“It’s time for another multi-day challenge and this time we’re going for 10 days. Personally, I think a slightly larger sheet of paper, canvas or a piece of wood is the most suitable to work on for these 10 days. We enter the process completely blank and work on 1 work of art for 10 days with the help of assignments.

Take, for example, a quarter of an hour of ME-time every day (longer is of course also possible) and apply something to your base based on the assignment I post. (…) In addition to the assignments, it is of course also the intention to show your own input. During the “Assignment days” there can also be “DO YOUR OWN THING” days.

It will probably happen sometimes that you have to paint or paste over something because there is no empty space left. But that’s part of these kinds of challenges (the well-known “letting go”).
At the end of the ride you will be amazed at what you’ve created (that’s my experience).

I hope for many participants.
XXX Joke”

I had a blank canvas laying around and took that to work on. (click to enlarge the image)

During those 10 days, these assignments came up:

Assignment 1: Cover your surface COMPLETELY with STRIPS of leftover paper ~ I used (failed) gelli prints cut into strips

Assignment 2: Cover your work with a wash of diluted acrylic paint or gesso ~ in my case I diluted the background with white acrylic paint

Assignment 3: Use paint in the color of the clothes you are wearing today… write (un)readable text through it with a white or black pen ~ I turned my canvas and used old pink paint (see photo of my lounge pants.) With a thin ‘tube’ (what’s that thing called? A bottle with a very thin spout.) of diluted black acrylic paint I wrote text, these are sentences from the song “Time” by Pink Floyd.

Assignment 4: Use a napkin or tissue paper ~ piece of napkin in the lower left corner

Assignment 5: Paste half an image and draw the other half yourself ~ photo from a fashion magazine, supplemented/drawn by me.

Assignment 6: DO YOUR OWN THING! ~ A added a tiny bit of ochre yellow in the bottom right corner and I tuned down the white in the middle by painting it a bit grayer with diluted paint.

Assignment 7: Use one or more stencil(s) with paint/structure paste ~ I brought back the white with a dotted stencil and white acrylic paint.

Assignment 8: Grab a magazine, find some nice, sharp or crazy texts and stick them randomly on your work ~ I flipped through “National Geographic” magazines to find text that fits with the songtext that I wrote earlier.

Assignment 9: Make marks with e.g. a brush, marker, card and/or doodle and/or make nice lines on your work with a pen. ~ I applied thin, black lines with a credit card in the bottom right corner.

Assignment 10: Finish your work, dot the i’s and cross the t’s as you like. ~ I called my canvas finished after assignment 9 because I actually had nothing more to add, I think it’s fine the way it is. Here’s the end result

If you have the opportunity to participate in challenges like these, do it. It gets you out of your comfort zone and gets the inspiration flowing. This challenge got me out of the journals and on to a canvas and you know what? This is the first canvas I created that I really like!

This is how my desk looks this morning – the start of a ‘tiny journal’ (it’s been ages since I created those, but I made a few in the past see this gallery)

WOYWW #715

I showed you this photo two weeks ago…

… and here’s the progress I made…

some adding, some covering, some adding again… it’s growing slowly but steadily!

And here’s my latest spreads in my Chronicles art journal.

Chronicles 2023 – Week 4

Chronicles 2023 – Week 5

In week 5, my country commemorates the flood disaster of 1953 – see my blogpost from February 3

… and now I’m off to get washed, dressed and on my way to my friend. Have a nice day you; enjoy the people around and don’t forget to call or visit an old friend every now and then.

The photo is made by my friend Lena Schreijenberg

I submit this haiku to Recuerda Mi Corazon where our lovely hostess Rebecca brings us all together to share a haiku on Friday: Haiku my Heart.

At the moment I am working on a big canvas (60 x 80 cm – 23.5 x 31.5 inch) which will take some time before I finish it. I’m working on it for weeks now… it grows step by step (or ‘transfer by transfer’ so you like…) and the background basic is almost done now.

I have now idea how it will turn out in the end – but I am sure the images will start ‘talking to me’ at some point, and show me the way.

And that’s all I have to show you this week… thanks for stopping by and enjoy your weekend.
Make sure to stick your nose in the air and take a deep smell.
Smell the season.
Smell the crispy air.
Smell the roses,
or the seaweed,
and breath!

