I love poetry.
I am especially fond of ‘found poetry’, and I mean found in all its forms… found in book titles, found in magazines, on book pages, cut out words and sentences – you name it. There is so much possible when it comes to ‘found poetry’… and this kind of poetry is also great to use on art journal pages also.

I therefore started FOUND POETRY FRIDAY – everyone is welcome to play along!

There is an “Inlinkz”-list at the end of this post. If you want to share your found poems, you are welcome to add your name to the list that will link us to your blogpost.

You can post your found poem on your own blog any time during the week, so you don’t have to make YOUR Fridays all about poetry – you just link us to the post that contains your poem. Please use the url that goes directly to you ‘found poetry post.’

Today I show you an old one…

From the art journal “Letters from the Wasteland” – Letter #3

If you found a poem this week, please link us all up to your found poetry post
by using the InLinkz list below.

Enjoy the weekend!

[inlinkz id = 14]

.

“vulnerable morning”

I tasted the words in my mouth.
An image came to mind.
I wrote a haiku.

Photo from the internet by Jetske Fotografie

..

Haiku my Heart Friday  is hosted by Rebecca.
Find the list of participants on her blog Recuerda Mi Corazon

After such a delicate start of the day it would not be appropriate
to publish  ‘screaming art’ – like a bright coloured art journal page
or drawings – so instead I continue this post with showing the most
gentle art I made a couple of weeks ago.

Letters from the Wasteland – 13th letter

Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch.
Materials used: gesso, alcohol ink, tissue paper, mod podge,
white sharpie, cut out text from an old fairy tale book.

Letters from the wasteland – 14th letter

Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch.
Materials used: paper containing pieces of straw, washi tape,
several paper scraps (thank you Patty!), black sharpie, cut out
text from an old fairy tale book.

This is the last page in the handmade journal ‘Letters from the Wasteland’
(See this post for photos of the journal) but I don’t rule out that there will
appear any more ‘letters’ in the future.

Have a nice weekend dear ones.
Raise early.
Look up to the sky.
Spread some love.
Live each day to the fullest.

Mijn ‘Quirky Dutch Summer’ event – een serie inspirerende posts
in het Engels én Nederlands – start op 12 Juni. Lees meer hier.

Yesterday, my son called that he had ‘a gig’ in our city.
Is it called a ‘gig’ too when you have to go to a concert as a photographer?
Anyway – however – he had to take photos at the Elvis Costello concert
that evening and asked if he could sleep over at our place.
Well, of course you can!

He came at the end of the day to drop of his stuff before he went to the
concert and I gave him the keys in case he would be home late at night.

…and late he was. Very late, apparently…
I had trouble falling asleep but when I did in the end, I’d still not had
hear him come home – but here’s what I found on the table this morning.

My keys and flyer’s for upcoming concerts with a note written on it…
..

I especially smiled over the last words.
Isn’t that polite?

I subscribe this haiku to ‘Haiku my Heart Friday’.
Haiku my Heart is hosted by the wonderful Rebecca who gathers haiku
lovers around her every Friday. You can find the list with all participants
on Recuarda Mi Corazon.

and here’s another letter…

Letters from the Wasteland – 12th letter

Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch.
Materials used: very thin paper (blotter?), mod podge, acrylic paint,
sewing machine, black thread, cut out text from an old book.

And that’s it for today folks. Hope to see you Tuesday at
the first Quirky Dutch Summer blogpost!
Enjoy the weekend and, especially for the Dutchies,
enjoy the match tomorrow!

I felt a bit rusty – I’m not in the creating flow lately – so nothing better
then to take out the grid journal and start cutting paper.
The ‘grid journal’ is especially made for times like this – when the mind
isn’t in creating mode yet but the fingers itch…

I didn’t think about it much.
I put some brushstrokes (acrylic paint) on the background.
I cut squares of beautiful and textured paper and glued it on the page.
Just like that.
Just to please the eye.
To get in the flow.
To create
something
anything…

The haiku came with it – and I subscribe it to ‘Haiku my Heart Friday’.
Haiku my Heart is hosted by Rebecca, You can find the list with all
haiku participants on her blog Recuarda Mi Corazon.

With this grid page, the atmosphere was set.
The flow was there.
Here’s the other pieces I made.

..

