Photo: @LenaSchreijenberg

It’s been a month since I published something – anything – on my blog so it’s about time I show you my latest art journal spreads. I just upload these pages without explanation ’cause you know what? I don’t feel like sitting at the computer too long. The sun is shining, the weather is wonderful, it’s my day off and I have a nice book waiting for me… I am heading straight back to my little balcony to sit beneath the parasol and read.

Week 16

Week 17

Week 18

Week 19

Week 20

Hope your day is shiny and bright too, enjoy!
Je t’embrasse

So, it’s been a long time, but Sarah is still hosting the ‘deskers’ and I have a little vacation (this week and the next) to fill with whatever I want – a lot of creating going on – and I thought it would be fun to join in this wednesday to see if all my former desk-collaborators are still there. HI THERE, MY FELLOW ARTISTS & DESKERS, I plan on visiting you this week and am curious to see what you’re all up to.

For now, here’s how my workdesk looks today

WOYWW #882

It’s a rather big project I’m working on: making 80 “prompt/inspiration cards”. I got a list of “prompts” from a woman in an art journal group on Facebook. I printed those prompts and selected eighty of them. Next, I spend an afternoon making gelliplate-prints and glued those on old playing cards.

Next, I dived into my stash of scrapbook papers to glue on the back.

I’m still cutting out and gluing the prompt-sentences, and it will cost me another afternoon or so to finish the task. I might decorate the cards even more, depending on the time I have left ’cause there are more things I want to work on this week as there is: my CHRONICLES!

For all the ones who knew me from former years: yes, I am still journaling and keeping my ‘Chronicles’ going.
For the ones who don’t know me yet… I am an art journaler, I bind my own journals to fill them with all kinds of things (‘mixed media’)
I work in different journals but there’s one ‘theme journal’, The Chronicles, that I keep going since 2010 and that can be seen as a red thread… These are handmade visual year-journals in which I create a weekly spread. It’s sort of a visual diary and on its pages I comment and reflect on my days or just try to capture the week in words and pictures,

My friend Lena took photo’s of me with all my Chronicles journals the other day, ain’t this a fun picture?

Here’s the latest week spreads.

Chronicles Week 13
Gelli print background, collage (the three little pictures = details of my art, older work) and yes, I’m a bicycle race fan…

Chronicles Week 14
Painted background, washi tape, gelliprint cut out ‘eggs’ (it was the week of Easter) and I painted the heads of me and my friend on cut-out figures.

Chronicles Week 15
The big portrait is cut out of a magazine: famous bicycle racer Wout van Aert

And that’s it for me this week. Hope you enjoyed seeing me and my art again… enjoy your week!

I always start the year, and my Chronicles art journal, with One Little Word. I usually choose a word at the end of a year, but at the beginning of 2026 I still had not choose a word. I hesitated for a long time about whether I should choose a word at all, until this one popped into my head and stuck with me: “Ruimte” (space/room.)

I hope this year will bring many nice days and happy events so that the spreads, I fill this journal with, will be colorful and beautiful. Here are the first week-spreads:

Chronicles 2026 – Week 1

Chronicles 2026 – Week 2

Chronicles 2026 – Week 3

There are not as many people visiting blogs anymore so thanks for being here reading my post, I really appriciate you came by! Enjoy your day!

Friday haiku

Chronicles 2025 – Week 51

In mid-December, a nasty cold struck me. I had to stay home from work and sit it out. Acrylic paint, paperscraps, stamps and cut out images.

Chronicles 2025 – Week 52

Background: gelliplate print. Inspired by various art journal spreads I saw on social media, I ordered some punches to cut squares of various sizes out of paper. I punched out a square from each Christmas card I received, so I have the memories in my Chronicles journal without having to keep all the cards.

Chronicles 2025 – Last page

I close my journal, as I do every year, with a recent photo of myself (and this year, also with a short “review” of the year). The text on the right says “keep on smiling”.

I’ve been a member of a creative Dutch Facebook group Jook’s kunstcafé  for years. The group’s administrator, Joke, is loved by all the members and in early January, Joke would turn 70. At the end of 2025 there was a secret call to make a card for Joke’s birthday. All the mail was sent to her daughter-in-law, and on her birthday, Joke received a large box full of happy mail. It was a huge surprise for her! I’d responded to the request and created this card for her birthday.

… and now I close the book (journal) on 2025 and hope this year will bring less health problems and more happiness. My your days be peaceful and bright too! Seeya!

I kinda like to be ‘back to normal although I DO have an extra week off from work next week, to recuperate from the top 2000 blogparty which, just like every year, was hectic and busy and great fun. There were a lot of artists submitting their art they created to the music and besides putting it all on my blog I played along with them and created daily art journal spreads. After the party, on the first day of the New Year, I finished my little journal that I bound especially for the Top 2000 by creating the table of contents and adding a last page. Today I’ll show you the whole thing.

Cover (yep, that’s Neil Young…)

Table of Contents

On the left: page with spray ink and salt.
On the right: gelliplate print background. Lettering with fineline applicator and diluted black paint

Day 1: Taylor Swift – You Need To Calm Down

Collage

Day 2: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – Enola Gay

collage, paint, piece of bandage/cloth and crayons. (For some context: “Enola Gay” was the name of the American B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb, named Little Boy, over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945.)

