they also see present the books on this exhibition (if the illustrations are published). A lot of people took the time to look inside the book. It was nice to see their interest ;-)

On the floor the illustrators names are written in big nice orange letters. Looks good, hé? ;-)

Here's the other print I've sent in for the exhibition: Growth.

On Friday morning we visited the exhibition again. So we had more time to see all the illustrations When we came we saw this giant anouncement on a building next to the Museum. In between some palm trees ;-)

It's magical when you enter the hall:

Here another view on the tables with my work in front.

 More photos of the exhibition on Facebook

The exhibition will last till half of April. Maybe it's gonna travel, but the organization was not sure about that yet. They need to find some sponsors. I hope it will come to Ghent again. That would be awesome!

We also had some good days in Lissabon. What a nice city it is! I loved all the colors of the houses. It would be a good idea to do so in Rotterdam too!

Ilustrarte 2016

I am SO happy to tell you I am one of the 50 selected illustrators for the big
Ilustrarte 2016  exhibition in Lisbon / Portugal next January!

This Summer they asked people all over the world to send in their work, so they could make a selection. Over 1700 people from 72 countries did sent in work.

And  I was one of them...

Although I didn't  think I would have much chance, but I wanted to give it a try.
You never know.... Nothing ventured, nothing gained....

And I am so glad I did, because some time ago I openend an e-mail with congratulations: my work was chosen for the exhibition and the catalogue. Can you imagine how happy I was?

See here the winner, the special mentions and the list of selected illustrators.

I did sent in three giclee prints of some illustrations I made for the big haikubook
'Stil verwateren' in the beginning of this year.  I also did send the big haikubook with 1001 haiku's and 71 illustrations.

The organizers of the festival also asked for a translation of the title 'Stil verwateren'.
That is not easy, because it's a poëtic title with various meanings.

On de Facebook page of author Geert De Kockere we asked his fans to help. It was so nice to get all this support! Interesting suggestions were given.

I also asked a friend and ex-collegue, a native speaker, who lives in Holland for help. And between his suggestions was: Soluble Silence. That directly spoke to me. The author made it into 'In Soluble Silence' and we did have an english translation ;-)

In January the exhibition will take place in the Electricity Musem. The opening is on the 21th of January. We are planning to go there, because I love to see it. I think it will be a great experience with lots of great work to see and nice people to meet! And of course to visit Lisbon. Seems like a good start of the year.

Nieuw boek 'Tussen oevers van fluitenkruid'

Ik ben stil geweest hier op mijn blog, maar niet zonder reden: ik werkte afgelopen maand aan een nieuw boek.'Tussen oevers van fluitenkruid'

Samen met Vlaams auteur Geert De Kockere, waar ik ook mijn eerste boek 'Stil verwateren' mee maakte.

I've been quiet here lately, I had a good reason. I was working on a new book: 'Tussen oevers van fluitenkruid': 1001 haiku's (in Dutch) and 71 illustrations made by me. In this post you can see some of them. I continue this post in Dutch, but the illustrations are international ;-)

De herfst jongleert weer
met bladeren. Zijn handen
zijn groot en van wind.

Het is een roman van het leven zoals het is in 1000 haiku's en 71 prenten. Dit keer geen papieren boek, maar een mooi vormgegeven e-book, wat je overal mee naar toe kunt nemen....

Ook al bloeien er
veel roze bloesems, verdriet
blijft toch nog bestaan.

Dit is de cover van het nieuwe boek:

Het was een waar feest om aan te werken! Geert en ik inspireerden elkaar. Vaak maakte ik een tekening naar aanleiding van een bepaalde haiku. Dan maakte hij daar nóg een haiku bij, want bij elke prent horen er twee.

Maar Geert schreef ook haiku's bij losse tekeningen die ik stuurde, vaak geïnspireerd op de seizoenen. Een zeer plezante samenwerking dus ;-)

Wintermutsen van
kleurige wol versieren
nu de witte tuin.

Naast de haiku's haalde ik ook inspiratie uit mijn eigen archief. Toen ik bijvoorbeeld onderstaande haiku las, moest ik meteen denken aan een foto, die ik maakte tijdens de grote Matisse tentoonstelling in het Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam deze zomer.Die zet ik dan weer om in een illustratie.

Een modern kunstwerk:
het is de kunst om er zelf
iets van te maken.

Ik heb in dit boek vooral gezocht naar 'de kunst van het weglaten' Dat vind ik mooi bij de haiku passen. Precies de essentie van iets pakken  Vandaar dat de prenten vrij sober zijn.
Een soort beeld-haiku's:

Een groot voordeel van dit e-book is de prijs. In tegenstelling tot het dikke papieren haiku boek, kost dit boek maar tien euro, terwijl je toch dezelfde hoeveelheid aan haiku's en prenten hebt. Het is ook meer dynamisch om te lezen, want je kunt alles uitvergroten met een eenvoudige klik- of knijp-beweging. Ik hoop dat je er net zo enthousiast over raakt als ik ;-)

Meer informatie en hoe je het boek kunt bestellen vind je bij Uitgeverij Pigmalion. 