Letters from the Wasteland – 10th letter

Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch.
Materials used: gesso, acrylic paint, templates (to add texture
shapes to the gesso),textured paper scraps (the fabric circles),
alphabet stamps, glimmer mist, cut out text from an old book.)

Letters from the Wasteland – 11th letter

Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch.
Materials used: gesso, acrylic paint, several paper scraps
(including the brown one on the right - the colour came out
a bit dark on the photo) bubble wrap plastic, template (square
grid at the bottom), cut out text from a book.

Both pieces contain of a lot of layers, which give them depth.
However, it is difficult to capture that on a photo… you might try
clicking on the images to enlarge for a better view.

One thing I want to point out to you before I go back to work-mode
(as there’s a lot that needs to be done before the weekend starts)

The past weeks, I taught the online workshop ‘Let it Loose’ to an
enthusiastic group of Dutch ladies (we’re heading near the end of
the workshop now.) The art they make with my lessons often leaves
me breathless. You can find a selection of their art pieces on the
website in the Public Gallery. It’s worth a look!

Thanks for visiting again dear ones.
Enjoy your weekend and see you next week!

[inlinkz id = 1]

BUT

I haven’t had the time to edit the photos.

Instead of rushing now to show you everything, I decided to give the photos
as well as the blogpost about it the attention it deserves, and present it to you
on Friday.

I won’t leave you with just words though… here’s some art for you to enjoy

Letters from the Wasteland – 9th letter

Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch.
Materials: gesso, adirondack spray ink, cut out pieces of paper,
ridged cardboard, sequin waste template, cut out text from an old
fairytale book.

See you on Friday dear ones!

I’m grateful every day for the connections that I made with kindred souls
over the years – and now something COOL is about to happen…

I got to know Lea (from the US) and Kimberly (from the UK) through the
haiku circle, and tomorrow they both will be in Rotterdam at the museum
to celebrate ‘World Labyrinth Day’ and I WILL MEET THEM THERE!!

I dedicate my haiku to Lea and Kimberly

‘Haiku my Heart Friday’ is hosted by Rebecca.
More haiku and photos can be found on the blogs of the other participants.
You can find the list on Rebecca’s blog Recuarda Mi Corazon

More ancient shapes were on my mind last week. I don’t know why
they suddenly appear, is it because of the labyrinths that Lea taught
me about? Re-reading the article that she wrote about this phenomenon
in FEATURING magazine?

Whatever it may have been that triggered it – a character from a bygone era
suddenly stepped onto my paper…

Letters from the Wasteland – 8th Letter

Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch.
The background is made from a left over piece of paper (I love
the small wood fibers that are in there!) Hand carved stamp (circles
and spirals) - Stazon ink - Indian ink and dip pen - white Sharpie
pen - cut out text from an old fairytale book.

This little guy is from Australia (‘hello there mate’)
“How can I tell that” you ask?
Well – he whispered to me in a dark voice that he came from an old era – from
a place where aboriginals hunt with boomerangs and play the didgeridoo…

You don’t believe me?
Then look at this lad

I started to  explore aboriginal art on the Internet.
I found images like this one…

… and I plan to do some more research.
I think I found a new inspiration source and some of these
influences will probably show on my pages in the next weeks.

Have a nice weekend dear ones!
Play the didgeridoo (or, if you don’t have such an instrument,
just whistle!)

Letters from the Wasteland – 6th Letter

(Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch. Materials used: gesso,
acrylic paint, dried rose petals and cut out text from an
old fairytale book.)

I made this ‘Letter’ a while ago – and it seemed to be the last bright
and ‘sweet’ letter for a while, ’cause let me show you what came next…

As you all know, last week the debut issue of my magazine FEATURING
was send to the first customers – and of course it took some time before
they received their copy. This is the Letter I made during those days.

Letters from the Wasteland – 7th Letter

(Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch. Materials used: pieces of
handmade paper, acrylic paint, distress ink, torn image (desert),
stamp, template,  glimmer mist ('graphit') and cut out text from
an old fairytale book.

My magazine ‘baby’ has both the looks and the brains – I know that –
but will ‘the world’ see it too? All the time that we worked on the magazine,
I was convinced about how good it is – (and I still am!) – as is the team –
but sending the copies out into the world suddenly scared me to pieces.
How would the first readers react? MAN I had a ROUGH week!

