Ine Spee

Daily-Draw February 10

2012-02-10T17:38:00.006+01:00

For today's drawing I started with a simple digital cloud practice (after listening to 'Feeling Good' by Muse I felt like drawing a blue sky).

Then I remembered how I used to draw digital"realistic" images all the time years ago. I would spend days on just one drawing, drawing individual hairs and spots, all on a simple online drawing program that wouldn't let you save your progress (all you could do was submit the finished image). So I'd have my computer on for dayssss, drawing during my spare time after school heh.

I decided to do a realistic drawing again, though I did it a lot more roughly than I would have back in the day. The time limit has something to do with that too. =P
I drew a snow leopard as they are some of my favourite animals. I love how majestic they look!

Daily-Draw February 9

2012-02-09T21:24:00.006+01:00

This is for those people who have over-active brains at night, when you should be sleeping. I know I'm one of them. Random thoughts going through your mind, thinking about anything and everything, seemingly all at once!

Daily-Draw February 8

2012-02-08T17:54:00.007+01:00

No doodle or experiment today.
I finally finished a commissioned drawing for a website which is to be used as a T-shirt design and on stickers. Had been working on this for a while already, drawing motorbikes is not easy!
I made three different versions so the guy can pick whichever one he likes best (he likes all three, whoo).

Daily-Draw February 7

2012-02-07T11:38:00.003+01:00

Drew this one at night. Sometimes it feels like life is crushing you down and you have to try and survive, to keep moving on.

Daily-Draw February 6

2012-02-06T23:41:00.003+01:00

I will already apologise, as today's entry is really just kinda bleh. But I didn't really feel like thinking of anything to draw today. Just grabbed some scrapped paper that I was about to throw away (and still will) and started drawing.

The first one had some colour on it from where I tested my paints. Just started drawing in that corner, and somehow I ended up turning this into some kind of Venus portrayal (like the Venus from Botticelli). My scanner didn't do the colours/lines any justice (made it all look worse), but I didn't feel like trying to fix it.

Then I also doodled this on another piece of scrap paper and gave it some highlights/shading in Photoshop. Don't ask me what's going on cause I don't know heh. Just a random doodle.

Daily-Draw February 5

2012-02-05T21:09:00.003+01:00

Something quick today because I couldn't think of anything to draw.
I decided to fiddle a bit with the brush settings in Photoshop to see what I could do with it. A Chinese-like drawing is the result.

Daily-Draw February 4

2012-02-04T17:16:00.006+01:00

A quick doodle today. I drew a robin, since we have quite a few of those in our snowy garden, pecking away at the food we've placed there for them. Such cute and lovely birds!

Daily-Draw February 3

2012-02-03T17:37:00.002+01:00

And here is number 3! I currently seem to have a thing for long vertical canvasses haha. I just find it fun to work with I think, plus it helps to portray the fall in this one.

The Fall of Icarus

Daily-Draw February 2

2012-02-02T15:59:00.002+01:00

So here is the second drawing for the second day of the month. So far, so good. =P

I drew this last night while listening to some (sad) music. Also had Radiohead's "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" playing, which influenced this a bit I guess, having the character fade out into the darkness.

I drew this with a white chalk pencil (I think) on black A3 paper. One of the only art things I still have around in my room heh.

Daily-Draw February 1

2012-02-01T13:35:00.007+01:00

So I'm on a forum somewhere and someone decided to start a thread in which we all post one drawing for every day in February (he got the idea from another forum). So every day you post a new drawing. This can be anything, a finished drawing, work in progress, a simple doodle.

I decided to join, but I'm not sure I'll be able to draw something every day. We'll see though!
Since I have already packed away most of my art supplies, I think most of these will be digital doodles heh. Unless I decide to unpack my stuff, but I might be too lazy for that. =P

Anyway here's my first doodle!
Decided to go for something wintery since it's so cold here and there's snow everywhere.
A boy is standing in a deep pit or ditch and I guess the girl is afraid to go down there herself. Yeah, I don't know why I drew this. =P

Feeling restless

2012-01-26T03:35:00.003+01:00

It's 3:35 am and I'm still awake, despite the fact I was feeling tired all day and was looking forward to some sleep. However I can't fall asleep. My mind is currently over-active, thinking of a million things at once.

I don't know if it's the prospect of having to look for a "real" job, but today I kept thinking of things I could be doing, new things I could be learning and creating. I kept looking up tutorials for all kinds of things, looking up supplies and what I would need, even workshops I could possibly attend. Not for one thing, but for multiple things (jewellery, sewing...). It's like my brain is telling me: "You don't need a real job, you are born to create things!". Too bad my brain doesn't understand yet that I can't make a living that way. =P

But yeah, I've been looking at tutorials today and I can't stop thinking about creating new things. Which is bad for a few reasons:

I don't have the money to start doing something new
I already have lots of other things I should be doing
I never really push through with an idea anyway, so it'll just be a waste of time/money
something tells me I would probably fail at doing those things anyway (since I'd rush into it, not taking my time to properly learn)
anything new I do makes me feel bad because that's time I'm not spending drawing... when drawing is supposed to be the thing I love but I've not done it in so long
and many more reasons!