Veel leesplezier!

Een wit hemdje aan
de wasdraad. De zomer gaf
zich zopas over.

Exhibition Lobke van Aar

Today I visited the exhibition of Dutch illustrator Lobke van Aar in 's Hertogenbosch. It's her first solo exhibition where she shows work she made during the last 7 years. I know Lobke and her work only via Facebook, so this was a nice opportunity to meet her and see her lovely work in real :-)

I visited the exhibition together with illustrator Connie Snoek, which I  also only know from Facebook. We met and had lunch together in the Verkade Fabriek in Den Bosch. Nice to meet two collegues on one day (In Holland we call that: 'twee vliegen in één klap' :-))

The exhibition is in the beautiful restaurated old Willem 2 Building, where Lobke also has her studio. A really inspiring environment!

It was very nice to hear Lobke talk about her work. That made it even more special. She makes illustrations for newspapers, magazines, books and personal projects. It was fun to hear some stories behind it.

Also nice to see her development in these last 7 years. I must say, I almost love everything she makes, also her early works. Lots of diversity, but always her clear own voice. I'm a fan :-)

The exhibition will take place till the end of next week: the 28th of June. If you are in the neighbourhood, go and have a look and give Lobke my kind regards ;-)

More blog features!

I'm happy to say today my work is featured on the inspiring Artistic Moods blog,
a blog full with beautiful Art, illustrations and inspiring artists.
So it is a real honor to be featured here :--)

And if that's not enough...

It was such a nice surprise to see my '100 Days of Animals' project featured
on the Zo wie So blog yesterday :-)

You can still follow my animal project on Instagram. I post an animal character a day for 100 days.

Custom made illustrations

Today it's the birthday of Geert De Kockere, the Flemish author with whom I made my first book 'stil verwateren' :-)) I made this 'happy birthday illustration' for him:

If you want me to make a custom made illustration for your or for a friend of yours,
just send me a mail for more infrmation.

Restyling Company 'De Luchtreiziger'

Last two weeks I worked on a restyling of the Dutch Hot Air Balloon Company 'De Luchtreiziger'. (The Air-Traveler) We also restyled their website. The project was in cooperation with  my partner Herman from Yepr 


This is the backside of their business card, a special 'Luchtreiziger' mascotte ;-)

Besides the design for the website and businesscard I also designed a flyer,
a birthday giftcard, a flag, a polo shirt, a sticker, and a certificate.

Here's the special Luchtreiziger birthday card:

And I made some animated pictures for the website:

....this one is already for Christmas....

...and one for the football championships...

...and ofcourse the olympic games....

It was a fun project to work on :-)

My work In the media

This week you can find an illustration of me in Dutch Magazine FLAIR.
In cooperation with Flair, Monique van der Vlist from the HappyMakersBlog (inspiring blog in dutch) selected 8 'happy illustrations' to add as postcards to this weeks magazine. A special gift to their readers. My 'girl with birds' is one of them :-)

Also in this month FLOW magazine....

Sjoukje van de Kolk wrote an article about thinking different. She asked me some questions about where I get my inspiration. It's a short piece about how I play with reality.

For the dutch followers: Als je het stukje wilt lezen, klik dan hier of nog beter kijk in de Flow :-)

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 :-)

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

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.

#WordEenWebVedette

Marketing specialists MamaMarketing gonna change their name after 4 years. They have asked people to tweet their favorite quotes and share them on twitter etc. with the hashtag WordEenWebVedette. My most favorite quote at the moment is:

I follow them for a while now. They have an inspiring blog (in Dutch) Full with all kind of tips. But I always felt a bit strange about the name, because I am no Mama (Mom). So it was as if it was not for me. But to be honest I can certainly use tips about marketing. It's not my strongest point. So now they gonna change their name into WebVedettes. I like the new name :-)

When I saw their request to share your favorite quote(s) I began to draw:

It is a competition, so you can win a prize: A two hours marketing session about your webshop. Well who knows, I followed the advice of my quotes. Hope it works ;-)

World Wide Artist Blog Hop

I was asked by Kelly Angelovic and Janna Krupinski to join the World Wide Artist Blog Hop. I'm flattered they both chose me as one of the artists who inspire them :-)

In this Blog Hop Post I will share some of Kelly's and Janna's gorgeous works, answer some questions about my own creative process, and I will introduce you to some artists friends who inspire me: Claudi Kessels and Sophie Dufresne.


Kelly Angelovic
Kelly Angelovic is a Colorado based illustrator which I know from Lilla Rogers Bootcamp. Her work is quirky, playful and I love her combinations of shapes, linework and nice color palettes.