The photo is made by my friend Lena Schreijenberg

Friday haiku

I submit this haiku to Recuerda Mi Corazon where our lovely hostess Rebecca brings us all together to share a haiku on Friday: Haiku my Heart.

I finished two canvasses that lay waiting for the final touches. Old men with pale faces, wrinkles and bags under their eyes: it pleases me to put them on paper or canvas. I no longer wonder where they all come from or what the hidden message is, I just bring them into the world and let them exist.

I hope you look (and feel) better than these greenish men, have a beautiful weekend y’all!

Je t’embrasse.

WOYWW #385

My neat desk is screaming for a colorful mess, don’t you agree?

There’s two canvasses on my desk that I worked on over the weekend. The big one lay in the atelier for weeks with only a background and a rough sketch (some sort of face) on it. I kinda blocked after that… I’m not good at painting faces so I was almost at the point of wiping it off, but then I saw the work of Cuban artist Hector Frank (thanks for the link Seth!) and I got inspired right away. A face does not have to look realistic after all…

It’s not finished yet, but I like the way it is going.

Size: 30 x 40 cm / 11.8 x 15.8 inch

Next painting is made on a piece of cardboard (I told you I was inspired!) and it’s on my desk because I am in doubt if it is finished or not… should I work on it some more (the eye, the mouth?) or leave it as is. What do you think?

Size: 18 x 24 cm / 7.1 x 9.5 inch

I also bound a new journal last week; it’s the book at the back (to the left on the picture) that you can hardly see because of the reflection of the light on the cover. I wove beads to the binding so the spine looks very special but I show the photos some other time. After all, miss Julia doesn’t like it when we write long posts. So this is it for today, enjoy your week. Go do something fun. Paint a face!

This was how my workdesk looked during the photo-shoot and I submit this photo for Wat’s On Your Workdesk, Wednesday (no labels on the photo this time but if you look closely you can spot some Jessica Sporn stencils & stamps, lots of acrylic paint, brayers, my reading glasses and my gelli plate. Oh, and some monoprints in the make…)

WOYWW #371

Yes: mono-printing on a gelli plate always leaves you with a colorful mess… which is perfect for photos!

Next are some pictures Alda took… I was a bit in shock when I saw that double chin on the photos… it’s not even a double, it’s a triple chin – Eeeckkk! But hey – I’m not that young anymore and this is reality… and I assure you, when I don’t look down it’s not that bad as on these photos (gotta keep my head up high, right?!)

Next photo is my favorite! Alda took it while standing in the living room and the glass door that divides the room from my atelier made for a beautiful reflection.

And in case you were wondering… here’s what the blogpost title comes from: Donderdag (Thursday) is the name of the canvas that I created in May.

Today is the last time that Lunch Lady Jan hosts the WOYWW-event: Julia (Stamping Ground) will be back next week as the main host after she had brain surgery and was recovering over the last weeks. Glad that you are doing so well and that you are able to take the reins once more Julia! And thank you so much for taking over while Julia was ‘down and out’ Jan!!!

I only now notice, that I must have created this art journal page around the same time that I worked on my intuitive painting… the circles are on this page as well as on my painting. The painting that, by the way, is finished now.

 (Man at a Lake; acrylics on canvas; 40 x 50 cm – 15.7 x 19.7 inch)

In the last couple of days I created some more Soul Cards… I might show them to you eventually but not yet. It’s all new to me and I still have to ‘read’ the cards I created.

I can show you the ‘journal’  though, that I will use to take notes. I found an old, small ring binder and made a cover from a cut out image from a magazine and a text that Yvonne Koops stamped on paper for me. (I met Yvonne last Monday and after having coffee I admired her workspace… she has the most beautiful collection of stamps and when I fell for this sentiment she stamped it for me – thanks Yvonne, it fits perfectly!)

And that’s it for today sweeties.
No photo of my work desk, I skip this week of woyww as there’s nothing on my desk that’s worth showing ánd I am afraid I don’t have time in the upcoming days to visit the other woyww-participants.

Hope you all have an inspiring and save ‘spiritual’ (an/or creative) journey this week.

We had a lot of fun, and will repeat the paint session in a few weeks as we both are far from finished. Here’s an impression of how I spend my afternoon (it’s not a good photo as the light came in where I stood and it gets darker when you go deeper into the barn… rather difficult to take a photo.)

