Angel in the snow

I was feeling rather restless tonight. Today I met with my friend Anne for coffee and we blabbered away about everything and nothing, and talked for a long time about future hopes and dreams. So that made me think a lot. The good kind of thinking, but also the kind that you cannot stop. Sometimes I feel like I have so many ideas and thoughts I am afraid my head might explode. So at one point I decided to go out for a walk. Today we had the first snow of the winter. So I was a bit hesitant at first, as it was really cold outside and already a bit late, but I wanted to clear my head. So I made a walk around my neighborhood, started skipping and leaving funny footprint trails and made an angel in the snow. I almost forgot how much fun snow can be and enthusiastically rushed back to urge my roommates to come play outside with me. One joined me, another apparently just went to the supermarket, so we walked that way and decided to plan a snowball surprise attack. After our sublime mission was accomplished, the three of us went to a nearby field, ran around, threw snowballs at each other and made snow angels and cartwheels. I returned back home with a wet bum and a clear head.

It was good. It is so easy to live in a closed box. To let the days pass by, to do what you always do and stick with your daily pattern. Breaking out of that pattern every now and then makes me happy. It never ceases to amaze me how much joy a simple act like playing in the snow can bring.

Oh, by the way, I put some snowballs in the freezer. Just in case I want to have a snowball fight in summer time.

Art inspired by movie or book: The result

Inconvenient Bliss, acrylic paint on canvas

‘But I like the inconveniences.’
‘We don’t’, said the Controller, ‘we prefer to do things comfortably.’
‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.’
‘In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.’
‘All right, then,’ said the Savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.’
 ‘Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy, the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.’ There was a long silence. ‘I claim them all,’ said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said.

(pg. 212, Brave new world by Aldous Huxley)




And no, I did not use Spiderman as inspiration ;)

What was difficult?
I didn’t manage to capture the exact mood I was envisioning on forehand. I was thinking along more melancholic lines, but somehow I just ended up using bright colors and making something quite happy. Also I struggled a bit with contrast. The painting is going to hang in my department on a very high wall, so I was worried the contrast between the faces and the (first) yellow background wouldn’t be enough to see from a far distance, which is why I decided to add blue to the background in the end. I think there was room for improvement here.

What was fun?
Painting. I finished my most important deadlines of the semester (I heard a day later I passed my semester *yay*), so all I really did was get up, drink coffee, have breakfast and paint. That was a wonderful and free feeling.

What did I learn?
Don’t be afraid to make major changes in a late stage. Also, if I really want to capture a mood I should try to think color, composition and style through more thoughtfully on forehand. I don’t regret the fact that it turned out differently though. Being open to how a painting evolves also has some quality.

(See all my creative challenges here.)

Tiny hedgehog

I found a seed outside. I’m not sure what tree it is from. Not in Dutch nor in English. (That says more about my knowledge of species than it does about the rarity of the object). I picked it up because it looked interesting to me. And as it had been lying on my desk for a while, I couldn’t help but think that it resembled a hedgehog. Next thing you know, I am enthusiastically running around with a glue gun. The result: meet my newest little friend.

She likes to snuggle up in a tea spoon,

and enjoys bright colors.

We have that in common... The bright colors part.

Creative challenge: Art inspired by movie or book

I set myself creative challenges and you are welcome to join any week if you like. You can take on just one or multiple, do it now or over a month. Anything that fits your pace and preferences :) This week:

Creative challenge: Create a piece of art that is inspired by a movie you’ve seen or a book you’ve read.

[picture from the movie 'Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain', via]

It can be your favorite movie of all time, or simply a book you recently finished. Whatever inspires you. It can be a feeling you want to translate, a certain style, a concrete small piece of a story that triggers you or the overall theme. The art you create can be anything from poetry to a song to a drawing or painting. It can be a medium you are comfortable with or a new experiment in a medium you never tried before. I will probably be painting, since that’s what I love to do.

What movies and books inspire you?

