Giveaway!

Thanks so much to all who purchased one of my 2020 calendars! I was curious which one would sell more: the intuitive painting calendar or the doodle calendar. As it turns out they were both equally popular. I sold one more of the intuitive painting calendar.

Of course that can still change. The calendars are still for sale and will be for many months. The links are in the sidebar if you're interested.

I haven't been doing much in the way of painting or drawing. Work was hectic these last few months, but today my holiday starts and I plan on playing a bit more in my new journal. I really didn't need a new one, I have so many already and not one of them finished, but I just love starting a new art journal. They all have their specific purpose. This one is, for now, dedicated to coloured pencil and drawing. Of course, that can change ;-)

And now for the giveaway!

The first name I drew is .....

Gloria Zucaro!

Congratulations Gloria! You get the first choice!

The second name I drew is ....

Sherie Weiser Eddy!

Congratulations Sherie! You get the second choice. I will let you know which painting Gloria chooses.

And then, just for the fun of it, and because, after all, it's Christmas, and you guys make me so happy to want to have a piece of my art in your house, I drew a third name :-)

And that is ...

Shelagh Meston! 

Congratulations Shelagh! You'll get to choose after Gloria and Sherie have chosen their painting.

And this is, I think, a wonderful way to say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one.

I wish all of you a loving, warm and cosy Christmas / festive season, and a glorious 2020!
May at least a few of your wishes come true!

See you next year!

Hugs & warm wishes 

♥ ♥ ♥

and the winner is .......

Thanks so much for all the beautiful comments on my blog and Facebookpost last week! It was a pleasure reading them, and an even bigger pleasure being able to draw a winner out of the almost 100 comments and shares on this blog or on Facebook!

Here's the bowl with the names .... ;-)

I'll keep you in suspense a bit longer, because I first want to clear up something. Have any of you had any trouble commenting on this blog? I got a message that for self-hosted bloggers it would be difficult to leave comments on Blogger-blogs, if the option for "name/URL" was not open.

I had a look at my settings, and the only way to make the complete list of identity options available is to let "anyone" comment on my blog. Which includes anonymous users. And that's the problem for me. When I first started my blog, anyone could comment, but after 1 or 2 years, I started getting so many spam-comments it wasn't funny anymore. So I chose to only let registered users comment. Didn't get any spam after that..... The only other option was to use word verification, which I am not a fan of ....

So my question is: which one do you prefer: always being able to comment, but having to fill in those almost unreadable letters or numbers to prove you're not a robot, or leaving it only for registered users (which is not only google-accounts but also open-ID users) (whatever that is ....). I really would like to know ...

So, now for the results of the giveaway! I had wanted to use Rafflecopter, an online tool that lets you set up giveaways and picks a random winner. Easy, I thought ..... And yes, it was easy to set up, but when I wanted to put it on my blog was when the trouble started. Couldn't get it on there, not even with the html-option. I only got a link, and not the sign-up box I wanted. So in the end I decided to use the old proven method of my previous giveaways: my daughter ..... :-)

Here she is, innocent hand going into the bowl .....

And this is the name she drew:

(the (B) after the name means it was a comment on my blog)

Congratulations to CHRIS! I will send you an email to let you know you won. Just in case, (one has to be prepared for everything, right!?) (well, also because my son wanted to draw a name as well ... ☺) my son drew a second name, which I will use if I'm not able to get in touch with Chris. But hopefully I won't need that.

Thank you all so much for participating, and for those of you who didn't win, I hope I will see you in Soul Food anyway :-)

I cannot believe I am still not ready with sorting things out and getting all my papers where they need to be. I knew moving to another country is a lot of work, but I underestimated the administrative work that goes along with it. As a result I didn't get much art done. Again. Boohoo!

But my daughter and I have taken up the habit again of sitting on her bed together before she goes to sleep, so I managed to get this sketch done:

Feels good to be sketching again ....

Last week I forgot the funny picture at the end of my post. So here's two to make up for it: one funny, and one taken at exactly the right moment ... :-)
 

That's it for this week! Thanks so much for visiting me and for taking the time to leave wonderful comments. I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday, and I hope to visit all of your blogs this weekend! Have a beautiful day, and enjoy your weekend, wherever you are! ♥ ♥ ♥

winner of giveaway and a surprise :-)

Thanks so much for visiting and following my art journey! Usually by this time I have already linked to Paint Party Friday, but today I had to wait till my daughter was back from school so she could pick a winner for the giveaway! 

All the names were put in a bowl and my daughter was blindfolded so she couldn’t “cheat” (even though the names didn’t mean anything to her ☺). Only 8 people chose the “one girl”-painting, while a few would be happy with either. So I fully expected the “two girls”-painting to be the one picked.

As it turned out, this is the name my daughter picked:

And Gerdie chose the “one girl”-painting! Congratulation Gerdie! Please send me your mailing-address so she can be on her way to the Netherlands!

And then I thought: what the heck. I’ll let my daughter pick a second name, and if it’s someone who chose “2 girls”, then I’ll give the 2 girls away as well. If not, they’ll go to my Etsyshop.

So she did …

And this is the second name my daughter picked:

And Netty chose the “two girls”-painting! So congratulations to you too Netty! If you send me your mailing-address the 2 girls can come and live with you in the United Kingdom!

Aaahh, I love doing giveaways….. Can you tell ? ;-)

Artwise, this week was very frustrating. I started another “artjournal-painting“ on canvas and boy, was that hard! I think I need to practice a bit more in my artjournal. It started out weeks ago as a canvas for my leftover paint, and in the meantime it had gotten so many layers of collage and paint that I figured it was time to take it to the next level.

But it just Did.Not.Work.