Sorry for the late night rant, I just needed an outlet! Also the next comic I found kinda fits in with all this. A bit, maybe.

Sale in my shop!

2012-01-23T14:11:00.003+01:00

Hey everyone!

People who follow me on Facebook might know it already, but I'm currently doing a sale in my shop! Since I will be moving in a month, I decided to clear out some of my stuff so I have less to pack away and move with me across the sea. It will also be a nice way to maybe start with some new products once I'm settled in and have found a job. =)

So if you're interested in some of my jewellery or cards, head over to my shop by clicking on the image below!

Click here for sales up to almost 40%!

House Hunting

2012-01-09T22:24:00.008+01:00

So I'm sure some of you remember me mentioning (in my last post here even) that my plan is to move to the UK soon to live with my boyfriend there. I can now say that after lots of looking online and visiting some houses in real life, we have finally found a place in Bournemouth! =D
(if you just want to see the pictures and don't want to read the story, just scroll down)

It has been a bit of a busy 2 weeks, not just with Christmas and New Year, but also with the house hunting. I had made a list of houses/flats I liked and kept checking the website for new additions every day. When I finally got to the UK at the end of December, we started making appointments to check out houses.

The next day we already got to check out a place and we immediately fell in love with it! It was a one bedroom place, but the living room, kitchen and bedroom were quite big. Plus a lovely shower, 2 toilets and best of all, furnished! It's located in a quiet residential area, with the back leading into a park. We were sold.

But we knew that we couldn't just go for the first house we viewed without at least comparing it to others. So we arranged some more viewings and checked out some more places (well, 3)... but we just kept thinking about the first one, and none of the others seemed to be as good. Either they were older, smaller, not in a good location, none were furnished, yet they all cost the same.

So after a few nervous days being afraid it would be gone, we called back the agency to say we wanted the first place... and they said we could have it! =D
We went in to sign the contracts, paid our deposit, rent and fees and on Friday we got the keys! We already bought some small things from Ikea and other stores to get the basic kitchen stuff ready and to make it feel a bit more homely. Sadly I had to return back to Belgium on Saturday, but I'll be planning to move at the end of February/start of March. I will finally be living in my own place!

For those interested, here are some pictures taken with my crappy phone. They don't even do the place any justice since it's bigger than it looks!

Our front door, at the back of the building.

The communal garden seen from our front door.
The park is through that gate on the right.
There were squirrels running on the grass. =)

The living room with two leather sofas and the shelf unit.
The tv isn't ours, so that might still go (we have our own anyway).

Dining table, with a small window to the kitchen. Love it!

The kitchen. Hard to show in a picture but it's big!
That hole is going to be filled with another shelf unit,
as that's where the previous owner had his dishwasher.

The cooker and fridge/freezer.
I will love filling that fridge up with yummy food! =D

Big shower, wheee!

Part of the bedroom, with the door leading to a small built-in wardrobe.

And the bed. Very simple but I'm sure it'll be fine.
As long as my boyfriend will stay on his side. =P

So that's what my place currently looks like! It still needs some work done of course, but it already looks lovely to me. Now I just have to hope my boyfriend won't mess it up before I move in there!

One step closer to growing up...

2011-11-07T12:28:00.005+01:00

So the news has been announced to my parents. I will be moving out soon.

Of course how soon has yet to be defined (probably somewhere after December?), and I won't just be moving out. No. I'll actually be moving to the United Kingdom, to go live with my boyfriend (who lives there already).

But of course I need to save up some money first so we can find a place to live in. It's a bit hard to do when you have no job and finding a job for two or three months is almost impossible I think. So I'm trying to sell cards and jewellery, so far without much success haha.

If you're interested in any of my stuff and want to help me out, you can have a look at my Etsy Store. Or commission me for a drawing or something. Anything! =)

I made a cute brooch a while ago, which I recently put on Etsy. It's based on my 'Whistle' drawing (which you can also see in my blog banner). I simply wanted to try out my clay to see what I could do with it. If I get more inspiration, I might try making more stuff like this.

Music note brooch.

Also when I was in Spain, I didn't just make those four Christmas cards I posted about in my previous post. I also made a drawing, something a bit different. I had taken a list with me with a lot of random words on there, to hopefully give me some inspiration. Bottled is one of the words that was on the list and a word that stood out to me, so I started sketching.

The word “bottled” brought up the “message in a bottle” image for me. But I didn't want to have a typical letter in a bottle, so I changed it around a bit to have an actual person in there. Maybe a bit weird, but to me it fits. It's something that I imagine would go well with a poem. =)

A message of love and kindness, bottled away for when you need it most.

'Bottled Love'

Drawn with inks and white ecoline ink on brown paper, then I touched it up in Photoshop. I decided to sort of leave the creases in the paper (from the water/ink) because I think it adds to the image. =)

Christmas cards

2011-10-31T16:17:00.003+01:00

Hey everyone!

