When I finished, I send Pamela the photos with a guiding letter in which I explained my work and methods. To show you the process and results I guess I best translate that letter for you:

“

Hi Pamela,
After we met and agreed to do “something” creative together, you came up with the first prompt: “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”. It didn’t take me long to agree on this theme for our first project because I immediately saw the potential of ‘old’. In my atelier, I keep a small box containing tiny scraps of old archive documents. At work, during restoration, I sometimes come across tiny pieces of paper whose origins are no longer clear. I do re-attach larger, torn pieces to the original in the right place, but these small pieces, sometimes with just a single letter visible, are untraceable and end up in the trash. Except when I find them, ’cause I take these orphaned pieces home with me and put them in a box.

Because the scraps are so small, I immediately thought about working on very small collages, and I had to make four of them. A ‘quadritch’. A few years ago, I made a few of those small collages and I always found it enjoyable and satisfying to create on such a small surface. Those collages often ended up in series of three and I felt like doing something similar for our first project. I had a nice, thick piece of watercolor paper lying around. I tore a strip from it, which I then divided into four pieces. Each piece is approximately 7,5 x 12 cm and these pieces served as the basic background. You can clearly see the torn edges…

I focused on “old, new, borrowed, and blue” in each collage. While working on each collage I deliberately didn’t think about the next one or the fact that I wanted them to be a series, because if I did, I might start thinking about a “procession” and immediately limit myself in material or color choices. I numbered the pieces of watercolor paper on the back so I would work in the correct order (that is: “correct tear edges in order”) and created them one by one. I thought that afterwards, when I’d finished them all, I would automatically find the coherence in the series.

Something OLD

I choose two tiny pieces of old archival material to start with (I’d guess the paper/parchment is from the 17th or 18th century) and then I delved into my boxes of scraps of paper; they had to be OLD scraps of paper. I found a lot of them. I finally created a composition with the following:

• A piece of parchment with some faint, old Dutch text still visible.
• A scrap of paper with some ink/parts of letters still visible.
• A larger piece of yellowish paper that is almost falling apart from its age and softness.
• A tiny piece of blue wallpaper from the hallway of my childhood home.
• A piece of torn cheesecloth, given to me by an artist friend I met when I had just moved back to Middelburg (2014).
• A red strip of paper cut from an old cigarette pack, from a box of empty cigarette packs my father collected as a teenager in the 1950s and which he gave me to use.

Something NEW

In December, I ordered a few square punches and two stamp punches. I used these for the first time to punch out the pieces of paper for this collage so it couldn’t be “newer”…

The clean squares have an architecturally “modern” feel, so I chose to punch plain coloured pieces of paper. I punched the pieces from a page of a Snoecks book/magazine. I have volumes of Snoecks issues and I chose to flip through the one from 2001 because that was the year that my beloved and I bought a house and moved in together.

A white line ran across a mainly black colored page and I punched out sections where the black area would move slightly while the white line continued.

Something BORROWED

I had to puzzle over the “borrowed” thing for a bit… who could I borrow something from, and what? I quickly came up with “tools,” which I could then also give back… but my beloved and I are two in our household, and everything is shared, so “borrowing” within the walls of our house doesn’t seem like “borrowing”… until I dove into his desk drawers! Look… I found an old toy car!

“Honey, can I borrow that?”

“Um, for what? OK, yes, but I do want it back.”

Exactly, that was the point!

I smeared some brown paint on my palette, drove the car through it, and then across my paper. Look… tire tracks!

Something BLUE

The ‘blue’ was quickly found. I love drawing ‘stones’ on that thick watercolor paper, I even have a special journal bound with thick watercolor paper to fill with paintings of ‘cairns’ (There is a lot to find and read about ‘cairns’, structures of stacked stones, on the internet. In principle: Cairn is a modern Scottish term, a corruption of carne, which was already used in the sixteenth century to indicate a prehistoric construction. Carne itself comes from the Gaelic carn = “heap of stones”).

The pile of three blue stones (or, if you prefer, eggs – because that’s what it looks like too) turned out well and to my liking, but the painting was still missing something… so I splashed and splattered some more with the paint which caused that ‘streamer of splatters’… oops!

This is the series as it lay on my desk, and I knew it wasn’t finished yet… although you can see from the tear lines that the four pieces fit together, the whole thing feels disjointed.