At.All!

I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but everything I did turned out blah. I’ll show a few stages that it went through:

It was like this when I seriously started working on it:

 

Went to this:

Ugh!!

Then went to this:

uh-oh…

I was ready to throw it in the back of the closet, but something kept me going. I can’t stand it when I can’t get it to my liking, so I keep trying and experimenting until I feel better about it.

This is where it’s now, and I’m finally starting to feel as if I could finish this more or less to my liking. It needs more changes, but it’s getting there … (I hope!)

 

I’ve also been working on some mini-doodles, have been making my own textile-paints, and started another box. Not much to show yet, but here’s a doodle-mini-painting that I finished (with a very relevant quote☺):

 

Well, that’s it for today. Sorry to all who haven’t won, but don’t worry, I’ll be doing another giveaway when I reach 300 followers ;-)

I’m linking this to Paint Party Friday, a weekly paint party that’s open for everyone to join, and if you don’t want to participate, there’s also a lot to see. Have a look!

Thanks for being here, and I wish you all a great Friday and wonderful weekend! ♥ ♥ ♥

doodling and an artjournalpage

I am struggling with a new painting at the moment, and didn't get much else done. I have been doodling at night though, while sitting with my daughter. Here's one that I finished:

It's painted on a small canvasboard that I collaged first to make it a bit smoother. I've noticed though that it's also possible to get it smooth enough by adding some layers of gesso and sanding in between.

I also decided I didn't like the cold white so much on these minipaintings, so I used titan buff instead and like it much better. It gives a bit of a warm glow ....

Don't think I showed this artjournalpage yet.

It's also one that I started in Orli Avineri's workshop but finished at home. I'm trying to get more into artjournaling again, trying to find the flow I was in when I was doing that workshop. But I don't take enough time for it. I want to do so many things at the same time, want to start mosaics again, and I want to sew and paint fabrics, and play some more with my gelliplate, and start a new intuitive painting .... Oh, time's always too short ....

Thanks so much for visiting me and leaving comments. Don't forget: you still have time until Friday to give a comment on this post in order to make a chance on winning one of these paintings:

Up till now, "two girls" is by far the favorite ... ;-)

I'll be back on Friday with the results of the giveaway! See you then ♥

2 winners and a new give-away!

Thanks so much for visiting and leaving your sweet comments ♥

 I’m very late this week with my entry for Paint Party Friday. That’s because I had to wait for the kids to come back from school so they could draw the 2 winners of the give-away.  They thought it was all very exciting, so it took a while, and after drawing the winners and taking pictures it was time to go to badminton practice. So now it’s already evening in Australia.

I’m linking this to PPF, although I don’t have much to show this week. Because I’m doing another market in December, and very ambitiously signed up for a 2,5m space, I am now in a frenzy to make more stuff. 

This is what I got so far:

Not much, I know …. But all the groundwork is done. The sanding, first layer of paint, second time sanding, second layer of paint. They are all ready to be tackled now.

Yesterday I received my calendars in the mail! I hadn’t expected them for another week since I only ordered them last Friday. So it was a big surprise. And I’m so happy with them! The paper is nice and sturdy, so the pictures can still be used as prints when the year is over. Last year I experimented for the first time with making a calendar. I ordered one from Vistaprint, but was rather disappointed with the outcome. The paper was too thin and it all looked too flimsy. But this one from Lulu is exactly as I wanted it. Here are some pictures:

And now about the give-away … Thanks to all who signed up, I’m really grateful that so many of you would like to have a piece of my art. I used the old-fashioned way of writing all your names down on a piece of paper ;-)

My kids were arguing about who got to draw the first prize and the second prize, so I had to explain that both “prizes” were equal, and they finally decided that my daughter was allowed to draw the winner of the print:

Blindfolded, because that’s waaay more exciting ….

And the winner of the print is ……

 

Congratulations Gina! Please send me your postal address and I’ll get this print in the mail first thing on Monday!

And then it was my son’s turn:

 

And the winner of the 5 postcards is …..

 

Congratulations Anja! I have a lot of different postcards, and I put them all on my new website www.denthe.com. If you click this link , it should bring you straight to the postcards. Let me know which cards you would like to have, and the address to post it to, and I’ll send them to you next week.

To all who didn’t win: don’t be disappointed, because I’m doing another give-away! Yes, that’s right! Why? Because I need your help to spread the word about my calendar. I am not on Twitter, and not that involved on Facebook either, so I can’t reach out to a whole lot of people.

So I’m giving away a calendar if you’re willing to help me spread the word. I know that some of you bought the calendar already, so in case I draw your name, just let me know and then you can have a choice between the calendar or the print or 5 postcards. Sounds good? Here’s what you need to do to be in the draw:

You “promote” my calendar on your blog, post it to your friends on Facebook or Twitter about it. Or better yet: do all three ☺ . When you do, please put this link in your post, so it brings them straight to my Lulu-shop.  After you’ve done that, please let me know, either in the comments below or email me. That way anonymous followers also have a chance to win. You can use images of the calendar, but please link back to this blog if you do. 

That’s it! So your name could go in the draw three times if you blog, update your friends on Facebook and twitter about it. Please make sure that I know how often I should put your name in.

Well, this post is becoming way too long, so that’s it for now. Oh yes, one more thing: I, or rather one of my kids (ew, they will be arguing again I’m afraid ….), will draw the winner on Friday the 16th of November. So you have 2 weeks to do this. Hope you will!

Thanks for stopping by! Don’t forget to look at all the beautiful art on PPF. I’ll try to get around to everybody this weekend .

Hope your Friday and your weekend will be relaxing and sweet! ♥ ♥ ♥