I've had a bit of a "vacation month" during October, taking a break from everything and basically travelling to different places (some planned, some not). It's been a really nice month and I felt like I needed it to regain some inspiration and energy.

I've not sat still during this time. Apart from the travelling, I also made some new drawings! To get out of my artist block, I forced myself to make Christmas cards. It wasn't an easy task as I made them in Spain, while it was usually about 30 - 35°C outside. Not an easy task to think of Winter scenes then. =P

But here are the cards I've made, apart from the one with the snowman as I made that one a longer time ago.

Christmas cards!
Click on the picture to see a bigger version.

These cards are available for sale if you would like them. They are folded greeting cards with room for you to write a message on the inside. They also come with a white envelope.
It's €2.5 per card, but if you order 3 or more, they become €2! So you could get all 5 cards for €10. =)
They are also available in Dutch, except for the snowman picture which I only have in English.

If you are interested in any of them, feel free to let me know!

And now for something different

2011-09-29T13:53:00.003+02:00

So I've been trying to pick up drawing and painting again recently. Things are still moving slowly as I'm still trying to find some inspiration though. It's difficult to get back into it, so if anyone has some inspiration to share, feel free! =)

I bought some new acrylic paints recently as I had noticed I had completely run out of my old ones (most had dried up, awww). And of course I had to try them out. I couldn't really think of anything illustrative to draw, so I decided to do something a bit more realistic, something I used to do when I was younger.

So I found myself a small canvas I had laying around and decided to paint a golden eagle. It's not the most realistic or detailed painting ever (it's a bit tiny for that too), but I like the result, especially since I hadn't used acrylics in a few years. =)

Golden Eagle in acrylics

Super Llama!

2011-09-27T18:09:00.004+02:00

I was contacted a while ago by Wim Leers, who saw my stall at a local art market. He asked if I could draw an image for his new website (www.wimleers.com).
Not just any kind of image though, no. He asked if I could draw for him a Super Llama!

And of course I wanted to give it a try!

It took me quite a few sketches and some redesigns, because apparently llamas aren't as easy to draw as you would imagine. But in the end the result turned out quite nice I think. =)

Super Llama!

If anyone is ever interested in a commission (be it a logo, a drawing or something else), feel free to contact me. =)

And the winner is...

2011-09-22T00:47:00.005+02:00

So the Give Away has come to an end! Time for me to pick a winner!

(Sorry for the bad picture quality, I had to use my phone for this.)

All the names are ready to be put in the bag.

The innocent hand (mine!) is ready to pick a name!

And this is the winner!

Congrats Karen Vandelaer! You have won in my first Give Away! =D
You can contact me at info@inespee.com to let me know what prize you want (and of course to give your address).

For everyone else, thank you for participating!
I'm sorry if you didn't win, but I'm planning to do more give aways in the future, so maybe Lady Luck will be on your side then! =)

New Magnets + Give Away Reminder

2011-09-17T14:13:00.004+02:00

I have uploaded some new magnets to my Etsy shop! Some of those feature Japanese patterns and flowers, but three sets feature my own drawings. =)

Cute animal magnets!

Magnets featuring my 'Whistle' illustration.

Don't forget that these magnets (and a few other items) are available in my Give Away! So if you'd like to participate, leave a comment on the blog entry about the give away: click here.

Give Away!

2011-09-14T13:26:00.007+02:00

(Scroll naar beneden voor uitleg in het Nederlands.)

So I'm doing my first ever give away! I figured it was about time I did one really. =)

What will I be giving away?

Click on the image to see a bigger version.

As you can see, there are a few things you can pick from:

you can pick one pair of earrings (rose studs or the dangling earrings)
or you can pick one of my magnet sets (designs can be found here, more will follow!)
or you can pick 3 postcards (you can see the different designs here)

How can you win?

I will be randomly picking out one winner (if there is a lot of response, I might pick more than one winner!). You can earn a chance at winning by following the next steps. Each step gains you an extra chance to win!

To participate, leave a comment on this blog post. If you don't do this, you won't be able to win as I only pick from the names that appear here.
If you are not yet a follower of my blog, you can do so by clicking on "Join this site" on the right. =)

Extra chances:
Share this give away on Facebook
Become a fan of my Facebook page (if you already are, you get the extra chance already)
Share this give away on Twitter
Make a Blog post about this give away
If you can think of other ways to spread the news online, feel free to use those too!

Make sure to show in your comment on this blog which ways you used to let people know about this give away. Only that way you can earn your extra chances of winning! =)

When does it end?

The give away will end at Wednesday September 21, at 20:00 Belgian time. This means you have a week to participate and to tell your friends about it!

Good luck!

In het Nederlands:
Ik doe eindelijk mijn eerste give away! Ik dacht dat het wel eens tijd was om dat te doen. =)

Wat geef ik weg?

Klik op de afbeelding om een grotere versie te zien.

Er zijn een aantal dingen waar je uit kan kiezen:

je kan 1 paar oorbellen kiezen (roosjes of hangertjes naar keuze)
of je kan 1 magneet set kiezen (de verschillende sets vind je hier, er zullen er nog volgen!)
of je kan 3 postkaarten kiezen (de verschillende kaarten vind je hier)

Hoe kan je winnen?

