Happy Easter

Are you enjoying  your Easter break? Did you remember to put your clocks forward today? I must admit I'm not a fan of switching to summertime. You get up early, and it's already late. And I've started going to work a bit earlier two weeks ago, so that means that next week, I will have to leave the house in the dark again.

I am having a quiet and relaxing Easter break at home, doing a bit of this and that, and sometimes not much at all. The weather is a bit of a mixed bag. Pouring down with rain all Friday, a sunny and warm spring day yesterday, and for today and tomorrow, it's going to a be a bit of everything - sun, clouds, rain.

Yesterday finally felt like a proper spring day, so I grabbed my cameras and went out to snap some spring flowers. I've been seeing lots of photos of beautiful magnolia trees in full bloom in the UK on Instagram, but here, they're still only just beginning to blossom. I love this magnolia tree at the bottom of my street, and I'm looking forward to seeing it bloom every year. I just hope that we get a few nice and dry days to enjoy it as much as possible.

Lots of flowers appearing in the gardens too, big and small.

A special anniversary, and the art of bulb growing

Yesterday, my aunt and uncle celebrated a very special anniversary - their 65th wedding anniversary! Here in the German speaking part of the world, it is called "Eiserne Hochzeit" - the iron anniversary. I created a card for this special occasion, using one of their wedding photo as a template and reproducing it with a transfer technique, some tea staining and watercolours.

The cut out image went on the front of the simple card of watercolour. I'm thinking about adding some lines on top and bottom, but I haven't quite decided yet.

For the main text inside, I used my new Pilot Parallel pen. It was quite hard work on this rough paper, but I like the effect of the broken line. I was just afraid that it would ruin my new pen. Tomorrow, we'll be celebrate this anniversary with the whole family. It means spending 7+ hours on the train there and back, but it's well worth it, and I'm looking forward to it very much.

As to growing flowers from bulbs - I'm sure there's a special art to this, but one that I, unfortunately, haven't mastered. I saw all these gorgeous images of amaryllis blooming at Christmas, and crocuses and narcicusses ready for spring. I bought two amaryllis in November. One produced such huge leaves that it threatened to fall off the windowsill, but never any flowers. The other one shot up and flowered within half the stated time, only to wither a couple of days later and then completely collapsed. 

The crocusses I nursed for weeks in the dark of the cellar, watering them regularly and watching their progress. There was another one in a glass, that started to rot weeks ago. In the pot there were three bulbs, one shot up, one remained small and the third rotted away too. So I was looking for just two flowering plants. But they wilted away before they even started to flower properly. I don't know what I did wrong. I was trying to find the magazine with the gorgeous flowers (they didn't seem to have any of my problems) but I must have thrown it away. And I'm afraid that's where these are going too...

Another not quite weekly painting

After a break of some weeks, I finally did another of my "weekly" paintings. It is only No. 7, but that's okay. And I was too lazy to cut up one of the large sheets of paper into the 25x25 cm squares I used for the first six, so I just took a pad of watercolour paper.

I thoroughly enjoyed painting this over the course of the day, which reminded me that I really should do it more often. And to play and experiment much more. Get down several layers of just play before allowing it to develop into something. There was another stage between the first one above, and final one below, but I forgot to take a photo.

I don't always want to work on my big easel, especially with these small paintings, it's more comfortable at the table. But I just simply cannot work flat on the table. I've done it lots of times, and almost always with the same result. It looks alright as long as it's flat in front of me, but as soon as I hold it up, the whole thing is distorted. One solution would be to stand up while painting, but bending over it all the time doesn't do my back any good at all. So last week, I went to the art shop and got a table easel. This one is wide rather than high and can be used at a low angle too. And on top of it was cheap. It really works perfectly for me.

Playing with stencils

I love stamps and stencils, and although there are tons of beautiful ones out there to buy, making your own is much more fun and you'll never have to worry about copyright and can be sure that they'll be unique.

I've been inspired by two classes to get my cutting board and knife out again. I mostly use sheets of transparencies to make my stencils. Their A4 size is large enough to make a bigger stencil and they're easy to cut but sturdy enough to paint over them. Depending on how elaborate and detailed you want your stencil to be, you can either take your time to draw the design on a separate sheet of paper and then trace it on to your transparent. Or you can just take a waterproof pen and draw it on to the transparent directly, which is what I did here.

I got my big Moleskine journal out one evening earlier this week, and just quickly and randomly put some paint down and while that was drying, I cut out the stencil. I used paint with it, which of course works perfectly fine, but I went to the art shop in my lunch time the next day to get two cans of spray paint to try out. It gives good opague and even layer, and I really like the result.

I'm still trying to do something creative every day, but I'm not always succeeding. Now, that the semester started again, and the university is filled with so many more people, I'm finding it much more difficult to sit in the cafeteria to draw and feel comfortable with it (which I already don't really feel even when there's only few people around). And then there's so many other things getting in the way sometimes, many of them things that I enjoy doing too. And that's fine. As long as I remember to sit down and paint or draw something - or carve a stamp or cut a stencil - as often as possible, even if it isn't every single day.

