Graphic Art in Nature

I really LOVE trees. Especially in this time of year.
It's like walking in a huge Graphic Art landscape:

love for life!

It is already springtme in Holland. Allthough it's the beginning of March
The sun is shining and the temperature today will be 17 degrees!

Everything looks extra nice with some sunshine. The trees already begin
to develop their fresh green leaves and the flowers appear in many colors.
It's so promising!

This all inspired me to make this illustration of a dancing girl.
Her hands form a big heart above her head, she celebrates life!
The title is 'love for life' and at this moment I really love it :)
How about you?

It's already available in my Etsy shop
Other places will follow...

Enjoy your Sunday and enjoy life!

the perfect nature - culture mix

Yesterday I had a day off. And what a good timing it was!
The first Sunny Spring Day of the year! I even lunched without my jacket on,
in the lovely and warm sun :)

Ideal for me is a mixture of nature and culture.
My brother and I walked through Den Hague, you wouldn't think of it,
but there are very nice parcs and even woods there.

It was beautful between all those trees, refelections and shades.
The world looks so good when the sun is shining!

After lunch we visited the Gemeentemuseum. We saw a lot of Modern Art.
Above is a painting from Jacoba van Heemskerck.

When entering the museum there's a small corridor with on both sides glass.
They placed various bird stickers on them to warn the birds, so they don't
bump up against these windows. My favorite was the one above!

There was also an exhibition for children about Coco Chanel.
With beautiful and playful illustrations from Annemarie van Haeringen

An ideal day full of oh's and ah's, a lot of sunshine and inspiration!
And now back to work again, also good :-)

work in progress

Here's a little sneak peak on some new products I'm creating
for the Red Cheeks Factory. It's a part of my kitchen table.

Unfortunately I don't have a big studio, so I work at home.
That means when I create new things my house is full of places
with all kind of prototypes, paper dolls, faces, drawings, glue, paint etc.
And we eat at a little camping table as if we were on a campsite
in the middle of the creativity :-)

Handsome Herbert postcard

Lately I'm experimenting with all kind of materials.
I work with papmaché, clay, collage, glue, pencils, ink...
It's fun and it brings new ideas, I even experimented with hair.

It resulted in Handsome Herbert, an original collage postcard with REAL breasthair :-))
You can find it in my Etsy shop

Happy weekend!

say cheese!

Did you know we eat a lot of cheese in Holland?

I like it a lot. It's one of my favourite things to eat.
A pity it's not good for your weight, otherwise I would eat much more of it...

What's your favourite food?

Happy Sunday!
greetings from Holland!

ode to my glasses

I have three different kind of glasses, without them I can't see so clear.
In some cases this can be an advantage, but most of the time I need to see sharp.
so I'm constantly juggling with them.

The fisst one is the most important: a multifocal one which I wear everyday
The second one I wear behind my computer to see the screen.
But these two weren't enough, so I bought a third one for reading.

I try to keep them on places where I easily can find them and I won't accidently sit on them
I even have a soft piece of fabric on my desk for my computer glasses,
because it broke already two times and then I'm lost...

The glasses also give inspiration for photographs.
I often see the soft light shining through the glasses which is inspiring.
So they are not only helpful for my eyes, but also for my creativity :-)

featured on Artistic Moods Art blog

A nice start of this week:

My work is featured today on the Art blog: Artistic Moods
It's an inspiring blog full with great work of people I admire,
so it's an honour to be featured there :-)

It's all curated by Sandra Apperloo a Dutch Art lover
TIP: She's also got an inspiring page on facebook

friday afternoon face doodles

I'm a bit quiet lately, that doesn't mean I'm not busy.

I'm working on new products, that takes time to develop
The creative proces, inventing things and not knowing what the outcome will be.
Exciting, I have red cheeks, while writing this :-)

In between it is sometimes very nice to just doodling around
and I must say faces are still one of my favorite subjects

Have a very nice weekend!

exhibition at Aan De Kade

This month a few of my works are exhibited at Aan De Kade.
It's an initiative of artist Marilou de Poorter. She's organizing monthly
exhibitions at her small gallery Aan De Kade.