Past project: Cassette tape wallet

I made this wallet from a cassette tape I found in a thrift store. I barely use it, but still, I think it's pretty cool.


Don't you think it's awesome we will be able to tell our grandchildren one day we used to listen to cassettes? And that all phones had wires.. And that there was no Internet. It starts to sound absurd already...

DIY: How to fold an origami paper crane

I made a video tutorial on how to fold an origami paper crane. So if you don’t know how to but would like to learn, take a look! I am working on a major goal for which I am folding a 1000 paper cranes to give them away to random strangers in the hope it will make at least a few people smile.



(Bear with me as I am still in the process of learning about video editing and rendering and such, so no.. I didn’t plan those big black borders :p)

If you try to make a paper crane, I would love to hear feedback on if everything is clear or not :)

Makeover: from sweater to top

I transformed an old sweater (with holes in the sleeves) I had laying in my closet for a long time into a simple top. Oh yeah, that first picture shows how super fly I think I am in it.

Speaking of sewing projects, yesterday I attended my first sewing class and I am in love! I’m going to take lessons every other week and one major thing I want to learn is how to draw patterns from scratch and really construct and design. First I need to make a ground model of myself so I can use that to make clothing for myself. I am so excited!

I have sewed before, my mother taught me some basic skills and I like to experiment every now and then by doing little projects. However, I can’t wait to learn more technical skills from someone with a background in fashion. It will be such fun!

(I'm over at 'Pursuit of Felicity' with a sponsor introduction post if you want to check out why I started blogging & what I like about it)

Party girl

This Saturday I will be painting t-shirts again on a local party with the Big Bug Collection. We made a couple of shirts, of which 2 will be given away in a lottery during the party. This is the shirt I painted.

Paint: The result

I created the canvas painting above this week as part of this challenge.

What was difficult?
Starting. I didn’t feel that inspired at first, but once I simply starting with something I had in my head that seemed interesting it was all fine.

What was fun?
Seeing my painting develop. When I started I wasn’t sure yet how it would turn out and I was deciding on the color use as I was going, so the outcome always is somewhat of a surprise. It was also the first time I made a video like this of my painting; it’s fun to see work change and grow.

What did I learn?
I feel like I am developing in my painting and drawings. I am experimenting more, and I would have never used colors like blue, pink, green and yellow all in one face a year ago. It’s fun to notice that I am learning by doing and am making more risky choices, like dripping paint or using wild color combinations.

Past Project: Craft closet makeover

I thrifted this big closet, put shelves and doors in it and painted it turquoise. I use it to store my art and craft supplies. Actually the before picture isn’t exactly correct; it was this weird color of salmon, the white is already a first ground layer of paint. I think I undertook this project about two years ago, but I am still really happy with how it turned out and I like having all my supplies together.

Painting = hard work :p




Do you have a nice place for storing your art&craft supplies?

Home made cookies

I baked cookies together with my friend Stephan. They didn’t turn out as the prettiest cookies of my cookie-career, but it was fun and my siblings kept eating them which is valid proof that they didn’t taste too bad.

Goals 2012

Some of these I have already started working on at some point in the past. I own a ukulele and I know how to play a few chords, but I am not very good at it yet. I would like to actually have a small repertoire of songs I can play. Same goes for juggling: I once started to learn this, but I want to be able to juggle for at least a minute without dropping the balls. So hello 2012, I want to do some fun stuff when you are around.

Creative Challenge: Paint

I started with my creative challenge a while ago. This week I present a new one:

The challenge: Create a canvas painting

It doesn’t need much more explanation than that. Simply take a piece of canvas and paint. It doesn’t matter what size canvas, what type of paint, what colors you use and what theme you pick. I have had an urge to paint for the last couple of days but haven’t really ‘felt it’. I’m not sure what to paint and don’t feel that inspired. Making it into a challenge will make me more pro-active about it; I will search for inspirational images and ideas and see what will happen from there. :)