Some new techniques, and some more daily sketching

I've learnt some exciting new techniques this week. I'm taking the new Sketchbook Skool course at the moment, and while I found all of the classes and lessons very inspiring, I especially loved this week's class. Because of the ideas and techniques that are not your "usual" drawing and sketching stuff. I especially loved the transfer techniques, creating more unusual and expressive lines.

If only there wasn't the oil paint medium issue for one of the transfer techniques! The one I used (and that was supposed to be odourless) made my eyes water and gave me a headache for hours, as the smell lingered on in my home, until I took everything outside to throw away. I have to experiment more with this and find something that works better.

I'm also continuing my (almost) daily sketching practice. There's so many things I'm doing at the moment, another online class (that hasn't got anything to do with drawing or painting, but is very exciting too) that are taking up my time at the moment, but there's always 10 minutes to squeeze in, in the evening or in my lunch break. I went to the cafeteria and the main library this week.

The one below was also inspired by a Sketchbook Skool class. I was thrilled to see that Felix Scheinberger was a teacher in this course, and I totally enjoyed his watercolour lessons and watching him paint. I've always loved watercolours but more often than not felt frustrated with them. This year, I'm finally learning how to use them. Well, I'm determined to, anyway.

Stamp carving and a little pattern on a rainy Sunday afternoon

Even if I haven't done it very much, I love carving stamps. It's such a nice process. Drawing your design first, either directly on to your stamp block or first on a piece of paper and then transfering it on to the block, and then slowly carving off all the excess linoleum, until your design emerges. And then the first test stamp to see how it all turns out. Some more refinements, until you're happy. And what a joy when it turned out quite well.

I really like how this one turned out. It was just a quick one, drawing the leaf directly on to the (inked) block, and the carving didn't take more than 10 minutes. Of course the time depens on whether you want just the lines to stand out and the rest white (like I did with my Christmas card stamp, which took a lot longer), or the other way round, like here, which is a lot quicker. The first option allows you to colour your desin in with, for example watercolours, while with the second option, the colours comes from the ink you stamp with, and gives the whole a much more printy look.

And of course the good thing with having carved a stamp is, that you can use it again and again and again. And also create some nice patterns too.

I definitely want to spend more time making my own stamps. I'm thinking of doing a little series of different leaves. Which I think means another lunch time trip to the art shop, as I've only got very few stamp blocks left. Yay!

Sketching, style, and doing it anyway

I've been sketching a lot recently. I'm trying to sketch every day, in my lunch break when I'm at work and in the evenings at home. Daily, if possible. Here's some of my latest drawings.

I live in a small town, there's a few shops but not too many since the big city (well, it's big for Switzerland, anyway) is very close. But for some reason, we have a Dutch shop. And it's been there for years. And last week, during my holiday, I finally went there. And got some of those lovely sprinkles to put on your bread. I remember them fondly from when I was a child and always got a slice of bread with sugar or sprinkles from the Dutch mum of my friend on the way to school. And they taste as delicious as they did back then.

I found this little travel box of mini water soluble coloured pencils in one of the department stores and of course I couldn't resist. They're perfect for adding a bit of colour to a sketch and fit into my pencil case, together with all my other pens and pencils that I take with me.

Back at work after the holiday, I didn't feel too happy and motivated about it, so I went to the nearby art shop to get some new materials during my lunch break to cheer me up. And of course I had to draw them all too. They had run out of the converters for the Art Pen, so I'm using the normal cartridges until I can get one. And since the ink isn't waterproof, I'm now making the best of that, and I'm really liking the results. A quick and easy way to add a bit of depth and shadow.

I find sketching among people, and especially sketching people among people, really hard. But it's something I'm pushing myself to do. And the university's cafeteria is a good place for that. So there I sit in my lunch break, looking for victims to quickly sketch while trying to avoid anyone noticing. I wanted to add a snippet of conversation, but it was so noisy that I couldn't make out any words at all. So I used the quote from my daily quote's app, and I think it is quite a fitting one. Then a large group of people crowded around the table next to mine and got far too close for comfort, and I decided to leave. But at least I had my sketch for the day done.

I've been thinking a lot about style when it comes to drawing and painting. And I know I'm not alone with this. I think it's a natural thing to do. But if it gets to the point that you're overthinking the whole thing and it actually keeps you from drawing or painting at all, then it's definitely a problem. I'm sure that even the accomplished sketchers and painters we admire sometimes struggle with this issue. I know for sure that some do, and, seeing their work, I would never in my have dreams have thought that sometimes, they feel exactly the same as me. But what they managed to do is to embrace and accept their style, and to just go on and do it anyway. So that's what I'm trying to do now too. Don't think, just sketch...