a textile day !

Yesterday daughter and I visited the
"Textiel Festival"
in Amersfoort.



It was the last day of four days stuffed to the brim :
with the presence of all the major textile associations,
workshops, lectures, the results of a competition,
exhibitions through the (lovely old) city,
an Arts & Crafts market and
about 800 "hoops" ("Rondje Textiel")
filled with any textile technique
you can think of !!!

It was a sunny and (too) warm day
so we picked the things we liked most to visit.
I'm sorry to say we just missed "The Red Dress"
because we had to wait too long for a time-slot
but we're happy to have seen the "Colorminds"
and the three "LAK" ladies.
(and of course we came home with some goodies !)

It was a wonderful day !!!
A big THANK  YOU  to the organisation
and all the volunteers who made this possible !

Thank you !

 After a quiet Sunday
a very busy Monday and again a quiet day today
I have time to tell you that we had a lovely Saturday
at the GRIETMARKT !

(ready for the start)

Sunshine, a sweet friend assisting me,
a happy friend in the next stall who had her first try,
lots of nice people to talk to about felting, stitching and painting
and some sales !
We went home satisfied.

A big
THANK  YOU
to the team who organized the market
and my customers !!!

wordless Wednesday

 

ART MARKET Amerongen

Only a few more days from now
on Saturday
Mai 9
 

I will be at the

GRIET  MARKT

again !

If you are anywhere near,
please come to Amerongen to this wonderful market
with lots of organic products, design and art
to choose from.
And . . . there will be music too !

In addition to my gouache paintings I am also bringing
textile panels with birds, with flowers and with abstract stitching,
and lots of felt objects.

 

Textile jewelry : like the new necklace here,

small felted bags, fish, finger puppets and insects.

It would be lovely to see you there !!!

birthday and painting

Yesterday
I had a lovely birthday with friends
and there will be more celebrating this Sunday :
a dinner party for a special round-figure birthday !

80


Right now the garden is looking lush with blooming trees and new greenery
(haha, birthday beauty for me !)

Just some days ago I started a new gouache painting.
After the initial idea sketch I made a bigger one 
with more elaborate details,
one ready to move onto the heavy water colour paper.
(I often use a grid for that)

I work in layers, starting with the background.
Earlier on I made the whole background in one colour
but with gouache, unlike acrylic paint,
the pigment dissolves again when the next wet layer is added
(colours start mixing !)
So now I changed that and leave certain parts open.

This far I finished today.

 

a fresh start

April started with sunshine and a few showers
but rather cold and windy
so a perfect time to start a new painting.
I always make several small sketches
of ideas that come into my head
for the narrative gouache paintings I love to make.

People sometimes ask
if I shouldn't make illustrations for (children's) books
but then I always tell them
there is already a little story in it . . .

"helping a friend"

I love the visiting birds in our garden
so here's another painting with a great tit in it.
(I made one with them before and it was sold)

Because the Amelanchier (Juneberry) in the garden is in bloom
I thought it was just right to add that one too.
The fun part is, that this (still) small tree
was sown by some bird a few years back !!!

I start with the background when the sketch is on the paper
(300grams watercolour)

There are more sketches
but, tomorrow we have daughter and the children
looking for Easter eggs in the garden
(and it doesn't matter they don't have the egg-hunting age anymore !)

snippets

The long "Tabula Rasa" strip
that I started in Januari
is lying around most of the time
but near by
in case I want to add some snippets
or make a few stitches.

Because with the start of spring near
and the garden changing each day a bit more to green
I decided to move that colour
for this month.

There are clumps of yellow
of the small "tête-à-tête" daffodils
but the rambler rose is already showing many green leaves !

I leave this for a bit :
other (red) things to do !