I left it as it was and only revisit it with a fresh eye a week later. I’d already figured I’d have to tie it all together by using the same color and/or technique throughout the collages, but how? It couldn’t be anything with color (too flashy and distracting). So, black. Stamps? No. Thin lines with a pen? No. I grabbed my trusty old sewing machine: black stitching would add extra shape and texture. I set the stitch to zigzag and sewed a line here and there.

For each piece, I looked for the right spot in the composition to add stitching, and—hooray!—I was also able to conceal that “splattered” string by stitching over it. I used the same size zigzag stitch on each collage. My intention was to pull all the end threads through to the back and weave them in, but when I placed the four pieces side by side with the threads still hanging out, I thought it looked fantastic so that I decided to let them hang.

Here’s the finished series.

“

I know Pamela was pleased with the outcome, and I know she herself created something completely different (which wasn’t surprising ’cause when two people create with a same theme, the outcome usually is quite different.) but she has to show that for herself if she wants to. You can find Pamela’s art on instagram.

In my region there is an active Urban Sketching Group that organizes monthly events. I know the founders and I taught a Leporello- workshop to a group of sketchers last september but only once joined a Sketchers-event (back in 2023, see this blogpost.) Last month however, I noticed the next sketching event would be in the library in my town and I informed my son about it. Wouldn’t it be nice if he would come over and we would go sketch together? He was enthousiastic about it too and so he came to visit us and we went to go sketch together.

A lot of sketchers (almost 20) gathered in the library and then spread out over different parts of the building to start drawing. I didn’t stay in one place but found different spots to draw. Here are my sketches

Bookcases

A spot in the library with a small table and chairs

Again: chairs

A boy with headphone studying in a corner of the library

And here’s what my son drew:

view of the town from the library window

And again: view of the town

Next my son went to the big stairs and while he stood there I took a photo…

… while he drew the stairs and added me in his drawing, walking downstairs

Another view on the stairs

After two hours of drawing, the group gathered again to look at each other’s work and take photos. (My son and I are on the right.)

After that, we picked up a lunch on our way home to my beloved. We spend the rest of the afternoon in my atelier and watching the women’s cyclocross world championships on tv before my son took a train back home again. It was such a lovely day, I’m still smiling thinking about it!

I wish you a lovely Sunday,
go do something nice,
be creative,
make a drawing,
kiss the ones you love and
enjoy life.

I  work all year with this still life (photo)

I got out my gelli plate this time and made several mono prints. I first cut out the shapes and made templates that way. It was quite a puzzle to get the right order of printing, with the one shape behind the other, and I made several mistakes but it sure was fun and I learned a lot. The prints may not be perfect but I like them anyway.

I cutted one gelli print, that I found rather boring, into pieces and pasted the pieces on a black background.

Nout picked his bike to use as an object to work with (photo)

My son Nout and his beloved Guus came to stay with us last weekend and having seen my prints of the still life, they both wanted to try gelli printing. Guus (left) created some marvelous prints using all kinds of colors and templates.

Nout choose to make some prints for the project so he choose a bike to picture. The following print he created by using an oil crayon drawing on the gelli plate

Getting the hang of it, he tried to ‘draw’ a bike with a thread…

… and did it come out nice!!!

And here’s the second (‘ghost’) print.

Having all the paint tubes on the table, Nout saw the hardened paint around the openings and since some of those pieces are round, he saw wheels in it… so he pulled the hardened paint from the tubes and created a 3D mini bike which he glued onto aquarel paper. Ain’t that a sweet little bike?

We all had a wonderful time and we all have new inspiraton to investigate more possibilities, take things further and create more pieces. Each time we both created some new art works I will publish it on my blog. Thanks for stopping by and if you like what we’re doing, leave us a comment. We’d like that!

The idea came when I read in a newsletter from Julie Balzer that she decided to work on one and the same object 100 times for her ‘100 Day Project’, using different materials and techniques. Both my son Nout and I thought that is a nice idea, but we decided to limit it to 50 art pieces and give ourselves time for that… until the end of the year.

*** Why so many work-outs of one object you might think… the thing is: if you choose one object, the first ways to work out the chosen object come to mind quickly: drawing, painting, collage and a few other possibilities. The trick is to see what is still possible when you have used the most obvious materials and played with the most logical techniques. What will then emerge? What strange things will happen? I am curious!***

First we had to choose what we were going to work with this year. I chose a still life (a number of objects of different color and shape, so that I could also rearrange them. I consider myself very clever *grin*)

Marit chose to work with this still life (photo)

Here are the first 5 pieces I created

Nout picked his bike to use as an object to work with (photo)

Here are his 5 pieces of art

Each time we both created five more pieces I will publish it on my blog.

