International Women's Day and start of a new painting

I wanted to make a road-map-spread for International Women's Day, so I was looking through my book to find a road-map that I could detect a lot of faces in (I always try to "see" the faces before I draw them).

So I found one and started drawing, and it was only then that I realized I was drawing on a map of Belgium :-) And what's more: the town where I'm living now and my birth town is on there! Of course I had to bring that out somehow. It ended up in a pussy hat and I drew a little flower around it. Here it is:

I live very close to the point where 3 countries meet: Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. And on this map is also a part of France. And Luxembourg of course. That's a good start for International Women's Day I think ... :-)

Here is the complete spread:

I love that quote and have been wanting to use it for a while now. What better moment than now, right!?

And then I finally started a new large canvas again. Since I don't have a separate studio in this new house, and since these canvases are so huge I only bring them out when I want to work on one, I didn't have any leftover paint on there yet. So for the first time in a long time I had to start with a completely blank canvas. I decided to start in the same way as on our toilet walls: roll different blocks of colour next to eachother.

Then I added some collage:

and then started playing with stencils and a bit of spray inks.

This is where I am now. Not sure yet whether this'll turn into an intuitive painting or into a negative space painting. That'll depend on how the next layers evolve I guess ...

That's it for now! Except for my funnies of course :-)

And a few to think about ...

I'm linking this post to that wonderful group of artists over at Paint Party Friday. Have a look over there and play along if you want!
Thanks so much for your visit! Have a great day, and I wish you peace and joy for the coming weekend ♥ ♥ ♥

Open letter to Martha

For those of you who don’t know what this is about: never mind. You don’t want to know. Just go to my “real” PPF-post here. For those of you who do know what I’m talking about: this is an answer to Martha’s blogpost on Ayala Art, concerning my blogpost from last week. Since she won't let me comment on her blog, I figured I'd just put it on my own blog.

Hi Martha

I’m very sorry you feel this way.

At first I was hesitant about saying anything about this on my blog, because I didn't want to stir up negative feelings between people. But I've been participating in this challenge for so long, and I felt I needed to explain why I stopped participating.  I just couldn’t stop  in the middle of the challenge and say nothing about it. I hate being secretive. That’s not who I am.

It was never my intention to attack you, and rereading my post I can’t find I did. I never even mentioned your name. I just said I was asked to refrain from posting and that that scared me and made me sad. I was a bit pissed off that you deleted my faces and that’s what really made me decide that this was the last time for me to participate. I was careful not to mention anything in the FB-group, I just let them know I wouldn’t post anymore because some were uncomfortable with it. No one (as far as I know, before you deleted it) commented in a nasty negative way. The only nasty comment came from ***, when I posted a face with a quote from Elie Wiesel. She posted a rather hateful comment about it, and people reacted to that, but in a very reasonable non-attacking way. Someone asked you whether it was all right for *** to post nasty comments like that, but you never even answered. I wish we could've had an open and honest discussion about this in the group. It could have cleared the air. We are all grown-up, and despite what you seem to think, we are not trolls who just start to rant when something isn’t to our liking.

Of course you have every right to run your group the way you want, to set your rules the way you want, to delete the faces that you don’t want. I happen to disagree with it and that’s why I left. But I also have the right to explain why I left. I didn’t do it in a hurtful, nasty way, as you are suggesting. I didn't attack you as a person.

After that I went on to talk about politics. It was a general rant about things I have noticed on social media, the way some people who speak out are silenced, and the fact that I won't let anyone silence me. It didn’t have anything to do with 29 faces, or you, and if you could’ve read it without that haze of hurt and anger in front of your eyes, you would have been able to see it.

I don’t moderate the comments on my blog. Everyone is free to comment how they want. I'm not responsible for people reacting so strongly to what I wrote. In fact I was surprised that they reacted like that, as it wasn’t my intention to make people “choose” between you and me. I contacted some of the people that reacted so strongly privately to explain what had happened, and contrary to what you might think I didn’t speak bad about you. Saying that I'm being hurtful, hateful and insulting is not right. You are doing exactly what you are accusing me of doing: inciting online hate against my person by attacking me personally and mentioning my name several times. What you did on your blog is ten times worse than what I did on mine. And the worst thing is you are moderating all comments and only approving the comments that go with what you are saying (people contacted me so I know). I have no way to defend myself, you are not letting people discuss this in the open, just like in the Facebook-group.

It is your right to do it like this of course. But in your own words: this is not the grownup way to handle things.

I am sorry it has come to this.

Enjoy your weekend.