The Chronicles of Marit 2012 – Week 17

(Size: 24,5 x 49 cm – 9.65 x 14.86 inch)

“It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because
there’s nothing you can do about them. The activity of worrying keeps you
immobilized.” ~ Wayne Dyer ~

‘Immobilized’ – that’s indeed the right word to depict week 17.
‘Paralized’ might be even a better word to describe how I felt.

The only thing I did was put a daily sneak peek of an article on Facebook.
There were ‘likes’
a lot of ‘likes’ 🙂

And then…

the comments started to come in on facebook:

Mhh and it looks great. You don`t hear me this evening :-))))

Just received my copy. Looks great. Looking forward to
reading the interesting articles

Just LOVE FEATURING! It’s gorgeous, smart, polished and so
creative in its content, visual display and the articles! You
have a real WINNER here. I am so honored and blessed to have
work of mine in your premier issue. Can’t wait to see issue 2!

Got mine today, and boy oh boy! I’m loving it!!!!!!!

Congratulations on a terrific job!

I just received my copy and I LOVE IT! Congratulations to Marit
and all of the contributors! This magazine is informative, thought
provoking, and has plenty of beautiful and insightful artwork:)
Will definitely recommend to my friends.

And here are some blogposts:

Blogpost by Mumkaa

Blogpost by Marcia Beckett – Dabblings

Blogpost by Diane Rank – the EXpreSSiVe PaLeTTe

Blogpost by Jill Zaheer – JazWorks

Am I still worried now?
Do I have reason to?

Know what?
NO
And I will keep on going to give this baby exposure.
I will try and give it the best start it possibly can have.
I will keep on uploading sneak peeks on Facebook this week.
I will twitter.
And shout:
ORDER YOUR COPY HERE, IT’S SOOO WORTH IT!

I’m going for it all the way – dear ones – ’cause I believe in it!

All our dreams come true if we have the courage
to pursue them ~ Walt E. Disney ~

After all the excitement about the release of FEATURING magazine
I spend the weekend with my mom at the poetry festival in Landgraaf.
It was nice to be away from the computer, talk with my mom and the
other poets (I know most of them from former meetings), take a long
walk in the Limburg hills and listen to poetry.

Being away for the weekend means that I didn’t manage to finish my
weekly page in the Chronicles (I hope to work on it this afternoon)
but I have something else to show… ’cause I’ve been working on some
small ‘ in between works’ and I haven’t showed you those pieces yet.

This is the birthday card I sent to my friend Lena a week ago
(of course I also sent her a present along with this card.)
I don’t do these kind of collages and bright-coloured pages much
lately and it was fun to just fiddle around, choose happy colours
and doodle a bit.

Materials used: scrapbooking (patterned) paper, border and image
of young birds cut out of a magazine, doodling with puffy paint
and black & white sharpies.

I also worked on another ‘Letter from the Wasteland.’
I find working on these letters is almost like meditating (not that I meditate,
but I presume it comes with the same feeling of ‘being in the moment’ with
nothing else on your mind.)

Letters from the Wasteland – 5th letter

(Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch.)
Materials used: gesso, acrylic paint, 'template' sequin waste,
washi tape, left over paperscraps, strips (text) from a fairytale book.

I hope to have some more free time this week to get my hands dirty
with paint and ink in between tweeting and ‘facebooking.’ FEATURING
magazine daily presents sneak peeks on facebook of the articles in the
debut issue and we tweet about it a few times a day. We don’t think it
will make it to ‘trending topic’ – but nothing wrong with trying is there?!

While typing this blogpost, I hear the mailman coming and my
beloved’s voice from downstairs: ‘Marit, did you expect a package
coming in from Lena?’

..huh?…

Well, that is an unexpected and nice surprise!
Look at this…

My dear friend sends me this to congratulate me with the magazine!
The book has 25 gorgeous templates and I decide right here, right now
to DEFINITELY get CREATIVE today!

Sorry guys, I won’t visit your blogs this afternoon –
I’m off to spray some ink around!

THANK YOU LENA!!!
You made my day!

What does one do when sleep won’t come…
Count sheep?
That’s possible, but there are more beautiful things you could do…

… like looking at the night sky for instance!
(and write a haiku about it for Haiku my Heart Friday)

Credit: Frank Zullo / Science Photo Library

..

