Around-the-world-Artsy blog hop

 image by Minerva Levinston

Angelique from Angelic Art And Craft invited me to be part of an around the world artsy blog hop, where each artist that participates answers the same 4 questions, being:

1. How does my creative process work?

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

3. What am I working on now?

4. Why do I create what I do?

I “met” Angelique last year when we were both participating in Art Every Day Month. She makes beautiful cards, and I love seeing her colourful art journal pages, where she often explains her process. Her answers to these questions are definitely worth a read. You can find them here.

Okay, since I was supposed to be writing about this blog hop on Monday, I better get on with it …. Here are my answers to these (not so easy ….) questions:

1. How does my creative process work?

My creative process is usually very chaotic. I get an idea and I want to try it out. Preferably immediately. That means that sometimes in between peeling and cooking the potatoes I run to my worktable and ‘make art”. I’m always working on more than one piece at a time, usually in different area’s as well. I paint on big canvases, mini-canvases and everything in between, on wooden boxes, on rocks, on magnets and on fabric, I make mosaics, I draw and I journal, I sew, and I work digitally to make cards and calendars of my images. My workplace is usually a big mess. No matter how hard I try, I never can keep it tidy and organized.

 okay, I'll admit this is really extreme (it was before a market), 

usually I have a bit more space left to work ...

It’s hard to say where my ideas come from. Sometimes I see something on the internet that triggers my imagination, a way of doing something, a picture that inspires me, a certain technique, …. It doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with art. I get my best ideas at night. It almost seems as if all the triggers I see and hear during the day start simmering and broiling in my head, until they are cooked and ready, and when I wake up in the morning the idea is there.

I have recently discovered Pinterest, and am now starting to suffer from information overload. I have some folders on my computer that are full with inspiring techniques and how-to’s. If only I could find the time to try them all out … I am always hungry to learn more, I love experimenting, I need to be able to switch from one thing to the next, whatever I’m in the mood for at that moment. 

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

People often tell me that my style is very distinctive. Even though I do so many different styles of art, there seems to be a common ground in all of them. Typical for my art is the abundant use of colour and the presence of human beings and birds. I am a colour junkie, I can’t live without colour, colour makes me happy. I also have to paint or draw people. I love to make a figure come alive. See the different stages it goes through, and end up as a person with its own character and emotions. I love how you can manipulate the different expressions on a face just by a few brush strokes. I almost always paint women. I like the fluid lines, the curves, the softness, the different emotions. And I love to paint birds. Not realistic birds, but weird birds with bright colors that always seem to interact with the humans on my paintings. I don’t like realistic portraits, I always need to put some fantasy element in there and create a kind of dream world.

I am also passionate about poetry. Since I was a teenager I’ve been collecting poetry and quotes. I like to combine it with my drawings and paintings.

3. What am I working on now?

Oh, where do I start …..

I just started with the background of 2 new (big) intuitive canvases, am still finishing my last 2 canvases, am working on new collage-techniques in my art journal, just finished making new mosaic clay pieces so that I can start on the 4 mosaic figures I have waiting, last night finished an experimental poetry photo book with my art (there was a sale on so I had to do it in-between), am designing new postcards, and have quite a few other pieces in progress that I hope to be working on in the next few weeks (a box, a few rocks, another smaller canvas and a mirror). I am going to be the featured artist in the gallery during August and September, so I need to get a lot of things ready. And as usual when something is coming up, like an artshow or a market, it’s chaos and stress galore ….

New postcards

4. Why do I create what I do?

Because it’s inside me and it needs to get out. When I can’t create I get cranky. When I’m creating I’m in a different world where time does not exist. Apart from feeling the need to create, I’ve discovered that my art helps me to express emotions I sometimes didn’t even know I had. I like to think of art as a kind of poetry. I paint from my heart. I often don’t have the words to express how I feel, but through my pencil or my paintbrush the feelings reveal themselves. Sometimes it’s only after I see the images my heart created, that my feelings start making sense. My paintings teach me things about myself and how I see the world. This became very clear to me after my sister’s death last year. All of my emotions kept pouring out onto the canvas and the pages in my sketchbook. It is almost like a kind of therapy. It helps me deal with life. I very much believe in the healing power of art.

While I create to satisfy a need in myself, it really lifts my spirit when people are touched on a personal level by my art. With my art I want to evoke emotions, I want to make the world a little brighter and a little better. My art is healing for myself, if it’s also healing for even one other person out there, it makes it all the more worth it.

Well, that’s it for my answers. Next week, I’ll be linking to the blogs of these wonderful people: Dia from Dia’s Creation Station, who makes beautiful dreamy and spiritual paintings of women, and Andrea from Fallingladies, who makes exquisite watercolour paintings, mandala’s and is now working on a wonderful picture book. They will be posting their answers to these questions next Monday.

Thanks so much for visiting! It was fun to participate in this blog hop, because I really had to think about the answers, and sometimes it’s good to reflect on why you do what you do. I hope you take the time to visit the blogs of Angelique, Dia and Andrea, and maybe participate in this blog hop yourself! See you on Friday!