Day 40–42 (fri-sun): update and creative stuff

Health wise still not at my best: I can hardly eat. Stomach is painful and stubborn for some reason, I’m hoping it will pass soon. (Might be just a virus going through my system, but you can’t do anything about it, just wait it out.)

I’m going to give my body the time it needs to heal and in meanwhile I also did some more backgrounds.

Loved how the above one came out!! Napkins, gesso and self made alcohol sprays!

These are still ok if I want to achieve a more shabby background. (cheap chalk pastel above and water-soluble chalk pastel: both fixed)

Love love love this one! Inkpads and white gesso… Yum!!

I love the colors, but I don’t like the fabric for inside a journal. (Neocolor II)

Cheap gel crayons that are soluble (would be ok as a shabby background, but they have trouble moving around.) And again not too fond of the fabric.

I also did some playing around with different mediums:

As you can see I tested various mediums. Sometimes I feel that i haven’t got the faintest idea how to work with watercolors, but gouache goes perfectly fine. (Probably a bit too uptight with watercolors and being more loose with gouache.)

In meanwhile, I have another background drying in my art journal. But it is still far from done. That one will become an actual spread this time. No sneak peeks yet! Patience!

I hope you are healthy and creative and are having a good time!

See you soon!

Day 34 (sat)–39 (thur): an update

For the last couple of weeks my body and I have had some misunderstandings. At least, that is what I think they are. I’m easily fatigued, stomach has issues, bowels have issues, also had quite a few stubborn headaches…

I did go to the exercise center. Did the things, did the work. Came home: did dishes, cleaned up… And then body said stop. But that was ok because, I had done exercises (lost a bit more weight) and also managed to do some household.

Usually I keep my phone on silent, and that is why I had missed a call that informed me my household help was sick. This meant I had to rearrange stuff. (Also because this week has a holiday in it, I have no cleaning help.)

And then my mind goes: I have to do ALL THE THINGS, and starts stressing, which means my body starts stressing… (not fun!)

Ok… It only took me about a half hour to scroll down my facebook-feed and find this picture below… But every time I see it I have to laugh, cause it is so true!

That is how it has been the last couple of days…
I’m trying to stay positive!

Let’s hope it all goes back to normal very soon.

See you later!

Day 33: Exciting news!!!

As I was telling you yesterday, I was feeling a bit emotional. And of course when you feel like this, things tend to happen: you drop a whole container of small embellishments on the floor and your cat is having a joyous time (while you just want to clean it up and still haven’t found what you were looking for: I had lost my stencils.)

Suddenly I had this ‘feeling’ (not really sure how to describe it) and I had this urgent need to look next to my desk. (I have some boxes piled on top of each other with adhesives, collage material, etc.)
And what do you know… My folder with stencils was at the top, under the table!

People who follow the mixed media world, know that this period is when new art classes can be signed up for, places can be won via giveaways… Very exciting with what courses come out and how they develop over the years!

I have followed Life Book by Tamara Laporte since 2014. And through her I met Effy Wild. Who also does a year long program called Book of Days.
But this coming year, she is coming out with a new version, a collaboration between her and several other artists called: Book of Days: All Stars.

So, of course I had to make sure to leave comments everywhere, and sharing her new course, hoping to win a spot. (And to be honest, winning a seat on a year long course, that hadn’t happen to me before, even though I have tried for years!)

It so happened that someone I knew on Facebook was also giving away a space for free because she is guest teaching on Book of Days: All Stars.
I was the fourth one to share and make a comment. But you know how it is: leaving a comment, kind of hoping you will win, but trying to be realistic and not getting your hopes up too high.
So yesterday evening, while I was fumbling about with the embellishments that were literally everywhere on the floor, Rachel Harries (Blog, Instagram, Facebook-page) posted that she used a random number generator and number 4 was the lucky winner!

At first I wasn’t even sure if 4 really was my number. I had to go check the original message
But OMG! I won a seat on next years Book of Days!!!Wonderful! Amazing! Woohoo!

I can’t wait 'til  next year!!

-Dances around-

I hope you get some exciting news too in the near future!

Love, Mie

Day 31 and 32: Creative center, artstuffs

For 32 days I have been thinking of putting a blogpost up, even if I combined days. 32 days! Amazing!
But this doesn’t mean I’m going to quit!
Making blogposts actually fuels me to make more time for art too. And I’ve also been taking more pictures lately, which are very nice memories of creative stuff, Bo antics, and nature shots if the weather is working with me.
Which it wasn’t yesterday (Wednesday). It kept on raining while I rode to the creative center. And it kept doing that until I got home. So, still no picture of the bike yet… But it will come!

At the creative center it was free choice of what to do. No sketching of people cause the person who facilitates it, went to see an exhibition. (Arriving out of breath, half soaked, I wasn’t really in the mood to get on my bike again…)
But this gave me the perfect chance to start early with Christmas Cards!
After gathering the supplies and some inspiration, I started working on watercolor paper with watercolor paint (I can’t for the life of me remember the brand, but it came out of a travel palette. It was a different palette than Winsor Newton Cotman.)
I mixed my own colors, threw salt on it, let it sit for a bit and then dried it with a hairdryer. (I didn’t know they had one there!)
No pictures, since I would like it to be a bit of a surprise!

What I can post pictures of: I experimented some more with backgrounds:

I’m not too sure about this one. maybe If I had taken different colors? Something about it is bugging me. Maybe I should add a brayered layer on it… It’s an experiment so for now I’m going to leave it as it is.

But this one:

This is a different story. I love this one! It’s simple, has structure (but not too much), not ‘too bright in my face’. With this one I felt free to add some this and some that. A background like this makes me want to work further on it. Put a focal point, some text maybe, some doodles… (for me this is a success!)

I finished the first background I shared, on Thursday, and it was the day that my body demanded rest of me. I was apparently also a bit emotional, but have no clue what that was about. There was this sadness that filled my eyes with tears, but none came out.
With the weather changing (temperature dropping, less daylight) I do feel a bit more sensitive… Part of the season?

I’m going to leave you here for now… But I’ll be back!

See you tomorrow!

Day 29 and 30: Sporty and some art

Mondays aren’t usually my favorite days. But I have to say that it was actually quite a good day.

I was awake before my alarm went off! (That is usually a good sign lol.)
The exercise center was on the schedule, and I could finally test out my new-to-me bike. (Which I still need to take a picture of… I keep forgetting!)
The exercise schedule has been adjust a bit, since my knees aren’t doing too well, so I asked to switch biking with walking. So instead of 7 mins biking and 5 mins walking, I now have 10 mins walking (at a higher speed) and 7 mins walking (also at a higher speed.) This way my legs still get the movement (next to the other strengthening exercises.)

Home, I ‘flew’ into the dishes (with headphones on), started laundry, did some cleaning up…

All of the above make it a good day: able to do my appointment + also being able to do some household. (This way I have the feeling that I’m being productive.)

During the evening I finally made some time to work on Bootcamp (a course by Effy Wild).
I had watched several videos already, but hadn’t done the physical part yet.

Bo is supervising (and checking to see what he can steal!):

(Background of watercolour with salt on it)

And then another:

(This is a gouache background with salt on it.)

With the second one I was less rigid and dared to experiment with waterdrops and mixing colors. It is just very happy-making!! Although the mixture of blue and green and yellow aren’t really my favorite colors: this background is my favorite of the two.

Tuesday (today)… Not a lot to say about it: except that my body needed more rest after the sporting labors! (And Bo has done his usual antics of course! The cute fluff-ball!)

Not sure if there will be some art play, but I still have some time before my bed starts whispering my name!

See you tomorrow!