Autumn's Best – Inktober 2016, part 4

Running a bit late, as I had been away and "offline": here's the final part of Inktober!

Starting with the "Forest Girl" above, for Inktober 23. I thought I'd be painting an autumn wreath, but the brush decided differently and then this girl turned up …

Before doing Inktober 24 called "Treehome" I had been passing by the new tree climbing garden in our local wood. All these platforms in the trees reminded me of treehouses (though the one I did is rather a tree-tent…). As a child I really would have adored to own a treehouse and we kids tried to build one from found wood every now and then, but these always collapsed after a while … I still would love to own one now!

I had to find out who lives in the Tree-tent above, so I did this fox-girl, called "Forest Girl 2" for Inktober 25.

"Fall in the Forest" – some fun little forest folks and motifs for Inktober 26.

 

I can't help but love autumn. I always have. It's my favourite time of the year. Inspite of the colder days and earlier nights, there's so much to cherish! So here's "Autumn's Best" for Inktober 27.

Getting ready with this "Witch's' Prep Guide for Halloween"! Inktober 28.

"Melancholia" for Inktober 29. It's that time of the year again …

And here's my Inktober 30, called"Flower Girl". It's inspired by admiring a beautiful bold woman on the train station. She wore a stunning and summery flower dress brightening up the otherwise dull, grey late autumn scene. Wondered where she did come from! Prob directly from Frankfurt airport nearby …

Finally! A "Dark Mood" for Inktober 31.

Phew! Bit exhausted now to be honest ;-) but loved it nevertheless. I hope you liked following me along for Inktober as well!

Moon and sun and the valley – Inktober 2016, week 3

The third week of Inktober! I still enjoy it – most of the time ;-)

Sometimes I think it would be better to have a real theme … But on the other hand this way I enjoy that it is spontanious and often surprising for myself: I just sit down without thinking too much or researching and sketching beforehand, and I draw whatever comes to my mind in that moment.

Inktober 16 above was inspired by the beautiful Hunter's Moon that we had in that night.

As was the drawing below for Inktober 17: "Where do we go" – well I'd love to know! Who wouldn't!? Maybe the moon has an answer …?

As I was in a nighttime mood and had noticed a lot of moths in the garden on that evening, I did some of these for Inktober 18. Some of them are imagined, some a bit more naturalistic, but as well  drawn from memory.

This was the first time that I drew an Inktober piece before really starting the day, so I wanted to do sthg related to mornings. Roosters seemed fun - here is a little parade for Inktober 19.

On Inktober 20 I had accidentally stumbled upon some beautiful areal photography - like fields and villages seen from the sky - on Pinterest. So I wasn't surprised what came up when I later on sat down to draw: a little farmhouse scene with rooster and chicken.

The quick sketch of the valley railway below – for Inktober 21 – was drawn from memory after a bike ride along the river.

The last drawing for this week was as well inspired by the valley: "Deerjump" for Inktober 22. Biking homewards in the evening I met 3 beautiful deer, running and jumping across the path right in front of me and then through the meadow to a nearby hedge. But they didn't disappear, they turned round and looked at me for what seemed a long time … it felt like they were curious and as keen on observing me than I was on observing them :-)

That's it for today – now onwards to the final Inktober week!

 P.s.: For those who are not familiar with "Inktober": You can find a short explanation about it at the end of this post here.

Inky River (Inktober 2016, week 2)

My second Inktober week has gone pretty much local … one can see that our river valley is one of my main sources of inspiration. Let's go on a little river jaunt!

Day 9: "11 o'clock Bridge" features our main bridge over the Lahn River. It's a quiet spot on the evenings and nights and I love how you can see the fogbanks rolling in from the hills.

Day 10: "The Glowing Tree",  inspired by a bike ride when I saw these flaming yellow and orange trees on the riverbank. It was pretty strange to do this in ink only … must def revisit it in full colour!

Day 11: The "River Goddess" says hello … she just turned up …

 Day 12: I am calling this "River Goddess 2".

Day 13: This is a beautiful and sometimes a bit spooky spot on the riverbank, that we call "Owl Hill". It is a derelect quarry, now just a wooded hill with lots of rocks hidden inside, and it is home to several brown owls. When you pass by in the evening or night, you can hear their calls echoing through the sky. Sometimes – depending on the direction of the wind – you can even hear them from our house.

Day 14: "Owl River" – inspired by drawing no. 13. It shows a personal and not so very accurate map of my favourite part of the river, featuring one of the valley's brown owls.

