It requires a lot of work and time to come to a final piece. Lots and lots of trials and errors before a piece is finished. Not to mention countless sleepless nights. Now and then I have to clean up my studio and make decisions of what to keep and what to throw away. 

I'm halfway through this sketchbook page and below you can see a slide show most of the drawings. I'm learning Spanish and this is a good way for me to remember words. I still have to fill the other side of the page. My intention is to use all these small drawings in a  new piece and to make a print of it.

I dug up these New Year's  cards from over the past twenty years or so. They're all made by my siblings, my daughter and me. The beginning of a new year is a perfect moment for showing them once more! 

Since 2001 I'm making these oblong concertina books. The term 'concertina' refers to a method of parallel folding with the folds alternating between front. This picture shows a detailed view of two of these books. Mustn't read too much into it: the top one is just a compilation of different paintings and text blocks without any cohesion. The only consistency would be color. The bottom one is about an long adventurous  trip I made from Belgium to Iran. 

Wishing each and everyone of you a most wonderful New Year filled with love and joy! 2018 was a good year for me. I have been very creative and am thankful to be able to share my work with you. May 2019 be a happy, prosperous and healthy one! I drew this New Year's card entirely with my favorite fineliners 0,05 and 0,1. I thought of coloring it in but finally decided to leave it just black and white. ​

I love folk art. About three weeks ago I was in New Mexico and I visited the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. Textiles from India, figurative wood carving from Poland, U.S. visionary and self-taught art, Japanese woodblock prints, Indonesian shadow puppets and many other objects: more than 130,000 from more than 100 countries. A really fascinating museum! A collection of ex votos immediately caught my attention. Were they made of metal or silver? Were they factory-made  or hand-crafted? I don't know but I could see they were embossed. I've seen collections like this before in other countries. I love all the different shapes of hands and thought it was a good idea to draw a collection of them. I first drew them with my favorite fineliners and then painted them in with a wash of watercolor paint.

 

This is a new lino cut print design with one of my favorite sayings. One of these days I will start the cutting (love that) and the printing and it will turn into a new card. I'm planning a whole series of new lino print cards with quotes that I love!

This was one of those moments of tidying up my drawing folders, finding a whole lot of pieces of paper with trials and testings from over the last fifteen years and having to decide whether to keep them or throw them away. Well, in the meantime most of them are gone but I've made some pictures of everything because they can inspire me for future pieces.  Next time I'll post some other ones!

Watercolor painting of a twig of eucalyptus, with credits to Lupen Grainne who's photo I was allowed to use as a reference: thank you Lupen! I love the greyish color of the leaves with the bright red branches.

Aquarel van een takje eucalyptus, met dank aan Lupen Grainne voor het gebruik van haar foto als referentie: dankjewel Lupen! Ik hou heel erg van de grijzig groene kleur van de bladeren samen met de felrode steeltjes.

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