Thanks for stopping by and if you like what we’re doing, leave us a comment. We’d like that!

Last June, I collaborated with Pamela Körner on this mission. I only now see I haven’t published the results on my blog yet (I put them on Instagram instead) so here they are:

I, Marit, started these halvzies and Pamela finished them

I also collaborated with Robert Stockton @scrapbox9 on this same mission. This time, Robert started the halvzie collages and sent it to me. When my beloved Marius (who used to paint and made collages long before I knew him, but hasn’t been any creative in that area since the eighties or so…) saw these halvzies standing on my easel he asked me if he ‘could do one’. I couldn’t believe my ears so I gave him the one he wanted to work with. I photographed it first and printed the halvzie on thick paper, I myself worked on that.

Robert (start)

Marit (finish)

Robert (start)

Marit (finish)

Marius (finish)

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your weekend!

Small collages (approximately 12 x 9 cm / 4,5 x 3,5 inch)

I created these small collages in March I think (can’t find the originals to see what date is on the back… where did I put them? I can’t stand not knowing where they are so I may spend the rest of the afternoon looking for it…)

Special Agent Collage Collective

In 2022 I joined the Special Agent Collage Collective. I completed a mission to the satisfaction of the Head Quarters (where agent 001 holds sway) and received my membership card short after. Since then I am officially known as Special Agent 074.

We started misson #19 in September last year – yes, I say WE ’cause mission #19 was a collaboration task. I was assigned to a team of five people who had to work together. Each person started with a collage and sent it to the next person in line, who added something to it. The idea was to send the collages around until it returned to the first person. We had to create in black/white/gray until the last ’round’ – the one who gets the ‘starter’ back was allowed to finish it with some color. Here you see my ‘starter’ that I forwarded to the next person on the list…

… so there were five collages going around and – that’s just our luck – two of the collages got lost in the postal system. My starter was one of those… aarghhh. We solved the problem by printing out the last known collage photo and continued by working on that print. This month my starter finally came back so I could finish it adding some color.

Grandes Chaleurs art journal

I started creating in this journal back in 2015 (see this blogpost) and it’s still not full… I work in it every now and then.

Ze komt / She comes

Last but not least: a page in my ‘miscellaneous’ art journal. I created this last month when I stayed over at Jenny the Bode – we spend a nice afternoon creating together.

And that’s it for today folks… thanks for stopping by and if you’re interested in seeing my latest Chronicles art journal spread: keep tuned ’cause I may post those soon – like tomorrow.

Here’s the results

Draw a plant.

Marit’s take on it: (click to enlarge)

Nout’s take on it:

Draw your nose, a friend’s or a strangers. Or a pet’s.

Marit’s take on it (the debate in the Dutch ‘congress’ on tv):

Nout’s take on it (his girlfriend):

Go on a nature walk, pick up items, draw what you find.

Marit’s take on it:

Nout’s take on it:

Draw a grouping of 2 or more of similar objects.

Marit’s take on it:

Nout’s take on it:

Draw a hat, cap or other headgear.

Marit’s take on it:

Nout’s take on it:

Thanks for stopping by, we do appreciate your comments!

We arrived at the beautiful central train station of Antwerp on Tuesday, January 2.

Later that evening, Nout used that photo to make the following drawing…

… while I drew him.

I also drew a little jug that stood in the apartment.

The next evening, my son read a book while I drew him again.

We visited the Plantin-Moretus museum and the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (KMSKA)
We also discovered a big artist store but we couldn’t buy much as we were there by train and didn’t have much space in our suitcases…

but we bought little, round price tags that Nout already used to create this:

We almost forgot to take a picture of the two of us… we were already on our way back to the Netherlands when we remembered, so here’s a quick selfie in front of the train that would bring us back home.

Now ain’t that a way to start a New Year? I hope the rest of 2024 will be as happy and fun as these days were!

I remembered my dad used to make drawings with a lot of shading when they went on holidays to France. I asked him about it and took some pictures, so this blogposts contains pictures of (grand)father – daughter/mother – son… ain’t that special?

Drawings made by my father Henk

Drawings made by me (Marit)

Drawings made by Nout

Thanks for stopping by, we do appreciate your comments!

Postcards altered by me (Marit)

Altered postcards by Nout

Thanks for stopping by, we do appreciate your comments!