Ik zal willekeurig één winnaar kiezen (als ik veel reacties krijg, ga ik misschien meer dan 1 winnaar kiezen!). Je kan een kans maken om te winnen door de volgende stappen te volgen. Elke extra stap levert je een extra kans op!

Om deel te nemen, laat je een reactie achter op deze blog. Als je dit niet doet, maak je geen kans om te winnen aangezien ik enkel uit de namen kies die hier verschijnen.
Als je nog geen Volger bent van mijn blog, dan kan je dat doen door rechts te klikken op "Join this site". =)

Extra kansen:
Deel deze give away op Facebook
Word een fan van mijn Facebook page (als je het al bent, krijg je sowieso een extra kans)
Deel deze give away op Twitter
Maak een Blog post van deze give away
Als je nog andere manieren kan bedenken om het nieuws online te verspreiden, voel je dan vrij om die ook te gebruiken!

Laat zeker zien in je reactie op deze blog, welke manieren je allemaal gebruikt hebt om de mensen iets te laten weten van deze give away. Alleen zo maak je extra kans om te winnen! =)

Wanneer eindigt het?

De give away eindigt op woensdag 21 september om 20:00. Dit betekent dat je een hele week hebt om deel te nemen en om het aan je vrienden te vertellen!

Succes!

Anniversary Card

2011-09-13T15:32:00.003+02:00

So last week was my third anniversary with my boyfriend and I decided I needed a card to send to him. But seeing as I usually don't like the cards you can find in shops (and I'm too lazy to go out to buy one), I decided to make my own card. I mean, I can draw, so why not eh? =P

After a few quick sketches, I came up with something I liked and I coloured it in Photoshop. And this is the result, which I printed out and sent out in the post. =)

This is the card version I made.

And this is the non-card version
called 'Loving Embrace'.

T-shirt design & Etsy shop

2011-09-01T16:07:00.006+02:00

Hey hey!

Been a while since I was last active on here. I apologise. But then I guess if you're following me, you're already used to the long silences. =P

I have been busy this summer selling some of my stuff at a local art market. Mostly just selling jewellery, cards and magnets. It was a fun experience and I made a bit of money out of it (nothing amazing but any kind of money is welcome right now!). Too bad the summer is over now, but maybe next year I can do it again. =)

Now that I have more time again though, I decided to open up my Etsy shop again. I still have a lot of jewellery and cards left, so I'll be uploading those on there. It might take a few days as I don't want to upload it all at once.

If you're interested, you can go here: My Etsy Shop
Though you can always just contact me personally if you want to buy something! It saves me money as selling items on Etsy sadly isn't free.
Here are some of my items, but just a few!

Antique golden owl earrings

Antique silver music note earrings

'Whistle' decoration magnet

Anyway like I said, you can find more stuff in my Etsy shop, including some postcards. Soon I'll be posting my greeting cards and self-made magnets as well. =)

I also finally made a new T-shirt design this week! Again it's been ages since I did one of those, but my boyfriend was bugging me about making a howling wolf one. I know it's not a very original idea, but I do like how it turned out!
You can click on the image to go to the T-shirt page.

Howling Wolf T-shirt

And that's it for now!
I'm currently still working on a logo/image for someone, so maybe once that is done I can post it on here too (if he agrees to it of course)!

Image stories

2011-05-05T21:14:00.003+02:00

Whoo another update! Didn't expect that, did you?

I'm posting another example I made for one of my classes in secondary school. I was told by my mentor to think of an assignment that lets the pupils (13-14 year old girls) replace words with images.

So I had them think up a very short story. I gave them a long list with words, from which they had to pick at least 3. These words they would have to make into images. Then of course they still had to think of at least 3 more themselves. I let the pupils help each other to think up stories, or if they were really stuck I helped them along a bit.

To make the assignment a bit more challenging, I gave the pupils 5 fonts they could pick from. They were told to copy the fonts by hand. Some did really well doing this and even picked the more difficult and curly fonts, while some others tried to completely ignore this part (I made sure they still copied a font though!).

This is the example I made to show them, which I let them try and decipher in the class. Sorry it's in Dutch, but I'll translate it for those people who can't read it.

Image story.

The text says: "The evil witch flew on her broomstick over the forest. Behind her sat her cat. In her hand she held an apple that had been injected with a deadly poison."

I will update again soon with another example I have made for class. Tomorrow is my very last day at placement, so I better go and prepare for it some more! =)

It's oh... so quiet...

2011-05-01T11:04:00.006+02:00

Indeed, it has been quiet for way too long up here. I apologise for that!

It's not that I haven't had anything to post, it's just that I've been too busy to find the time to actually post it. Plus I always feel like whatever I might be posting isn't worth it anyway. =P

But I'm going to try and change that, so here is another update!
My placement is almost running at an end, with only one more week to go. Yay! Excited! I'll be happy when it's over, as it's been a bit of a stressful time. And I'm still wondering whether teaching is something I want to do right now or not. I have a lot of confidence issues I would have to work on first before I can stand in front of a class heh.