"Floating" for day 15. That's what I always think when I come by this spot in the evening or night … The drawing shows our local castle, "Count's Castle", illuminated by spotlights and floating above the city.

Let's see what I will come up with next week!

Curious about what "Inktober" means? You can find a short explanation at the end of my last post, please just scroll down!

Black Ink Nights (Inktober 2016, week 1)

So I decided to jump on the Inktober Challenge* again, like last year. Here's my first week!

Above is how I got started, drawing a little toad lily from our garden. For Inktober 2 the lily quickly morphed into a little night-time story, that then turned into a whole "Nocturne" series.

Nocturne 2 and 3 above were inspired by some evening hikes along our local river Lahn, as was the night-time scene for Inktober 5 below.

On day 6 I felt a bit uninspired, and turned to some floral/ garden motifs for help. The "Flutterby" drawing below might be a nice starting point for a pattern later on.

Day 7 continues with the "Nocturne" series. The black cat for sure is related to our own cat Dikkertje,  but I was really wondering where that ladder idea came from …? Then on the next day I realized that it was inspired by the view into our neighbour's garden, where a huge ladder for cutting the ivy is perched on a wall. Funny how the mind works!

Finally more black cat adventures with "A little night-time stroll" for day 8!
I am curious myself how this will go on … I have no real plan, I just draw what comes into my mind. Maybe I'll end up with a full night-time Inktober?

*(For those who don't know, "Inktober" is a drawing challenge happening all over social media. It was  created a few years ago to inspire people to draw and be creative. Taking part means to do (and post) one ink drawing per day for the whole month of October. Inktober has a huge response all over the world and you'll find many artists, designers or people who love to draw posting their sketches/drawings mainly on Facebook and Instagram. Just search for #inktober2016 and have fun!)

A busy start into 2016 – a Minted contest and the Heimtex fair

There's a lot happening already in the new year! I wish I could have a bit of a slow January. My instincts tell me it's time for hibernating, but no way ;-)

Ok, first there's a new Minted contest: the "Drawing and Sketching Art Challenge". It is all about drawings and sketches in any medium, but as well about watercolours, printing techniques, mixed media and collage. I loved the brief and submitted quite a lot!
Have thought a bit about how to handle the Minted contests further on. And have decided to add a "voting now!" page to my blog, so that hopefully I won't annoy everybody doing ALL my vote asking in my blogposts. From now on you'll find a full listing of my submissions to the current contests posted on the voting page. Then in my regular posts I will highlight only some of my fave art pieces. I'll be super thankful for everybody who takes the time to look through the voting page and to vote for me!!!

So here's my faves from the Drawing and Sketching challenge. Please click on the title of the image to vote if you like to …

"Lush Coast Kenmare Ireland"

First up a watercolour sketch done in Kenmare at the famous Ring of Kerry. It is one of my fave places ever … so beautiful, green and really lush like a garden.
The next drawing is about County Kerry in Ireland too: The "Lady of the Lakes" is based on my memories of visiting the beautiful Lakes of Killarney, and feeling one with nature. It was a bit like a déja vu, like coming home … I'll never forget that moment.

"Lady of the Lakes"

And here's one of my fave fashion drawings, done in pen and ink plus watercolour, concentrating on the elegant silhouette of the woman and the flowing lines of her ball dress.

"The Gown"

My little patterned fox from last year's inktober sketches is in too! I just love the softness and peaceful look of this little guy.

"The patterned Fox"

Finally here's two mixed media pieces. The first one is a collage of: a monotype printed directly from a tree slice, frottaged elements and a drawing in coloured pencil. It is part of two collages about the different qualities of time, this one about free flowing time.

"Rings of Time 1"

 And finally a collage for all sea lovers and adventurers … this is a digital collage of a watercolour ocean, handdrawn waves and clouds and the photographed boats made of sea glass and driftwood.

"Beyond Wind and Sea"

I hope you like them! And thank you for voting :-)


Then yesterday I have been visiting Heimtex fair in Frankfurt – one of the biggest fairs there is for home textiles. I met up with some lovely friends and colleagues, some with their own booths, and made some interesting new connections.

Copyright: Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH / Jochen Günther

The "Galleria" on the fair. Copyright: Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH / Jens Liebchen

It was pretty busy, though not too much. Nice for us visitors but for the designers offering their collections I wished it would have been even more …

The fair basically is divided into a trend section, the designer's hall with all textile + surface designers and studios, and then several manufacturer's halls with all kinds of different textile products for home and for objects like hotels, holiday resorts etc. There's bedding, carpets, pillows, curtains, kitchen textiles, wallpaper and many more, and a lot about the technical side of textile manufacturing too. Naturally, the designer's hall was our first point of interest, but we looked into the trend area too and followed a trend seminar by Milou Ket (recommended! Have a look at her website, it's worth it!) And then finally we had a closer look at the halls for wallpaper and curtains, both really interesting.