The exhibition is till 28th of February.
See the other exhibitions here.

Karels Choice in Haarlem

Today I went with my brother to the exhibition Karels Choice in Haarlem
'Looking back at contemporary Art' selected by Karel Schampers.

We first visited a lecture about the exhibition,
were we heard more about the background of the works and the artists.

My favorite photo was Dame Barbara of Juergen Teller

Above the poster of the exhibition. You can see Karel showing his choice.
The exhibition is in De Hallen in Haarlem, the lecture was in de Toneelschuur

Very impressive was the film Number eight, a work by Guido van der Werve
He's walking in front of a giant icebreaker. The film is called:
Everything is going to be allright..

Above some intriguing portraits of Céline van Balen

The exhibition is till the 2d of March.

ODE AAN IK - Toon Tellegen

A Dutch poem today made by author Toon Tellegen,
because it's national poetry day in Holland:

ODE AAN IK

Arme ik
arme arme ik
o arme ik

o arme steeds maar armere en armere ik
armelijke ik...

o arme armoedige armlastige armzalige armtierige armhartige ik

erbarmelijke ik
allerallerarmste ik

o doodarme straatarme zielsarme ik
in- en inarme ik

o arme arme árme ik.

new valentine postcard: 'cats in love'

Valentine is coming soon. I made a brand new postcard:
'cats in love' their tails form a heart, isn't that romantic? :-)
If you like it, you can order it here

Flow Magazine

Look what the postman brought today: a welcome present!
A box with Flow Magazines: all numbers of 2013
A cheerful box full of inspiration, illustrations, tips and nice stories.

I received this present because I finally subscribed to the magazine for coming year.
The subscription starts in March, so I already can come into the right atmosphere :-)
It's extra fun, because some of the contributors are collegues, I know from social media.

Last year I almost was featured in the magazine too, In the theme '365 days projects'.
I was asked to send a selection of my faces of my face a day project.
and already gave a little interview. But unfortunately they skipped the subject,
just before my project was published...

Besides a Dutch version they now also have an international version of the Magazine
So if you are interested, you can have a look on their facebook page
I think you will like it!

inspiration: various artists 17

And here's already number 17 in the series: various artists.

Nice work of inspiring artists, which I wanna share with you.
Have a look yourself, follow the links to see more of their work:

from left to right:
Joana Rosa Bragança
Oscar Sabini
Beatriz Martín
Marion Barraud

inspiration: exhibition 'wie ben ik'

Today I went with my brother to the exhibition 'wie ben ik' (who am I)
of photographer Anneke Hilhorst in the Photomuseum Rotterdam.
It was really inspiring, I am very enthusiastic about it!

It's a special project which Anneke calls 'duets'. She selected about fifty children.
Asked them first to make a drawing of themselves, and then she made
a photograph of the child inspired by their drawing.

This is such a good idea! If you should see only the photographs
or only the drawings it wouldn't be that strong, but the combination
makes it magical!

All the duets are good, but some were more than good :-)
I had a big smile on my mouth while walking around.
I almost didn't want to leave. The longer you watch, the more you see...

There's also a book about this project.
The author Joke van Leeuwen made the text inspired by the images.

You can still see the exhibition till the 23th of March
If you are in the neighbourhood, you really should go...

The quality of these photos I posted isn't that good, because it was difficult
to photograph with the camera I took with me.
But I wanted to give you an impression from what I've seen.

color your world

And again I've made a new print
It's called 'color your world'
It's available here

New print: Circus Cats

A cheerful, joyful and playful start of the year:
I made a brand new giclée print: Circus Cats
If you like you can purchase it in my Etsy shop

happy new year!

bye bye 2013... welcome 2014...

Again a whole new year in front of us...still empty...
We now only can dream about what will happen.
I like this feeling of openess. It gives new possibilities...

I hope it will be a year full of health, warmth, sun, love, inspiration,
positivity, nice meetings, flexibility, creativity... for all of us.

Happy 2014!

portrait of....

Can you see who's portrait this is...?