Anyway, for my placement I've had to make some example images. Not too many, for most I could use old drawings I had or things I found online. But here are two images I made or my placement.

Under the covers

This drawing was used as one of my examples in a class for adults. I was going to teach them about 'frottage' (rubbing with a pencil over a texture so you get that texture in your drawing) and used this as an example as to how you can integrate it into a drawing. The blanket was made by me rubbing it over the sole of a shoe haha. Done in coloured pencils, which is something I rarely work with so it was refreshing.

Long hair portrait

This one is an example I made for my 12-14 year old students in art class. Inspired by the film "Rapunzel", I let them make a non-realistic portrait of themselves with long hair/a long beard. They had to use oil pastels for this. The objects were added in afterwards and are either collage or drawn (though pretty much all the students just used collage). They had to pick either things they liked, or things they didn't like.

The red version is the original, the green and blue one I altered in Photoshop to show them the difference between the colours (green and blue create a bigger contrast). I actually prefer those (especially green) over the original haha.

Long enough post for now I think, no? I think so!

I will be trying to update more in the future, but as we know it's not something I can promise. I'm not good at keeping promises like that anyway. =P

Procrastination

2011-02-07T14:17:00.003+01:00

A long and difficult word, procrastination. But it's something I'm very good at it seems. Whatever important thing it is I have to do, I always manage to avoid it by doing something else.

At the moment, I'm supposed to be writing up 7 lesson plans for next week, as well as write down observation reports and some other assignments due Thursday. None of that is done right now. Oops.

Instead, I have been busy building my website, as can be seen in my previous blog post. And the last two or three days I've been making some earrings again, with more supplies on the way to make even more of them!

I'll get my work done, though it'll probably be a last minute thing. But I'm used to it!

My own website!

2011-02-02T13:55:00.003+01:00

Yes! I finally did it!

My own website!

It took me ages and ages to figure out how to get a website together, but I think I finally did it. I don't know if it works properly on every browser and on every computer screen, but it looks good on mine. If anything looks wrong, let me know so I can try to fix it!

My coding and website designing knowledge is veeeery limited though. This looks really cheap and simple because it's the only thing I could get to work haha. Now to figure out how to set up a shop on there and I'm all set (if anyone knows how to do this, feel free to help me out). =P

Sorry for the lack of updates by the way, been a bit busy over Christmas (being abroad and being ill) and now with my placement. Hopefully at some point I can find the time to draw and post something on here. Maybe just sketches even. More interesting than nothing, no?

Actually, I can share two sketches I did a while ago in a programme called ScribblerToo. It's a very simple drawing programme, but it lets you create some fun stuff. Here's two random things I made in there. =)

Commission card finished!

2010-12-01T18:07:00.004+01:00

Phew! It's finally done!

This actually took me quite some time. Not that it's that difficult, but I really seem to have lost the hang of drawing haha.

Last time I was still wondering what I would use to draw this in, but then I realised I didn't really have any materials left (no paints etc.). So I decided my only real option was to draw it digitally. Which is always a bit of a challenge, and usually takes me a lot longer too. I found it really difficult to get the entire image to look good, constantly fiddling with colours and textures and backgrounds. But in the end I settled for this, and luckily the company was very happy with it, yay! =D

New Year's card for company EDUTOY,
to launch their new site.

Apart from this, I've mostly been busy with school. Trying to work on assignments, but mostly taking care of my placements. I finally found two schools I'll be doing my placements in, whoo! Also already got to help in one school, and will be going to help in the other one on Friday. Exciting and scary at the same time haha.

And tomorrow I'll be giving a workshop on linocuts to my fellow students. So yes, busy times. Christmas is also coming up, which means I have to go do my shopping soon. =)

Hopefully I'll get to post on here again soon with new art work, even though I've got nothing planned so far. Have to keep those creative juices flowing though! So until next time!

Sketch and a discount on RedBubble

2010-11-04T15:25:00.007+01:00

Soooo it's been a long time since I last updated. Sorry about that. It's just that I haven't really had anything to update with sadly. The last few months I haven't really been drawing much due to lack of time or inspiration. Though yesterday I picked up my sketchbook again and did a quick sketch for a commission I might be working on.

I got asked by a local company to design a postcard for New Year that they can send out to customers, but that also tells them about the new site they'll be launching then. So I made a quick sketch for that. Hopefully they give me the thumbs up for this so I can actually make the illustration (though I don't know yet what medium I will use, hmm).

The current idea for the card.

A sketch for one of the characters on there.

At the moment I also have a discount going on at RedBubble. You can buy all kinds of stuff there, including greeting cards, posters, prints, stickers, t-shirts and hoodies. All with my art on it.

If you use the code Eenuh_is_on_sale_3987 at check-out, you will receive a 15% discount! This offer runs until November 14, so you have to be quick! If you want to buy some early Christmas gifts, or some cards, then now is the time! =)

My Christmas card.

Rings!