Denise

I’m sorry to all who have been caught in the middle of this. I’m not out to cause a rift in this wonderful group of artists. I hope we can just move on and leave this behind. There is enough nastiness in the world without us adding to it.

Love and best wishes ♥♥♥

Thank you !

I have been so touched by the many heartfelt reactions to my previous blogpost, that I want to thank all of you for "getting" me. Bringing messages of compassion and understanding, making people think and feel, making people aware, is not only what I want to do with my art, I need to do it. And it hurts when this gets censored. So thank you! I appreciate each and everyone's reaction and opinion.

While I had planned this week to start a new painting, it didn't work out. The kids have school holidays this week and it just was too busy. But I do have a few more faces to share :-)

Here's another mapface (well, two actually ...):

I really enjoy creating these mapfaces. I might even make a little book full of them when I have some more.

Here's a watercolour:

And another journalspread in my roadmap-book:

That's it for this week! Apart from the funnies of course :-) Here they are:

And of course the ones to think about:

That's quite depressing actually.... I sure hope earth doesn't look like that in 2035.... :-(

I will link this to Paint Party Friday, where I'm happy to be part of a great compassionate group of artists with big hearts and wonderful art. Hop on over there to have a look!

Thanks for being here, I so appreciate you coming around and leaving comments. Have a beautiful day, and enjoy your weekend! I'll be back next week ♥ ♥ ♥

More faces and something to think about

I have some more faces to share with you, although I'm not posting them for the 29 faces challenge anymore. So I'm not really counting how many I make, I'm just drawing and painting really :-).

Here's a watercolour with a really bad hairdo :-D

Let me explain. Since I don't have time to post on my blog every day, I post my faces in the 29-faces-Facebook-group. After I posted my roadmap-spread with the 7 faces and an excerpt from the poem by Warsan Shire about refugees, I got the request to refrain from making "political posts".

This is the spread:

Although I had been expecting something like this (after all, every artist who has been speaking out on social media against Trump has been attacked one way or another) I was a bit shocked. For me, this was not a political post. This quote is about suffering and trying to understand what it must be like to have to flee your country. When I use quotes in my art (which is more often than not) I like to use quotes that speak to me and that make people think. The fact that someone finds this offensive enough to ask me not to post it makes me sad, and very afraid for what this presidency is doing to the world and to the minds of people. Had I posted this two years ago I'm sure no one would even be bothered by it.

That being said, I got really positive and heartwarming comments on this spread in the FB-group. So I didn't want to stir up bad feelings and just put a short message in the comments-section of this picture that I wouldn't be posting in 29 faces anymore because some were uncomfortable with it. Today I wanted to read some of the comments again, and found out my picture was removed from the group...

Well, that rather pissed me off....

And it made me decide that, even though 29 faces has been my favorite challenge over the years, and I have been participating since the beginning in 2012, I won't be participating anymore in the future.

A lot of people are tired of talking about politics. They just want to get back to "normal life" and ignore what's going on. Fair enough. It is so easy to look away, especially when (you think) you're not the one being affected by what happens. But just think about this: one of the bills that asshole just signed is about allowing to dump mining waste into the water. Dump mining waste into the water....

* Think about it *

And then there's a video of it where he's bragging about signing it and all these people are standing around him smiling and beaming and applauding. And I think: WTF!? What a bunch of immoral, irresponsible, selfish bastards! And here's what I don't get: why isn't the whole world speaking out against this? Why are so many people quiet about it? Why do they want to ignore what's going on? Why do they think this is all right? How can they not be outraged? And what the hell gives them the right to criticize people who do speak out?

I will not stay quiet. With every outrageous thing that he does, every ridiculous law that he signs, I will speak out. Sometimes in words, sometimes in my art, but I will not be silenced. And if my actions result in just one person starting to think about what's happening instead of ignoring it, I will be happy. In this time and age we won't be able to escape responsibility for what happens by saying: "Wir haben es nicht gewusst"(we didn't know), as so many "normal" Germans were saying at the end of WW2. Everyone knows, even if you choose to look away. At least I will be able to look my children and grandchildren in the eyes and say I resisted with all I could.

Okay, I'll get of my high chair now ... ;-)

For those of you who are still with me, here are some more faces :-)

Another sketch:

And two more map-spreads:

That's it for now. I will be linking to Paint Party Friday. Hop on over there for some great art and inspiration!

Finishing with some funnies:

And then some to think about ....

Thanks for staying with me till the end :-) I hope your day is beautiful, and that your weekend will be filled with kindness. See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