 'Let's Play' is a Journal Cover Design for last years Global Talent Search, where she ended up as one of the 50 semi-finalists.

Below a Wall Art piece she created inspired by her favorite beverage.
It's one of a series of three and you can purchase them here

Kelly has written a Blog Hop Post last week, where she also features my work.
You can find her on Facebook and on Pinterest

Tabula Rosi
is the Alter Ego of Janna Krupinski, She lives in Germany, where she creates  beautiful, colorful and happy Art. I also met Janna online during Bootcamp (such an inspiring community:-))

I love all those nice little details and engaging textures in her work. Her handlettering is beautiful too. Look at this funny character she created with the little bird on his toes :-)

With 'a jar full of joy' she won the Hallmark competition. So well deserved!

You can find Tabula Rosi also on Facebook, on Pinterest and on Spoonflower
Janna will write her Blog Hop Post next week.
You can find it on her Tabula Rosi blog


Some questions about my work and creative process
Kelly and Janna passed me some questions:

1. What am I working on?
2. How does my work differ from other work in its genre?
3. Why do I create what I do?
4. How does my creative process work?

1.  What am I working on?
Since I took part in Lilla Rogers Make Art That Sells course, I made my first pattern, which I loved.

During this summer I joined the 'Make It In Design Summerschool' which ended yesterday. So I made lots of patterns, I've added a whole new category to my portfolio: surface pattern design.

I recently joined the Global Talent Search, which was quite a journey.
I'm working on some new products for my Red Cheeks Factory shop and my Etsy shop,
which I'm gonna tell more about later. I'm also busy with updating my portfolio

Here are some examples of my work in progress of an Animal Alphabet, I'm working on at the moment:

2. How does my work differ from other work in its genre?
Not an easy question. I hear often: "your work is so you".  But what is that 'so you'? I love to create characters. Draw often people, faces and animals. If I can I also give faces to inanimated objects. They almost all have red cheeks, 

People often smile and become happy when they see my work, they say it's whymsical, quirky and characteristic. I use a lot of handpainted textures. Maybe a combination of all these things make my 'Red Cheeks Factory' style...


3. Why do I create what I do?
Because I looooooove it! It gives me red cheeks. I love the creative process. To invent new things and to surprse myself. I like to tell little stories with my work.


4. How does my creative process work?
It depends on what the assignment is and how much time I have. But mostly I get inspired by seeing lots of images. I gather material  (Google and Pinterest are great sources), Make sketches on paper or directly on my drawing tablet. When the idea is clear I choose a color palette I work on it in Photoshop till I'm satisfied.


inspiration
Enough about me, now I like to introduce to you the work of two artists, who inspire me:

Claudi Kessels
An illustrator based  in Amsterdam is  Claudi Kessels  I met  her online this spring during the Make Art That Sells course and I immediatly fell in love with her work. It is unique, inventive, clever, beautiful and poëtic. Not only her work speaks to me, I met Claudi in Amsterdam and she is also a very kind person in real life, with her long curly hair and beautiful positive, supportive attitude.

Below her interpretation of the vintage kitchen / tropical fruit bolt fabric assignment. It was immediately one of my favorites:

She also made a lot of nautical drawings. Here's one of them, so inventive! Claudi also uses real materials as shells and feathers in her work, see more here

Below: an editorial piece about meditation. So poëtical! I love those little details as the birds on the girls  swimsuit which go over into the birds in the sky. Very nice and inspiring how she creates her own imaginative world, as it were a dream.

'Sea you' is a little drawing Claudi sends with her e-mails. I love it!
Yes Claudi, I will certainly 'Sea you' :-)

You can find Claudi also on Facebook and on Pinterest


Sophie Dufresne
The second artist I want to introduce to you is: Sophie Dufresne. She is originally from Montreal, but now based in Los Angeles. I also met Sophie this spring. We were in the same class with Claudi.

I love to see Sophies work. It's nice, appealing, clean, bright and clear, I love her shapes and subtile use of textures. During the MATS class, I was always looking forward to Sophies blogposts, where she described her creative process in a very detailed way. An inspiration to follow.

Below: In the land of no coffee, a nice illustration for Bootcamp about beverages, read more here

I also love her animal fables. She makes up a little poem and illustrate it. Such a nice idea! Very poëtical too:

Below another playful animal illustration:

Her nautical band, which she made for Bootcamp, you can almost hear them play...
You can purchase this one on several products here

You can find Sophie also on Facebook and on Pinterest

This was my longest blogpost ever. I hope you've enjoyed reading it. It was fun to write it.
I'm happy with all these inspirations and like to share it with you.

Next week you can read a Blog Hop Post on the blogs of Sophie, Janna and Claudi.
I'm already looking forward to it!
Happy weekend!