2010-09-25T02:35:00.004+02:00

Hey all! Another update from me, whoo! Aren't you guys lucky? =P

How are things with me? Hmm, ok I'd say. I've had some up and some down days (last two were down days, boooh), but overall I think I am doing ok. I'm currently working on a drawing again which I hope to finish soon, once I get back into it. Of course I will post it on here once it's done. =)

You may have noticed I started making jewellery recently, more specifically earrings. Well I'm still making those, though I've now also started making some rings with images in them. I actually only made them today, and guess what? I already sold one! Made me so happy! =D

Here are the rings, the Red Robin one got sold, though I'm going to make a new one already. You can click on the image to go to the Etsy page of the item. =)

Flower Ring.

Love Ring.

Red Robin Ring.

I'm planning to do some more rings soon, maybe even earrings with pictures in them, so check back soon! =)

Busy busy busy

2010-09-16T17:26:00.010+02:00

Sooo it's been sort of busy times for me. I've been learning how to drive (still learning, I'm not very good at this at all!) and I had some eye surgery last week from which I'm still recovering (blood red eyes, whoo!).

In the meantime however, I've also been keeping busy with some art. Well, just two simple drawings/paintings for now, but it's a start. Hoping it will lead to more art soon! =)

This drawing was inspired by a song called "Tiger, My Friend" by Psapp. A lovely song, so be sure to check it out! Did this one with pencil on recycled paper, then coloured it in with some coloured ink and ecoline paint.

Tiger, My Friend

And then this is simply a random painting of a girl, her cat and a book. Very simple, but I wanted to try out my acrylics again. Only to find I only have about 5 colours left or something. Time to invest in more!

Peaceful Reading

Apart from this though, I've also been busy making earrings, as was already obvious from my previous post. I'm still learning how to make things properly, but at the moment I've assembled a small collection of simple earrings. Some are a bit nicer than others, but yeah. Hopefully I'll get better with time. =)
As before, these will go on sale on Etsy. If you're interested in any, just let me know!

Lilly Flower earrings
(also in pink, green and purple)

Wire wrapped Yellow Pendant earring

Yellow Lilly Drop earring

Turquoise Teardrop earring

Turquoise Raindrops earring

Grape Wire wrapped Pearl Teardrop earring

Sorry for the earring spam haha. Just been happy to be making things again. It's been a nice change from the art and the constant artist's block. I'm never stopping with drawing though, unless I was physically unable to or something.

Hope to be posting again soon! =)

When inspiration is gone, do something else!

2010-08-28T02:47:00.005+02:00

Like my last post said, I have been without inspiration for a while. I can't even get myself to really doodle anything, as my mind just keeps drawing a blank time and time again. I'm still hoping inspiration and ideas will flow back to me at some point. If not, I might go crazy haha.

But because I felt I had to do something with my time, I decided to try my hand at something a little different: jewellery!

I had been interested in making earrings for a while already, but never really gave it a shot, until now. And even though I'm not very good at it yet, and the things I do are very basic, I do enjoy it very much. It's something different and it helps to stop me worrying about the artist's block too much. Maybe in time and with more practice I can do a bit more with this jewellery making business, but for now it's mostly just for fun. =)

As you can see, nothing amazing, but I'm having fun making these. =)

Also, I forgot to mention this on here, but I opened up an Etsy store as well. I don't really expect to sell much/anything on there, but it's always worth a try no? If you're interested, you can visit my store here:

Lack of inspiration

2010-08-03T01:28:00.006+02:00

I’m sure we’ve all been there many times. You have lots of free time that you can finally spend on your own stuff… but then that blasted artist’s block shows its ugly head and completely prevents you from creating anything.

For the last month (and longer) I seem to have been cursed by this. There is a severe lack of inspiration. Maybe a lack of motivation too. Where you do want to create something, but you just can’t get yourself to do it. I think that one of my problems at the moment is that I don’t really know what technique and what style I can use any more. I guess I feel a bit lost maybe.

I’m desperately looking for inspiration, for something that will give me that spark I need to get back into art and to create images. It’s been so long since I created anything and I really miss that feeling of finishing an image and being happy with it and then showing it to people.

What are your ways to get inspiration?

Is there anything out there that just makes you want to pick up your brush and create art?

Some pictures from a trip to the UK.

Graduated!

2010-07-08T22:26:00.002+02:00

Hello everyone! Like the title says, I have indeed graduated. I am now a Master in Graphic Design! Though we all know illustration is where my heart is, I'm no good at graphic design haha.

But yes, 4 years are over and done with. And now I'm getting ready for another year where I will go on a teacher course. You know, just to make sure I can have some form of a job in the future, as being a freelance illustrator isn't guaranteed pay. =P

As promised in my last post, here are some pictures of my exhibition space. It's nothing too fancy, but oh well. Better than nothing! You can click the pictures to see a bigger version.

My small corner of the exhibition.

A glass cabinet with a papier maché bear, some linocuts and

my working materials and some sketches.

Some original linoprints on the wall.

A few prints with text, two original prints, my book (top picture)
and a "feelings meter" (bottom picture).

