Long time no see ;-)

 Hi there!

Yes, I know it's a long time ago.

And yes, I know I was planning on posting a few times a year on this blog.

But, well, life happens and I've been very busy on Instagram. If you want to keep up with what I'm doing it's best if you follow me there 😏

But for those of you who might occasionally come over here to have a look, I wanted to let you know that my calendars for 2022 are available 😀

The first one is an intuitive artcalendar with quotes. This is the cover. When you click on it it brings you to my Lulu-shop:

In my Lulu-shop it's possible to see a preview of the calendar. You can also have a look at my Instagram-feed where I've posted all the paintings and a few video's of the calendars.

The next one is the same intuitive artcalendar but without quotes. The cover is slightly different:

And the next one is a oneliner-calendar. This one consists of continuous line-drawings of women, with an inspirational quote. I sell this calendar through my Etsyshop (yes, I revived my Etsy-shop, finally, after it's been closed for the last five years 😀):

This is just a quick post now but I will be back before the end of the year and talk some more.

I will be linking this to Paint Party Friday. Long time ago I was there, life just flies by too fast. But I will have a look at what everybody is doing over there!

Thanks for coming over here and having a look! I'll talk to you soon ♥ ♥ ♥

Closing my Etsyshop

Another week has flown by. With again not much time for art. I try to do little snippets in between, so I have a lot of half-finished projects. Managed to finish another doodle:

It has cost me a bit of night work, but I also managed to finish the wooden heart box for my daughter’s birthday. She thought I had forgotten all about it, so she was really pleased and surprised with it :-) 

Here are some more drawings for my year diary:

And now it’s almost October! Can’t believe it….. Since we are flying out on the 26^th of October, the whole month will pretty much be full with packing and doing last minute stuff. So I decided to close my Etsyshop on the 1^st of October. And for those last few days I have a 10% discount on everything in my shop, as long as you buy for a minimum amount of $10. So if you want to stock up on Christmas- and New Years’ cards, or some small presents (prints, mini-paintings, poetrybook) for the holidays, you better do it now, since my shop will only open up again somewhere in January. And to be honest, I’m not even sure I’ll open it again. I’m not so happy with Etsy and I will be looking into some other venues to sell my art. But that’ll be something to sort out later.

If you want to take advantage of the discount, you need to use the following couponcode: MOVE2014 (all capitals, no blank spaces). If you're not sure how to use couponcodes, you can find more information here.

Here are some examples of cards in my shop:

And some pages of my poetrybook:

 

 

And for those of you who live in the area (Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia): it’s only a few more days that my work is on show in the gallery in Redcliffe. On Tuesday I’ll be working my last day there, and will take everything that’s left home with me, to pack it all up and ready for the container. It’ll be the end of the year before I see my stuff again (hopefully!!).

Here’s this weeks’ funny ;-)

Well, that’s it for this week! Linking this as always to Paint Party Friday, the weekly blogparty! Do take a look there if you don’t know it already, there are some real treasures to see.

Thanks so much for being here, and thanks for leaving your uplifting comments :-)

I hope your day has been going well, and that your weekend will bring peace and rest (or excitement for those of you who want that). I’ll be back next week! ♥ ♥ ♥

Doing things I haven't done in a looong time ...

Not having much time to make art these days  is forcing me to rethink what I can make and still enjoy doing without taking up too much time. So I discovered my watercolours again :-)  I can make the drawing while sitting with my daughter on her bed at night, and colour it in really quickly. So here's my first (!) watercolour-girl for this year ....

I'll be using her for cards and my Society6-shop, adding a background in Photoshop. I love making these, don't know why I didn't make one for so long. Guess there are too many things I love making ... ;-)

And while sitting on the bed with my daughter, doodling is also a favorite. Here's a new doodle I finished:

Meanwhile I've also been working on my new calendar for 2015. Only finished 2 months for now, more will follow soon (I hope!):

And some more (dare I say the C-word in August Nic? ☺) Christmas- and New Years' cards that are now available in my Etsyshop:

That's it for now. I have been thinking about making a daily planner for 2015, but I'm not sure I can afford spending the time making it while I should be packing and other boring stuff .... Still, the idea is there in my head and I might act upon it ...

Thanks so much for your visit! I hope you're having a great day wherever you are, and an enjoyable weekend ahead of you! I'm linking this as always to Paint Party Friday, with thanks to Eva and Kristin! See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

Experimenting with patterns

I've been wondering a long time how to make patterns, and in December I came across this post on Michelle's blog on how to do it. I was so happy and immediately set to work to make one...

Of course I should've started with a simple pattern, just to try it out.  Did I? Nooooo .... I didn't .... I started out with about the most complex pattern I could make: one of my doodles..... Needless to say it didn't really come out as it should ....

This is precision work, meaning you have to cut the paper exactly straight, and tape it back together exactly right. I don't know where I went wrong, but I was off by about 1 mm, and it showed clearly in the pattern. The lines in one part didn't match up, and it just looked bad.

This is the doodle I started out with:

 I then cut it in two and taped it together in the middle

And cut it in two again and taped it back together. Somewhere around that time something went wrong (but I didn't know it yet)...

