pattern concept, power sleep, death and birth

starting out, digging inspiration, draw

i've been learning from my daily drawings. returning to the drawing table on a set time keeps the habit going and loosens up my wrist, while my imagination and skills get a daily fresh start. 

pull in the real thing

at their worst however, my drawings feel static and i search for ways to liven up compositions. i enjoy a frill or two but don't take kindly to too much romance. 

being careful, yet loose

i want colour and composition to hone in on one another, all while i find a message attractive and the addition of a quirky element enthralling. i aim for impact but i also think beauty should prevail. 

trying out backgrounds

those dilemmas and conundrums frequently hold me in a tight grip. sometimes they gain power and lock me down into hideous self doubt. i try to go with the flow instead of resisting however.

unhappy with backgrounds, enlarging the page

i may then stumble upon a few good nights sleep and quite surprisingly i discover what the pattern is and how i'm going to translate all the separate bits into a whole picture.

even more unhappy with backgrounds, now watering down the dots, et al

one of my fixations in visuals is anything trellis: carved garden fences, elegant plant rhizomes (= roots, but i just LOVE that word, don't you?), skeletal tree shadows in winter landscapes. 

it's a birth of a myosotis flower, our late neko's († 2014) favourite

i will come back to those things that drive me. for now, a study of myosotis or the elegant forget-me-not. they've come up in the garden, after we missed them last spring. 

enjoy sunday, and have a fantastic week ahead! ♥

wishing and hoping and thinking and ... {earth day}

easter promises from ariane r.

i prepared quite a different blog post over the past week, for i was convinced i could combine renovation work in the mornings with drawing in the afternoons. no such thing.

house in suburb

firstly i had to look for my courage somewhere amongst the cabbage, for i had no courage at all. how i ever got myself pumped enough to keep going... now there's a question. 

this is exactly what it means : new laptop

once i got going i just kept going, i think, breaking the tension by frequent visits to the diy store; luckily just round the corner from where i live.

bathroom progress, as seen from above

so all i did was measuring, sawing, drilling, plastering, fastening, beating and wishing. wishing up for a different scenario, that was. just to show you how hard i swallowed my efforts. 

detail of sanding down old tiny cupboard. circle is from where an old handle sat

somehow it got to friday and an hesitant sun in a grey forecasted sky guided my outdoors paint stripping acts on a bedside table to be. it did get me closer to the wood worm... yeah. that too. ☻

cherry blossom pink by now, bedside table to be

once it starts raining, it doesn't half pour, albeit those grey skies remained dry. which is a plus. and after all, all the things i got done, are now forever done. only...

bathroom {un}progress and end of my street

i didn't finish the bathroom, did i? i got a few new ideas along the way. and i brace myself with the knowledge that the creative process does have this tendency of looking like i make things up as i go along, ...  

earth day, april 22, melodye's AC

... so that realising where it gets me and taking it from there is jollier than feeling sorry for what all that hasn't been done... and a safer bet than just wishing. that as well, i guess. 

melodye's AC this weekend and have a fantastic week ahead {and weekend!} ♥! 

last week

playing around with houses cut-outs on a painted background

much in the spirit of last weekend's blog post, i would like to share another one of my weeks past. it's been a busy one, with too many office days, not enough creative ones.

page from travel notebook. i will come back to that next week

i was limited to sketching on the commuter train, which is messy but doable. a few brush strokes do have the power to wipe away a cumbersome day.

a bigger backgrounds map, carefully assembled digitally

in the studio i've been working away on a map of the area i live in. it is a long time project, which is putting it mildly. i managed to scan the map into my computer. 

the cut-outs (photocopies)

this has opened up all sorts of opportunities, in that i will be using cuttings from the 2014 daily project and 2016 exhibition to play around with on the scanned map. 

one of four

i'm also into the four seasons series again. i hold autumn in my hand, but am happy to work out spring and summer now. these will most probably become a set of postcards.

next, or simultaneous move would be to somehow work out my tinyWOOLFalphabet i've been building up and produce eye catching postcards using the bespoke letters.

a few weeks ago i picked up a few twigs. today they kind of flower, this is from a few weeks ago

in a distant future i will come round to my present daily project and work out designs, tapping into the portfolio i have build the past year. there's a rhythm now, it seems.

have a fantastic week ahead! ♥

on the power of a daily project

today's lunch happened in the local park. pink cherry blossoms in early stage

my present instagram daily project isn't my first one. i've done 365 house fronts before. i've written a word a day, a thought a day and once upon a time, even, a poem a day. 

lemon twigs in concert last thursday | neighbours' garden's blossoms

a great advantage of the diverse presence of social media these days is that it's the best guardian angel to make sure the job gets done: gently urging for a daily post. 

lemon twigs in concert last thursday | curb flowers on my way to mums'

because if you don't, you fall behind. and when you fall behind, you get stressed out. and when you do, there's no more fun to be had in a daily performance of any kind. 

an instagram post preview | my today's homemade lunch

i've wanted to practice painting skills, since i started (on september 17th, well over half way then), and that's exactly what happened. i practice(d). every. single. day. well, maybe not. 

home countries.. near childhood railway station

i do tend to paint mornings or afternoons, thus preparing a week's worth of posts, so i can publish each morning and pay attention to the annotations. 

a sneak peek at a drawing | some shadows (!) on parked truck

just like the house fronts in 2014, i think i'll be happy to get to the end of this and then perhaps see what's next. well. i know what's next. painting school is next! ☺ 

home countries meadow

sometimes i wonder, how it happened i didn't know all of this when i was younger. but it's dark waters, and i'd rather stick to today and perhaps, tomorrow? 

have a fantastic week ahead! ♥

homelands

margate, evening walk 'home'. a bit of a epiphanic moment there... ☺

organizing my photos fresh after coming back is a must. if i don't, i tend to let go and won't easily come back to it all. i managed to get an order in there. 

margate sands. so lovable

i discover i am forever drawn to curious things and emptiness laden imagery. i no longer excuse myself, it's who i am. what you see, and all that...

this is not dulwich picture gallery. it is the back of belair house

incredibly lucky with dry weather, the skies were often many shades of grey. so the one afternoon on the grass in dulwich gallery grounds was a proper treat.

potato and leek soup in the upstairs restaurant at wellcome collection

i managed to draw, paint and write, much as i had envisaged, which means i did take a lot of breaks. i need the breaks like the air that i breathe. 

upstairs gallery at foyle's

i also discover that my next holidays will not be in the UK. i think i will travel south bound, and in wintertime. yes, i think so. i crave new grounds.

breakfast bus on margate seafront. no, i didn't try it

all of it, again, you find here. please, feel free to join me on my pretty much chronological account. i got so inspired after all. cheerio. ♥