As you can imagine, I'm very happy to have this finished. Though chances are I'll continue the project and improve it, to hopefully get it published at some point (if I can find a publisher that is). But of course I'm hoping to also move on from here, improve on my art, find new techniques etc.

The road ahead is very long and will probably have many difficulties along the way, but I'm excited to walk along it and see where it takes me. =)

The book is finished!

2010-06-27T12:26:00.005+02:00

Indeed, the year has ended and my final project is finished. The book is done. I have to say I'm quite happy with the result, even though a lot of things could be improved on. But that's always the case hehe.

Here is a file of my book you can flip through. Sadly the text is in Dutch so all you non-Dutch speakers will just have to come up with your own text heh. =P

Next thing I'll post is some pictures from my exhibition set-up, though for now I hope you enjoy my book. =)

Book test

2010-06-11T14:58:00.004+02:00

I just had some fun trying to create a mini version of my book. I simply printed out the pages and glued them all together. It helps me to figure out how many pages I still need. Turns out I still need two more. Plus do the cover and title page and all that.
Days left: 2 and a half. So I better hurry haha.

But it's fun seeing your project almost ready. Here are some pictures for the mini book. Don't look at the crappy quality of it all, it's just a dummy.

Plus here's another lino that I did that I'm quite happy with. Too bad it'll have text going all over it, but oh well, nothing I can do about that heh. Good thing I can still post it here. =)

Once my entire project is done, I will of course post photos of it on here!

The end is in sight

2010-06-08T00:10:00.004+02:00

It has been more than a month since my last update on here. That is way too long of course, but I have my reasons. The main reason being my dissertation, which has finally been finished, handed in and defended in front of a jury! I actually think I did pretty well, but I'll have to wait for my grades to find out for sure heh.

The end of this school year is coming closer and closer. I basically have about a week and a half left to finish my project. And at the moment it feels like I am still very far away from getting it done in time. But let's hope that with some late night working I can still get it done!

In the meantime, here are four illustrations from my project. As always, linocuts manually printed in three colours. =)

A circle of friends.

Song of goodbye.

Scream.

Out in the field.

Work in Progress

2010-04-30T17:41:00.004+02:00

Received some good news this week: our dissertation has been delayed by about 10 days. Which means I have a bit more time to actually work on some illustrations too. Yay! And to celebrate this, I decided to update my blog with some work progress images. Well only two so far, but it's better than nothing, right?

Right!

I want to share with you the main characters in the book I'm currently trying to make. It's a book about a foster family and a little girl who goes from foster care to this new family. Below are the concept sketches I made of the characters.

From left to right: Bert and Sonja, who work in foster care. And then Merel and her bear Boris.

From left to right: Thomas, Annie and Frank, the foster family.

We've already seen Sonja and Merel in the finished lino I posted a while ago. Hopefully soon I can post some more lino prints here (once I actually get around to making them that is).

For now I have one more to share with you. I'm not sure yet if this is what it will end up looking like in the end product, but I'm pretty sure it will. Unless someone has suggestions for how to make it look better of course. Suggestions are always welcome!

About work and storybirds

2010-04-26T02:24:00.008+02:00

It's been a while since I last posted anything on here. I have my reasons though, I really do! Well one reason really, and that reason is: school.
Things have been quite busy with me currently trying to finish my dissertation and maybe doing some illustration stuff along the side. Sadly the illustration part has been a bit neglected lately. But once this dissertation is done I'll move back onto my linocuts! (I have to.)

Here is a small preview of my next print though, for those interested.

Apart from that little message, I would also like to point out a pretty cool site for artists or people who like to create/read short stories. Thanks to my cousin I discovered the site Storybird, a site that lets artists upload their illustrations and lets other users use those to create short stories. There's not really any profit to get from it right now other than some exposure and funny/cute/nice stories to read, but it's a great concept! Here is a story someone made with the art I have uploaded at the moment.

Simply Me! on Storybird

If you would like to visit my gallery on there, you can click on the following image. And of course you can start creating your own stories on there!

By the way, the Flemish illustrator Sebastiaan Van Doninck - who has some wonderful illustrations - has a gallery on there too. Be sure to check out his work if you don't know him yet!

Meeting an illustrator in Berlin

2010-04-07T20:52:00.010+02:00

It's been a while since my last update, but I have a good reason for that: I was away for a few days with school. We went on a trip to Berlin where we mostly visited museums. Museums like the Jewish Museum, the Nature Museum, the Bauhaus Archiv, the Hamburger Bahnhof for contemporary art, the German Museum for Film and a few more.

Especially the Jewish Museum was a nice one, not just because of what they showed there but also because of its wonderful architecture. They really paid a lot of attention to the structure of the building and incorporated it into their ideas of what they wanted to show to the visitors.

One part of the building for example has an isolated room with just one door leading to it. It's a small room with high concrete walls all around you. It's dark and cold, and only a tiny strip of sunlight is coming through. It gives an immense feeling of isolation.

Another room at the bottom of the building has its floor covered with 10,000 coarse iron faces, an installation by Menashe Kadishman called Fallen Leaves. As a visitor you're allowed to walk across these faces, which makes a whole lot of noise, and it just sort of feels a bit weird as well, as if you're walking on real people. Or maybe that was just me. Very powerful installation though.

