being busy ....

I have decided that I need to focus on my time-management. I was at a workshop this weekend for creative entrepeneurs, and one of the topics that came up was how you spend your time. When you want to make a business out of making art (or anything else handmade for that matter), you need to find a balance between time IN your business and time ON your business. Time IN your business is the time spent creating stuff; time ON your business is the time you spend networking, blogging, facebooking, researching, administration, listing, photographing etc.... Mostly time spent on the computer basically. Ideally the balance should be about 50/50.

Well, since I lately spend almost all my time in front of the computer, and only a few hours a week creating,  there seems to be a problem. So I took out pen and paper and made an overview of where I spend most of my time and how I can get a better balance. And I set some fixed days and times for creating.

It still needs some work though. But I'll get there. Eventually ... ;-)

Meanwhile, I have been working in my art journal:

This is from my "Rod McKuen-journal, where I want to use (parts of) the poems of Rod McKuen in combination with my drawings.


 In order to get into the habit of art journaling every day, I started a little ritual last week, together with my daughter. Half an hour before she needs to go to sleep we sit together on her bed, me with my art journal and she reading or also drawing. It's really fun and we both look forward to it every day. The half hour is over before we know it, actually, she hasn't gone to sleep in time yet since we started this ☺. We might have to start an hour before bedtime ....

This is another journalpage. Not sure whether it's finished. It's a little experiment with bodyshapes for women.

And I'm also working on 3 mosaic mirrors and 6 boxes! I finished one of the mirrors today:

It's a long time ago that I did some mosaic, and I had so much fun making this. I've sold all my mosaics that I had in the gallery, so I urgently need some new ones. Only have 3 boxes left also, so that's what I'll be doing the next weeks....

Well, getting to bed in time is not really working out yet. Almost midnight again ...

So I'm off, I'll be back on Wednesday with another inspiring artist post. Thanks so much for visiting, I appreciate it so much, and I love reading your comments! ♥ ♥ ♥

May you walk gently through the world

My painting's finished! It may not seem as if much changed since last week, but those last finishing touches often take as much time as making some bigger changes.

When I first started working on bringing out the images, and I found that head near the bottom which reminded me of an old Indian, all the time I was painting I had that saying in my head from Jim Morrisson : "Indian, Indian, what did you die for? Indian says, nothing at all". I'm still not sure whether it's from a song, or even whether it refers to native Americans at all, but I read it somewhere ages ago and it has always stayed with me.

We all know that all over the world terrible crimes have been committed to indigenous people by European settlers, and I'm certainly not going to launch into a political sermon here, but for some reason the native Americans have always fascinated me, because of the way they saw the world and the way their land was taken from them. I once saw a movie about the massacre at Wounded Knee, and boy did I regret that! For years to come those images haunted me and I was horrified by the senseless brutality of it all. Now I simply don't watch movies or documentaries like that anymore. I have a very visual memory, and I don't want my days and nights tantalized by the horrible things humans can do to eachother.

But anyway, since this painting was about Indians for me, I went in search of a title in old sayings and quotes from Indians, and decided to call it "May you walk gently through the world". For me this sums up the spirit of the old native Americans, their connection with the land and the animals, their goals of harmony and balance. Values that the world today is in such need of.

As always when I finish a painting, I'll show you the steps from the very beginning:

I must've had a lot of leftover pinks and reds, because that's all this first layer is. Probably put on there with a foambrush, can't remember ... (I always do several backgronds at the same time)

second layer: cool colours on top (although I seem to have been spraying some yellow too ...)

My favorite part: dripping and dribbling

I felt it was too dark and needed brightening up, so out comes the white, and some black for contrast

another favorite part of the painting process for me: layering transparant colours on top

starting to make random marks and doodles

painting around the marks, keep on turning the canvas

Finding figures in the background. I decided to keep two of the random doodles I made: the bird and the fish

Felt like they belonged there ....

starting to bring out the figures

Finding another fish, and making the Indian's head a bit smaller

Too dark, needed brightening up: dripping again, blue and orange

another tree, because the head was still too domineering

Working on the woman's face

Again brightening up by adding some dots. These are the pictures you saw last week

And this is where I stopped last week. I decided to add some more dots on the left, to bring more balance in the painting

brightening up the colours and finishing the bird inside the other bird

working on the birds, and dripping some more on the left tree, because the colour was too saturated for my liking ...

