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!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Wishing everybody a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Will be leaving very early tomorrow so I am signing off now. Back next week. Looking forward to some quieter days "between the years" …

P.s.: The scene above is completely fictional! It is sooo warm over here, almost like springtime. Wishing for snow really, but winter is postponed obviously …

Happy advent!

Now I wanted to do a painted advent this year. Like REALLY wanted to! But no way … like always in December I am far too busy with commissioned work. It's mainly graphic design projects at this time of the year.

I take my hat off to everyone who does an advent while working full time and full speed!!!
For me I think I will only manage to do this if I start early in autumn and work on it in advance …
Anyway, I wanted to share the bits I did for the 1st and 2nd of December. Happy advent everybody!

On another note the Cyber Monday sale at Minted is on still! 25 % off! It's extended until today (Thursday December 3rd) noon San Francisco time – which is 9pm mid European time. So only a few hours left … if you're interested my wall art hop over here NOW! And thank you so much everybody who already ordered :-)

New prints in my Minted store!

These pieces have recently been launched on Minted and are available as art prints now.

First up here's "Essential Garden", a series of mixed media prints. Papercut, monoprinting, drawing and digital. They're inspired by planting our rooftop garden. There's lots of good memories attached to this series, so it feels fab to see them in my store!

 

 Essential Garden: Seed 

 Essential Garden: Treasure

 Essential Garden: Bloom

Essential Garden: Passion

I had to add this screenshot as I really like how they look all together:



And then there's this piece, mixed media again, papercut, monoprinting, drawing, watercolour and digital: "Cactus Night", based on a memory of a peaceful summer's night. Available in three colourways, violet dusk, midnight blue and silver dawn.

 

An then finally here are my two wins from this summer's Minted+ Domino Art Challenge, now available too as Limited Edition Prints: "The Willow Twins", a dreamy landscape from Flanders …

 and finally "Seated in Blue", one of my all time fave model drawings :-) Really happy to see it on there!

Hoping you'll like them!

A peek into my world and my new Minted store

Lately, I had fun choosing pictures for the "About me" section of my new Minted store. As the pictures give you a nice peek into my world I thought I'd share them here on the blog as well.  

First up, my go-to-medium, watercolour, and a floral painting in progress. I get a lot of inspiration from our rooftop garden, so it sure had to be included.

Ok, now let's go inside :-) Here's my studio! And another work in progress picture (preparing a monoprinting session).

Me sketching outside … love doing this! Our local Lahn river valley and the lake provide a lot of beautiful scenery for inspiration.

Some more work in progress shoots, again from monoprinting.




I fiddled way too long with the store's header picture … until I finally settled on another watercolour painting scene. For now, most of my wallart prints offered on Minted are watercolours, so I think this fits quite well. Here's a screenshot of my header and store. Come have a look inside! I hope you like it! More prints will be added soon!

P.s.: I am still shaking my head about all this … when I stumbled into my first Minted competition in the summer I didn't even know that I could win myself a store! I just thought it'll be nice to do something different – it was a competition for photography … and then I was totally taken by surprise when I won my first editor's pick and got included into the Minted wallart collection. A few competitions later I have 8 awards under my belt and Minted is just selling my first prints, yay!

#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 …