Apart from visiting museums, our small group of illustration students also met up with an illustrator in Berlin, Olaf Hajek.

Olaf Hajek

I wasn't familiar with him or his work, but meeting up with him was very inspirational. We learned a lot about how he works, how he came into being an artist and illustrator and so on. Let me first show you some of his work, so you know what I'm talking about. =)

This is his new book called Flowerhead, which features his work, ranging from advertising illustrations, fashion illustrations and his own free work. He has a very unique style in which he works, and he always seems to work with acrylics on different kinds of surfaces (paper, cardboard, wood...). He likes to put random objects in his paintings, which is demonstrated in the paintings he calls "flowerheads", like the one on the cover of the book. Here are some more examples of his work.

Natureman 3

Masked Girl

Cover JPeople

As you can see, very original work he has, ranging from very colourful to more subdued like the ones I posted up here. He works as an illustrator, working on assignments for magazines all over the world. Something I hadn't heard about yet, is that he uses different agents in all those countries to get his work. Very interesting, as I don't think (m)any Belgian illustrators use agents to get assignments in different countries. He also holds exhibitions with his art, not just his illustration stuff but also personal art. I think he prefers being an artist and doing his own work, though he admitted that to earn a living you can't solely depend on exhibitions.

He also doesn't work at home, but shares a studio with another illustrator. Again, very interesting to hear as this means he can separate his work and his normal life so he doesn't get distracted. I might have to remember this for the future!

In any case, his work is very inspiring and I loved hearing his ideas and hearing about the way he works. Be sure to check out his site for more of his wonderful art!

Tests and stress

2010-03-25T18:46:00.010+01:00

I keep changing around that lino print I posted in my previous blog entries. Still wasn't happy with the placement of the table in the background; it was partly sitting behind the smoke/smell, which just didn't work well.

So thanks to the wonders of Photoshop and lots of fiddling around, I changed it again. I think this works better, no? Also made the red a bit more orange, so it doesn't come across as being too aggressive. This is aimed at small children after all heh.

Re-reworked image.

I'm also fiddling around with text placement and different fonts, but I'm really no good at this. Contacted a graphic design teacher to hopefully help me, but so far no response. Wish I was good at typography!

Typography test (and failure).

Also have a big presentation about this project tomorrow. So very nervous! Keep your fingers crossed for me please! =P

Lino progress... and non-progress

2010-03-23T09:37:00.005+01:00

So I managed to finish my lino prints after working on them all of Sunday night. Only to find out the prints weren't all that great, but I thought I could redo them if needed.

What's worse however, is that now I got told that the background didn't work with the image. I can see why, but I wonder why it wasn't pointed out when I showed my sketch.

The sketch.

The actual lino (touched up a bit in Photoshop).

Few differences between the sketch and lino, but most of it is similar. I lost a bit of my motivation after I heard I'd need to do it all over again, especially as this takes so many hours to make. But I decided that instead of making a new lino, I'd just fiddle around with the scan in Photoshop and see what I could do. This is the result for now.

Reworked image.

Not sure it really works yet. There's less focus on the background now and it doesn't take away as much from the characters, but it still doesn't work I think. Any ideas what I could do to improve it?

Sidenote: these are actually two pages in a book (so a spread), with the left side being kept open for text, as is shown in the sketch.

Late night working

2010-03-22T04:09:00.006+01:00

So it is now past 4 am, and I am still awake. Why, you ask? Because I've been busy printing my linocuts. This was going to be my first real try at printing in colour. And boy did I make some mistakes!

First of all, I made the mistake of first printing the black lines and then printing the colour on top of it. Of course that didn't turn out too well. Well the black print itself seemed fine.

Then I had to redo the entire inking process, which is a bit of a pain as I have limited space to work with and have to clean my place again after every colour I print. =(

So I then started over again, deciding to make at least two versions, and doing each colour separately (whereas before I did the grey and red at the same time). Everything went fine up to this point.

But then it was time to print the black on top of the colours... And since I'm doing all of this manually, it's kind of hard to line everything up properly. Resulting in my colours being all over the place, but not where they should be.

The woman now kind of looks like The Joker from Batman. I'm hoping I can fix things a bit once I scan it and put it in Photoshop... if not, I guess I'll have to start all over again.

Let's just hope I learn from my mistakes. =P

And now it's 4:30 am and I'm off to sleep!

Hello!

2010-03-21T21:13:00.010+01:00

Welcome to my blog!

If you're wondering what I will post on here, I have to admit that I don't really know yet myself. =P

But I'm thinking I will most likely use this blog to post my art and work progress, sketches I make, ramblings about art and school and all that fun stuff! So if you're interested in my art (or in me haha), keep checking this blog.
I have no idea how often it will be updated, but I'll do my best to keep things interesting. =)

To start things off, here's a snapshot of my current workdesk, where I'm busy cutting out a lino for an illustration. The flowery glove is there so I don't cut my fingers haha.