Then I drew another figure in the middle, like this:

I saved it as a pattern in Photoshop and started playing, and then was all disappointed because, as I said, some lines didn't match up.

So, just to be clear on this, I did this about half a year ago. Tried fiddling with it in Photoshop but couldn't get it right, so I tossed it aside ....

Until last week... In my Society6-shop, it's now possible to sell duvet-covers, and my mind went into overdrive with all the patterns I could make. Luckily I had scanned every image on my computer before cutting it up, and I suddenly got the brilliant idea (if I say so myself ☺) to cut it in pieces using Photoshop. That was bound to be more precise than me taking the scissors in hand. And I wouldn't have to do the whole drawing again.

So I got to work, and the lines matched beautifully. So I printed it out and drew another figure in the middle, which was fairly easy to do since I already had an example. Scanned it all in, made a pattern and tadaaa! It worked!

Here it is:

I meant to colour it in, but that was way too much work with all the small patterns in there, so I chose to make two versions, one black & white, and one with a blue background.

Here's an example of a shower curtain in my Society6-shop:

And of a duvet-cover:

Not sure whether I should leave it like this or make the pattern a bit smaller. What do you think?

So much fun to do, and I'll sure be making more patterns in the future. Thank you Michelle, for pointing me in the right direction :-)

Just so you know: there's again a promo in my Society6-shop, with up to 30$ off depending on your total amount.

This week I didn't manage to paint one single brushstroke ..... We had a long weekend, Monday was a public holiday here in Queensland, and in the weekend we celebrated my son's 14th birthday. So the rest of the week went by in the blink of an eye. I did manage to make some more Christmascards though, to sell in my Etsyshop.

Yes, Christmascards.... Or New Year's cards, however you want to call it. If someone had told me last year I would be making Christmascards in August I would've declared them crazy. Usually I only start thinking about Christmas one week before. But, well, this year everything's a bit different, and since I'll have to close my Etsyshop somewhere in October, and won't open it again until the new year, I have to do it now. Here are some of the cards that are for sale now:

Okay, that's it for this week. Thanks so much for being here, I really appreciate your visits and comments. Linking this as usual to Paint Party Friday. Take a look over there to see many different artworks from talented artists all over the world.

Hope you're having a nice day and a wonderful relaxing weekend ahead of you. Take care, I'll be back next week! ♥ ♥ ♥

a bit of journaling in between other things ....

This week I started in earnest with my todo-list for our move back to Belgium. But I managed to do some art in between. This is a journalpage that I had finished before but didn't post yet:

It's mostly collage from my own artwork, except for her hair. I love playing around with different hairdo's for my girls, and this is my latest obsession: cutting out "real" hair and glueing it on top of one of my faces. Amazing how many different looks you can create that way :-)

On Thursday I had had enough of sitting at my computer with my todo-list and decided to get out into the sun and paint some rocks. I have one order for a rock that I sold some time ago and will now try to make another one of, so I figured I could just as well give all the rocks that I still have a basecoat. That way I can just do some in between, whenever I feel like playing :-)

Felt completely energized after that ;-)

And when I was looking for something I came across this painting that I had started months ago and kinda forgot about. It has a drawing on it already, so I figured I could just as well start colouring in. That doesn't take much time, and I can do it in between other things ...

Need to keep my creative juices flowing, don't I  ... ?☺

I finally managed to get my website completely up-to-date, and listed some more original art in my Etsyshop. These miniature-paintings were not in there yet but they are now!

These'll be the last pieces I will put in my Etsyshop for now.  I will have to close the shop in October, and won't be able to open it up again until after New Years, since our container will only arrive around that time. It's a good thing that my Society6-shop and Redbubble-shop can just stay open, as well as Lulu, where I sell my calendars. Making a new calendar is next on my list.....

So, that's it for now. Thanks so much for visiting, I really appreciate all the thoughtful comments and the encouragement you guys (or girls ☺) give. I'm linking this as always to Paint Party Friday.

I wish you the best of days, and a wonderful weekend ahead of you! See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

Painted the whole day today!

Well, I started at 10 am and stopped at 3pm, so it wasn't exactly the whole day, but it was a long time ago that I managed to paint that long. The hours flew by. I thought I would have it almost finished by now, but nooo. I'm always surprised by how long it actually takes.

I worked on the other woman today. I also decided what to do with the birds. I know I wanted birds on there, but the birds that I saw in the paintmarks were too big and not in the right place. And while I usually go with what I see on the canvas, I now decided to paint "my own" birds ... ;-)

This is what I had:

And this is where I am now:

I also decided on painting a tree. Because for me this painting is about our planet, and the sad state it's in today because of us humans.

Can't wait to work on it again, hopefully on Thursday....

I finally listed some of my original miniature-paintings in my Etsyshop. I want to start selling originals there but first had to figure out a way to make it affordable to ship. These small paintings are on canvasboard, which makes the posting and shipping price a LOT lower compared to the stretched canvases I normally work on.

These are the ones that are currently for sale:

I have 2 more that I still need to do the backing of, all the other ones were sold at the Christmasmarket. So I'll have to make some new ones...

Okay, time for bed! Thanks for being here, I'll be back on Friday for the Paint Party :-)