Day 3: ZZ Top – Sharp Dressed Man

Collage

Day 4: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Dark Necessities

background: gelliplate print. Woman: collage. Bigger lettering with markers and white paint, smaller lettering with fineline applicator and diluted paint.

Day 5: Iron Maiden – Can I Play With Madness

Background: gelli plate print. I took photos of myself making faces. Printed one in black and white, scaled the eyes and mouth to glue over it and painted over it all. Lettering with paint and marker.

Day 6: Jimi Hendrix – All Along the Watchtower

Background: acrylic paint and transfer of a watchtower and barbed wire at a concentration camp. The figure is reused from an older journal spread – I photographed it, scaled it to size and painted in black and white over it. Lettering with fineline applicator and diluted paint.

Day 7: The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil

Background: gelliplate print. Cut out images from magazines. A bit of black paint and lettering with a marker.

Last page

I glued an old, bit of a failed – but still lovely – gelliplate print on the last page. To the right you see the last signature…

I bound the Top 2000 list as signatures with the other pages.

This is my 16th Top 2000 art journal (I had to skip one year – 2020 – because back then I was just out of surgery and had my armpit and arm injured.)
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy your weekend.

Chronicles week 42

Chronicles week 43

Chronicles week 44

I kept on running behind on creating weekly art journal spreads so at the end of this month I did what I advised my Chronicles workshop-students when they are running behind: I caught up up by making a few similar looking, fast and fun spreads.

Chronicles week 45

Chronicles week 46

Chronicles week 47

Thank you for stopping by,
Je t’embrasse

Chronicles week 34
A bit of an angry/sad spread ’cause this was the week the specialist called me to tell that all the tests showed that I have dystrophy in my foot.

Chronicles week 35
The rheumatologist gives me a cortisone injection in my foot and wow, suddenly I can walk without pain again! He warns me that this is a temporary solution—the pain will return, and it will be a long process before everything is completely back to normal. But for now, the swelling is subsiding, and I’m happy with the freedom that comes with pain-free movement, although I can’t force it (no long walks!)

Chronicles week 36
A lot of journaling about my beloved having to go to hospital and in the middle of that all, me preparing for the leporello workshop I have to teach in the weekend…

Chronicles week 37
Completely drained… so I created a spread without much words.

Thanx for stopping by my blog
Je t’embrasse

Chronicles week 29
A quick and easy spread ’cause the summer came with tropical temperatures and it was way too hot to create or even stay in my atelier… and of course the Tour the France was on the tv so when I didn’t have to work, I spend the warm afternoons on the couch watching the race. Background: orange acrylic paint.

Chronicles week 30
Another quick ‘cycling spread’. More orange acrylpaint and big illustrations.

Chronicles week 31
A little more work-intensive spread: some collage on plain paper and a lot of text.

Chronicles week 32
Week 32 was one to quickly forget… my foot still hurts and I was grumpy all week. A toxic-coloured green/yellowish painted background, some grey/brown paint through a stencil and some ink splattering. The big words are all synonyms for ‘angry’.

Chronicles week 33
The week that an MRI scan of my foot was taken (I had to wait two months for that due to a waiting list!) and a postcard from my son – who was on holiday in the UK – arrived. O, and a picture of Madonna ’cause I bought a new bra and no, not one of those she wears ;D

Thanx for visiting my blog
Je t’embrasse

Chronicles week 24
On the left is a test print (illustration made with oil crayons on the gelli plate) that I created for a retiring collague. He’s a big fan of Bob Dylan so I added fitting Dylan-lyrics. The bike-racer on the right is the famous Eddy Merckx, a Belgium rider who turned eighty in that week. I presume I’m getting old too ’cause I remember him riding…

Chronicles week 25
A gelli-print background, a piece of old wallpaper from the hall of my family home (my mum gave it to me) some illustrations and handwritten texts.

Chronicles week 26
Hot days in week 26. Since my vacation-week started on Wednesday (I have week 27 off work) I added some Summer-colours and pictures. The “French house/garden” is tissue paper that I glued on to the spread. I painted the two ladies (a friend and I) and added a photo of the outdoor birthday lunch at another old friend’s house (she turned sixty.)

Chronicles week 27
My vacation week and MAN was it hot… The photo is me and my bestie glazing our ceramics that we made a few weeks ago on a clay-workshop. In the weekend, the Tour de France started.

Chronicles week 28
O yessss… bicycle race! Tour de France! My son and I ‘watch it together’, he on his couch in another city and I on our couch. We do send each other texts all the time. My mobile phone makes this noise when a text comes in and the afternoons filled with that little scream… so I cut out a stamp and used it on this spread. This one makes me smile!

Hope you are enjoying your summer days.
Je t’embrasse

I have a few to show you from the weeks before though… May and (first weeks of) June: enjoy

Chronicles Week 20
Background with acrylic paint. Collaged figures and a postcard from my dad. Text with paint and (on the right) black marker.

Chronicles Week 21
Acryl paint background. Head cut out from a magazine. Funeral card of my uncle who’d passed away.

Chronicles Week 22
A simple spread: left over gelli plate paper, black acrylic paint, stamps for the ‘week’ lettering and a cut out image.

Chronicles Week 23
Acrylic paint, cut out images and a small photo of the staff outing (showing collegues from work)

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog still
Je t’embrasse