Novamur GmbH. Copyright: Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH / Thomas Fedra

Ugépa S.A. Copyright: Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH / Thomas Fedra

Alfred Apelt GmbH. Copyright: Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH / Jochen Günther

Elitis SAS. Copyright: Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH / Thomas Fedra

I am hoping to publish a little review of the trend "theme park" at the beginning of next week. Unfortunately it's not allowed to take pictures on the fair, but I managed to source some nice pics from the fair company itself, meant for journalists. Oh well in a way blogging is journalism too! More next week, so stay tuned!

Letting go of 2015 … happy new Year!

There's a little program on Facebook that does a review of your last year. Here's what I got … I love the random selection of images that came up. I think they very well represent my year 2015.

New Year pirates (originally done for kid's fashion) and a notebook design from Bootcamp.

Easter hares and my first editor's pick in a Minted comp, the "Lady of the Orchard".

 My "Rooftop Garden" pattern (Fabric 8 Contest semifinalist). Another win on Minted, the "Willow Twins".

One of my Inktober drawings. My bestselling print on Minted, the "Cloud Symphony" from Donegal.

A snapshot in November. And 2 sketchy advent angels.

2015 has been a good year.

I had a nice mix of commissions, graphic design as well as illustration/ surface design, which kept me quite busy throughout the year.

Did MATS Bootcamp and MATS B (again) in winter and spring. I complained a lot about not having enough time for the courses … but still … after MATS B I felt like walking through a door, or up to the next level. I guess I only realized a bit afterwards how much I'd learnt.

Had my first intern in spring, an interesting experience. I must get back into teaching soon!

Let go of a few aspirations that didn't feel right anymore. Maybe this was the reason why some other doors opened up quite unexpectedly?
Found out that taking part in competitions can be quite fun and isn't always a waste of time – if you win :-)

Did my first month-long drawing challenge with Inktober. Had a lot of fun with it and often surprised myself with the subjects/themes I came up with. But it took up way more time than I expected, and I often yearned to "do something more" with my sketches, which then would take up even more time.
So … no "Art Daily" for me in 2016. But I can well imagine to do 1 or 2 monthly drawing/painting challenges per year.

To round up the year, I sold a good number of art prints via Minted in the holiday season. Such a great feeling! Thank you all!

In general my work got more painterly, more free flowing, less cluttered. Which I love! I feel way more confident about my work and my direction than at the beginning of this year.
When it comes to favourite subjects I love painting/illustrating anything with animals. I am a confessing romantic. And my Minted success rekindled my love for landscape painting as well.
I too realized that I now can switch quite effortlessly from illustration to graphic design to surface design and back again. With tasks as varied as coming up with a communication/advertising concept for a local health centre to designing patterns for kid's fabric this is a great gift for me! It opens up so many possibilities :-)

Ok, 2015, and now … there you go …
I'll raise the anchor of my little pirate ship and go looking for new adventures in 2016! Happy New Year everybody!

#Inktober, week 4 and wrap-up

Inktober, week 4! I am surprised myself how much I enjoyed doing this drawing challenge. It was really good to see what my mind came up with without a brief, a concept or any kind of preparation. I almost got a bit addicted to my daily painting practise. I built myself a ritual … I was either drawing right in the morning, before the day really starts, or late at night just before bedtime. Both times when it is quiet and I am really relaxed (and a bit sleepy still in case of morning practises). If I hadn't been relaxed yet I quickly transfered into that state. It was almost like a little meditation every day. Here is what I came up with – and sometimes surprised myself with:

 

No idea where the Wise One came from …?

 The Lady of the Lakes is based on a personal memory
of visiting the Lakes of Killarney in Ireland and feeling
"at home" at first glance, like being one with nature.

 

 I did this after looking at a lot of eastern european folk art
pictures on Pinterest in the morning …

 Nightswimming … sweet summer memories on a foggy autumn day!

 Here's our little black devil cat having fun
with pumpkins … slowly getting into Halloween mood.

And more spooky stuff as follows:

And I just had to put them all together in one picture,
so here's my whole Inktober:

Challenge completed! Thinking about doing a painted advent now … maybe …