This painting may not be finished but I do have some finished art journal pages to show you. These Chronicles spreads are from last Summer an it feels like ages ago… well, it almost is ’cause can you believe we are in week 36 already?

The Chronicles of Marit 2015 – Week 29

The Chronicles of Marit 2015 – Week 31
(Week 30 is out for publication so I can’t show you that one yet)

The Chronicles of Marit 2015 – Week 32

There is more that I didn’t show you yet but I’ll leave it with these pages, I don’t want to overfeed you 😉

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.
Be wild,
be free,
be creative,
set up an easel and paint a picture.

See you next week.

(If you’re not familiar with the concept: WOYWW it is a weekly event hosted by Julia from the UK. Artists from all over the world post a photo of their desk on their blog and leave a link at Julia’s blog. Wanna join us? More info here.)

After I took the workshop SoulCollage last Thursday I spend all weekend collecting and organizing my clippings. I had all kinds of cut out images laying around everywhere in my atelier… some in a box in my closet, some in files in a drawer, some on a shelf… to be honest, it was a pretty chaotic ‘collage situation’. After the workshop I found it time to organize all those images and store them in categorized folders… those are on my desk (and a lot more too…) Take a look

WOYWW #326

I did make a few other ‘Soul-cards’ yesterday (you can see one standing in the window sill) but I’ll show you those some other time maybe.

What I do want to show you is the progress I am making on the intuitive painting I showed you last week.

Photo #1 is the one I showed you last week, and it was the result of an ‘intuitive painting session. Now the intuitive phase is over and at the moment I am working to ‘get out’ the figures and find a balance. I add a little paint and change a bit almost every day. In the late afternoon, I put the painting in the living room on the sideboard so I can look at it in the changing light. When it gets dark outside, and the lamps go on, the painting looks different and I usually can see what is missing or wrong with it still, and find out if the balance is right.

#4 is not yet the final piece, but I have the feeling I am almost there.

That’s it for now sweeties… just one more thing before I sign off for the day.

The online art journal workshop Mixed Emotions,  which I teach with Michelle Rydell, started last Monday but you can still join. Registration stays open until September 20.

(If you’re not familiar with it: WOYWW it is a weekly event hosted by Julia from the UK. Artists from all over the world post a photo of their desk on their blog and leave a link at Julia’s blog. Wanna join us? More info here.)

WOYWW #325  (click on the photo to enlarge)

When you visited my blog in the past weeks and saw my work desk photos, you know there’s an easel standing on the other side of the atelier… and I bet you are curious to see what’s on it.

Yep, there’s another canvas on the easel! Not the big, ‘messed up’ one that was there last week. (I finished that canvas and will show you in a minute.) This canvas is 40 x 50 cm (15.8 x 19.7 inch) and it is the canvas that was on the workdesk-photo last week. Remember that one? It stood on a chair and had a woman/figure and a red ‘smear’ painted on.

I gessoed over it and kept on painting, gluing paper, scratching etc. There’s a lot of texture in this piece! You can see a bit more of the depth on the detailed photo, but even this photo does not show how rich this piece is.

I put it on the sideboard in the living room yesterday so that my beloved and I could look at it sitting on the couch. My beloved didn’t like it and found it ‘too messy.’  I thought the piece was finished at first but after a while, I saw a man/figure standing (bottom edge, in the middle… the blue spot) staring over a lake. This morning, I put the painting back on the easel but I haven’t decided yet if I should try to ‘get the man out’ by working on it more, or just leave it as is.

What do YOU think of this piece? (I appreciate your honest opinion.)

On to the big canvas I worked on for several weeks… the ‘intuitive painting’… remember that one? I messed up last week and started to glue on some pieces of paper. I tore the same paper that I used to create a page in my Top 2000 art journal in December… that page happens to be my favorite (if you follow me on Facebook, you will recognize it from my header.) I have always found it a pity that the particular piece was created in a book/journal and that I could not hang it on my wall. While tearing paper for my canvas, the idea came to me to try to create the page again on the canvas and so I did.

Here’s the finished piece: “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds II”

(Size: 50 x 70 cm – 19,7 x 27.6 inch)

I’m very pleased with it and Yaaaay… I will be able to hang this to the wall.

And that’s all for today, have a lovely week y’all.
Get creative.
Get messy.
Create a canvas.