End of the year newsletter
Closing a chapter, starting a new one
Dear all,
Salt dough and cardboard cookies, paper stars and painted Christmas balls hang in the tree in the corner of the room. It's not a real one this time, but luckily it still smells like Christmas, because of the pomanders hanging from the lamp above the dining table. I'm typing underneath, since it's really time for the December newsletter!
If you follow me on Instagram and YouTube, you might wonder if I'm still working. I shared hardly any new paintings. In the past year, or actually the past two years, I've made so many paintings that I'm a bit fed up with it now. Always working towards a 'finished' and 'frameable' result gets boring after a while and there's no room for experimentation. And therefore also little room to learn.
Last week I took my last two oil paintings to the framer. These works painted largely from imagination were quite a challenge to make, but I'm happy with the mood I managed to capture and everything I learned during the making process. The paintings will be on display during the Art Fair in Naarden, the Netherlands, 23-26 January 2025.
Because standing behind the easel for a long time is no longer pleasant due to my rapidly growing belly, I am working on things that have been lying around for quite some time. Yes, you guessed it right: Brebella. It has been four years since I went for a long walk with my son, then still a baby, and a whole storyboard suddenly popped into my head. When I got home, I recorded it in my sketchbook. All the pictures for the secretly autobiographical book about sheep Brebella have been finished for a year now, but I have not been able to find a publisher who wants to work on it. That is why I have recently been informing myself about the world of self-publishing, but I was not very enthusiastic about that either. It is quite a puzzle. Picture books are a category of their own. Do I choose a cluster publisher or not? Can I take care of the marketing myself? If not, who should I involve and what would I be left with?
After many hours of orientation, I have come to the conclusion that crowdfunding is the best option. Because the book is in Dutch and the pictures of the typical ‘Wadden’ landscape will mainly appeal to the Dutch, I will choose the platform Voordekunst.nl, but anyone from any country can support me and make a donation. In the meantime, I am preparing the campaign and I will soon share everything about it. I am excited that my book will finally become reality and that this chapter can be closed. The pictures of Brebella are still hanging on the wall in my studio, but will soon make way for new ideas.
Last week I started with preparatory work for another picture book that I have had in my head for ages: The heron who could not sit still. Thanks to a course by illustrator Ema Malyauka, I was inspired to get off to a good start and not make the same mistakes as with Brebella. Last time it was quite a search for unity of color and style, because I only started thinking about it halfway through making the pictures. I am now doing that in advance. Looking for references, trying out material combinations and creating a colour palette were nice steps to take. And all that in my self-bound and very shabby sketchbook, on my favourite paper Hahnemüle Copperplate.
When I write it down like this, it seems like I have a lot of working hours behind me, but that is not true. In my latest video on YouTube I am honest about what the life of an artist and mother of little children looks like. I think that there are too little mothers online who give a realistic image of being an artist in combination with running a household and taking care of the children. I am lucky if I can work 10 hours a week. I am not saying this to complain, because I think motherhood is the best thing that happened to me. Since I have children, I am always inspired and more productive than ever. But building and working on an art career is not possible right now. In a few years that will be different, I know that, so I try not to listen to my restless artist inside and enjoy everything that life gives me at the moment.
Finally, in case you missed it: the group exhibition at Galerie Année in Haarlem is still running until December 29, 2024! The finissage is on Saturday December 28 at 4:00 PM and I will be there. So, if you want to talk to me, you can!