Almost there ....

the finished painting: "May you walk gently through the world"

40x40cm - 15,7x15,7"

Phew, maybe I take too many pictures, my posts seem to get longer each time I finish a painting ;-)

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday. I hope you go and take a look there, as there are so many artists linking up every week and showing their beautiful work. 

And don't forget: there's still time to sign up for the Etsy-promotion month in May. 20 people have signed up already, and there's room for many more! Go here to read all about it! You can also sign up if you don't have a blog, but are active on Facebook or Pinterest, any social media where you can post pictures of the shops you promote. I'm not on twitter so I don't know whether you can post pics there. If it is, twitter is okay too!

And today I got a nice surprise: I was featured on a recently started blog about migraine. Here's the link. I'm so happy when people connect with my art and when my art is able to touch people emotionally.

That's it for now! Thanks so much for visiting! I'm overwhelmed by the response I got on last week's post. I really appreciate you sharing your ideas and thoughts with me! Big hugs to all, wishing you a wonderful end of the week, and a lovely weekend walking gently through the world .... ♥ ♥ ♥

Artists that inspire me: Fred Babb

Fred Babb is someone I'd never heard of until a few weeks ago. Someone posted art that was inspired by him, and all the colours attracted me, so I went in search of him on the web.

It seems his primary goal was to give a specific message about the importance of art to the world and to children.

There's a really interesting story about how he started as an artist on his website here.
Here's a short summary: he came from a family of 8 children and used his lunch money to buy art supplies ....

In highschool, he had a teacher who recognized his creative talent and who encouraged him to use his imagination and create art outside the boundaries of skill (don't you love teachers like that!?).

He took a couple of art classes, but found his direction as an artist coming from within himself, so he left the school system and began to make a way of his own, experimenting with a variety of styles and techniques, all of them self-discovered.

In 1981 he took the decision to live solely on his art. His initial products were limited to images, but after experimenting with a pair of earrings, he began his venture into the world of words.

From then on he used words as a means to encourage people to think for and believe in themselves.

Isn't that great? I love people like that, who go against the mainstream to follow their dream and encourage other people to do the same. Sadly, he died in 2006.

If you want to read more about this interesting artist, here's his official website.

Well, that's it for now. I'll be back on Friday for the Paint Party.

Here's another oneliner to end this post. Thanks for visiting, see you on Friday! ♥ ♥ ♥

journalpage, google reader and doodle

Today I wanted to write about Google Reader shutting down the first of July. Last night I thought I'd figured it out, but now I've tried Feedly and realize I still don't know what I'm doing .... Guess I'll have to spend some more time on it .....

What I did find out is this (correct me if I'm wrong):
In Google Reader are all the blogs that you subscribed to via RSS. They've also added the blogs that you follow in blogger, but these don't really belong to Google Reader. Meaning you don't lose them when Google Reader shuts down. The other subscriptions will be lost, unless you migrate your feeds BEFORE the 1st of July to another reader, like Feedly.

Not only is this annoying because you can lose sight of blogs that you subscribed to, but you can also lose a lot of blogfollowers. I have currently 181 people who follow me through RSS. I would hate to lose them only because Google suddenly decides not enough people are using Google Reader and therefore it's expendable....

If you are one of my RSS-subscribers, you can import the blogs you read to a new reader, like Feedly, because, as Marcia so kindly explained to me, RSS-feeds can be sent to any feedreader. Or you can subscribe to my posts via email. I've lately done this for a few blogs and I find it easier than Google Reader. Every time there's a new post, you will get an email. I've set up an email-address specifically for this.

Anyway, I'm now figuring out how to use Feedly, so this will be continued .... If you have tips to share, or if I've understood something wrong, please let me know.