‘Haiku my Heart Friday’ is hosted by Rebecca from Recuerda Mi Corazon.
For more haiku and photos, visit the blogs of the other participants.
You can find the list here.

I got the sweetest email from my blogbuddy Linda ‘Phinner‘ the other day!
It made me blush the way she praised me with my  ‘new art making’ (the
canvasses I showed on my blog in the former posts) and she asked:

I am also curious about your process and how you go about developing
such a piece…

The way I work on those canvasses is something I did ages ago in art school
as an ‘in between practice’ in some sort of lesson – I can’t even remember
exactly what the lesson or assignment was… Anyway, it came back to me
when the designer needed a ‘background’ for the cover of FEATURING.
He had some sort of ‘painting’ in his head and he asked me if I could make
what he described. The idea was to make just the layered ‘surface’ (gesso and
paint) but when he put the title and text on it, it ‘needed something more’…

and at that moment this ‘technique/way of working’ kinda ‘clicked’ in my head
so I went for it and we both love the outcome!

Yes, this is it. The front cover of the debut issue of the magazine!

Oh, and as you know, FEATURING has a ‘young team’ who
keep me sharp, modern and up-to-date (thanks girlies!) so
as of now you can find us on facebook too!

I love the fact that you can ‘officially LIKE the magazine now,
so go ahead if you LIKE to say that you LIKE FEATURING!
I will LOVE you for that!

Letters from the Wasteland

Letter #3

(Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch)

The dimension was created by gluing paper over thread.
Here’s a close up photo

Letters from the Wasteland

Letter #4

(Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch.)
Materials used: gesso, acrylic paint, Indian ink, washi tape,
scraps of handmade paper, piece from an encyclopedia page,
paper with woolen thread, strips(text) from a fairytale book.

With this last ‘letter’ we are right back where I started: sleep.
I hope you all have a good rest in the weekend  (keep your fingers crossed
that I will) and I see you next week… it looks like that will be one of the most
exiting weeks in my life!

Yes, ‘taste’… hold them on your tongue.
Press them against your palate like a toffee.
That is the way to taste words.
I love words.

Words like Westenwind (which is far nicer than the English ‘West wind’)
Kaleidoscoop (sounds the same in both languages)
Wasteland (which is an almost magical word. The dictionary says in Dutch:
‘woestenij’ but when you translate the word ‘waste’ it says ‘verkwist.’
‘Verkwist land’ comes more close to ‘wasteland.’)

You will find all those words in my post and/or art today.

(You can click on each image to enlarge for a better view)

Westenwind

(Size: 25 x 21 cm - 9.8 x 8.3 inch)

..

I made this ‘canvas’ last week. It’s not really a canvas but a cardboard panel,
which I covered with paper that has a linen structure.

I wrote a haiku to go with it for ‘Haiku my Heart Friday.’
This weekly ‘event’ is hosted by Rebecca from Recuerda Mi Corazon.
In for more haiku? Find the list of participants here.

I had the word ‘Wasteland’ on my mind (and in my small notebook
that I keep to jot down ideas, words and quotes) for a while now.
It was just waiting for the right idea to come along.
That idea came a weeks ago…

I’m working on a series of ‘letters’.
I cut words and (parts of) sentences from an old book (Fairy tales by
Hans Christian Andersen) and combine them to form different ‘letters’.
The art pieces are the size of a postcard. I work on loose sheets of paper,
and glue the pieces into a journal later. Here’s the journal I bound for that.

(Size: 17 x 12 cm – 6.7 x 4.7 inch)

View of the spine – I used the Coptic binding stitch.

Letter from the Wasteland #1

(Size: 16 x 11 cm - 6.3 x 4.3 inch)

Letter from the Wasteland #2

(Letter ‘found’ by highlighting certain words on the underlying book page…)

The golden paint (watercolour) gives a strange effect. When viewed straight,
it looks a bit brown or grey, but when you turn the page a bit, the gold begins
to shimmer. Aaah, nice!

This reminds me of these lines:

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost…

Some of you will know these lines maybe…
I’m really curious which of you recognize this phrase –
do you know who wrote this?
Let me know by leaving two (or four 😉 ) initials in your comment.

(If this sounds cryptic to you, you don’t know the phrase, ha!)

Enjoy the (long) weekend dear ones!
Happy Easter!