Meanwhile I've finished another journalpage:

I wanted to use a Rod McKuen poem, but these lyrics from Antony & the Johnsons were just too appropriate for this drawing. It looks like it's just words, but they're actually sentences, although it might be hard to read ....

And here's another doodle I finished during the holidays but didn't show yet:

Just one more update on the Etsy-promotion: I've been contacted by quite a few people who don't have a blog but would like to participate. So I decided, if you are on at least 2 social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest ...), where you are able to share pictures of the shops you'll promote, you can participate too! Just go here and sign up with the link to your Etsyshop.

Well, thanks for visiting and for leaving such lovely comments! I'll be back on Wednesday with another inspiring artist post. See you then! ♥

Not quite finished but getting there ....

Well, I thought I would be able to finish my painting this week, but school holidays and trying to catch up with everything after our week away proved to be more time-comsuming than I thought ....

Never mind, I had fun playing and even though it may not look like it, I still worked a couple of hours on this.

This is where I stopped 2 weeks ago:

 I figured it needed some brightening up, so I added some dots:

It always amazes me how adding some dots can completely change the feel of a painting. It makes it look much more fairytale-like in my opinion...

 Making the dots "disappear" again behind some colour ....

Working out the tree. I now notice I forgot to extend some branches behind the figures ...

This is where I am now. Needs some more tweaking and then it should be finished....

And while I was on holidays, I received a pleasant surprise: turns out I'd won the giveaway from Jessie Lilac ☺ !! She sent my present from England, and only one week later I had it in the mail already!

Look at this:

Isn't that gorgeous!? And generous!? Her giveaway was for the original watercolour painting at the top, and the orangey print at the bottom right. And the other print bottom left was a surprise gift!! Woohoo, can't wait to get some nice frames and put them on display. Thanks so much Jess, you're wonderful! Check out her blog if you want to see more of this eye-candy.

And to finish this post: inspired by the Sketchbook-challenge over at the Studio, I decided I really needed to get into the habit of drawing every day. So I started playing in my art journal, trying out some things with composition. Just playing really. Had fun with it and will also start linking to Art Journal Every Day at Julie Balzer's blog.

I decided for this art journal to use parts of poems by Rod McKuen, one of my all time favorite poets.

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday. Haven't participated last week and due to my limited  access to internet haven't been visiting the other participants. Will make up for it this week ;-)

Thanks so much for stopping by, and don't forget: if you have an Etsyshop and want some free promotion, please have a look at this page and sign up if you agree with the promotion-rules! The more people that sign up, the bigger the party!

Hope your Friday is wonderful, and that your weekend will be filled with sunshine and laughter. ♥ ♥ ♥

Hello again!

Well, I'm back from my little holiday, all ready to get going again!

First of all, let me thank you for all the comments on my previous post! I really enjoyed reading it all, and I so appreciate you taking the time to visit me here.

I've been almost computer-free for the last week. I had limited access to internet, but really didn't spend much time on my laptop. We were in such a beautiful part of Queensland, and I enjoyed spending time with my family. I have been drawing every night though, and working out some ideas I had in my head.

Doodled a lot .....

Made new oneliners ....

And another mini-painting that I finished before we went on holidays

And when we got home yesterday, there was a wonderful surprise waiting for me in the mailbox:

When I was doing the 29 faces in February, there was a post on Tammie Lee's blog where she posted some pictures of envelope art she had made. I commented that I sure would be happy to get such beautiful mail, and next thing I knew was that she sent me a mail to ask for my address, and the promise that one of these envelopes might some time find their way to me ....

I'd actually forgotten all about it, so when I saw the envelope I was wondering who on earth could've sent me this. But then it all came back to me! Such a sweet thing to do Tammie, thank you so so much!

Inside the envelope there was a gorgeous card of one of her nature photographs.

I simply LOVE surprises like these! Go have a look at her blog, you won't be sorry!

Well, that's it for now. I will be back on Friday for the Paint Party, hope to see you again then!

And don't forget: you still have time to get your Etsyshop in topshape and sign up for the promotion month in May here.

hugs ♥ ♥ ♥