Life brings you special people, little pleasures and lots of ideas to chew on. This is basically the description of my Christmas holiday when meeting up with a friend I last saw 33 years ago. We both went to the same school and lived in the same small town and subconsciously shared the same ideas and despised the same people, but back then were more or less trying to survive the inevitable peer pressure current.
It was a bit funny and ironic to meet in Europe after all these years, as we have never visited each other in South Africa. We did write each other letters though, which includes family photos and fabric samples. When she contacted me, I was a bit nervous , but at the same time very excited. Will we have a lot to talk about or will we be total strangers?
It turned out to one of the best moments in my life. One day was too short to recap all the missing years. It was actually a blessing to meet someone trapped in a world that look at your date of birth and write you off as compost, someone who still feels the energy to make a difference, someone who wanted to unlock their creativity – you know its there, but it was so deeply buried under years of family priorities, someone who looks at the world as if it is pretty, someone with a contagious laugh…
So we met again during her stay in The Netherlands and decided to commit ourselves to a year’s project that will encourage us to be creative again and to stimulate our senses with new ideas.
The project was to make an artwork on a 7 x 7 cm square each day for a year long. This was a great idea because for a week I could not sleep.. my head was bursting with possibilities…of subjects and of media…
I have decided to share the artworks each week and by the end of the year, have a massive collage to reflect on and hopefully smile upon.
Week 1:
January 1: I made myself a black dress; January 2: etch – my work life in a seed company; January 3: I drank a whole bottle of ginger juice, which was supposed to be mixed in small quantities in other juice; January 4: the pavement patterns of Haarlem; January 5: my daughter needs new glasses; January 6: the color I painted one of my living room’s walls, January 7: old Polaroid film that got light brings new possibilities.
Week 2:
January 8: Cat love; January 9: fox rubber stamp print; January 10: Collage of the Afrikaans word: ‘Moedeloos’ – despondent – a bit of a down day; January 11: cyanotype of a film negative on tea bag; January 12: string doodles; January 13: half circle stamping, January 14: Plants and seeds.
Week 3:
January 15: thinking outside the box; January 16: muggle head; January 17: gel print of a part of Moulin Rouge; January 18: circus fairy (me in my family); January 19: ice and snow; January 20: when there is not much to say; January 21: my inner atoms.
Week 4:
January 22: to escape repetition; January 23: not to escape repetition; January 24: sad and empty; January 25: Exercise 1 with Alberto Montt; January 26: Exercise 2 with Alberto Montt; January 27: Exercise 3 with Alberto Montt; Exercise 28: Rest.
Week 5:
January 29: magnetism towards new ideas; January 30: dancing with my pencil; January 31: new design for my mousepad – came out beautifully; February 1: hubby’s birthday; February 2: into the woods in Drenthe for weekend; February 3: prehistoric hunnebedden; February 4: De Sluiswachter (Dieverbrug) in memory of last night’s 3 course meal which was out of this world.
Week 6:
February 5: Longing for Summer 1; February 6: mysterious life on the moon (piercing on photo with back light); February 7: Foam Stencil story; February 8: Longing for Summer 2; February 9: Foam stencil tiles; February 10: White tulips; February 11: Collage still life.
Week 7:
February 12: Cubic doodles; February 13: Dive (with packaging plastic); February 14: Float (with small piece of packaging plastic); February 15: Fishy (also with pieces of packaging plastic); February 16: Foam bath; February 17: Dog wash, February 18: Color
Week 8:
February 19: Lenteklokjes; February 20: a friend going through an operation; February 21-23: Gelli print of spring bulb in different ways, February 24-25: Gelli print of daffodil in two ways.
Week 9: February 26: Boba times: working on digital portfolio; February 27: Experimental madness; February 28: Coffee digital image 1; February 29: my heart went out to friend; March 1: Coffee digital image 2; March 2: Sunny day; March 3: Coffee digital image 3.
Week 10: 4-10 March: Texture impressions done with Gelli plate to use as backdrops for my digital art.
Week 11: 11-17 March: Series of the same portraits done in different media like fineliners, pencil, watercolour, markers and paper collages.
Week 12: 18-24 March: Black and white impressions
Week 13: 25-31 March: Cyanotype prints with green tea.
Week 14: 1 – 7 April: 1 April still Cyanotype print with Green Tea of flower skeleton, 2-7 April: watercolor and alcohol
Week 15:
8 April: Fineliner texture – hair, 9 April: Fineliner texture – scales, 10 April: Fineliner texture – leaf, 11 April: Fineliner texture – light hole, 12 April: Teabag Cyanotype – Act, don’t react, 13 April: Teabag Cyanotype – Let things come to you, 14 April: Teabag Cyanotype: Let you heart guide you.
Week 16:
15 April: A baby is born, 16 April: ink print cat love, 17 april: wet cyanotype with turmeric, 18 april: wet cyanotype with turmeric – dyed in coffee, 19-20 April: fish drawings on plastic, cyanotyped onto old book paper, 21 April: wet cyanotype dyed in coffee.
Week 17:
22 April: Pen and watercolour abstract art, 23 April: Rabbit fineliner sketch, 24 April: Goofy watercolour cat, 25 – 26 April: Amsterdam Milk carton etch snippets, 27 April: Milk Carton etch – Les Jardins de Valloires Abbey, 28 April: Cherry and Pistachio ice cream in Berlin.
Week 18: Berlin week
29 April: Alternative Street Art tour (artwork was done by my daughter), 30 April: some fried noodles and chicken from around the corner, 1 May: Berlin Zoo and Aquarium, 2 May: Berlin metro ticket, 3 May: Abstract art continues from last week, 4 May: sushi day, 5 May: Hamburger Bahnhof National Galerie
Week 19
6 May: Art in the Kitchen 1 for Uppercase Magazine, 7 May: Art in the Kitchen 2 for Uppercase magazine, 8 May: Art in the Kitchen 3 for Uppercase Magazine, 9 May: Reduction Lino print, 10 May-12 May: cyanotype seeds picked up at Berlin Zoo.
Week 20
13 May- 19 May: Doodle portraits
Week 21
20-26 May: Depression: void growing in me
Week 22
27 May – 2 June: Random Object Generator
Week 23: 3-9 June: Watercolor Birds
Week 24: 10-16 June: Doodle cats
Week 25: 17-23 June: Nature sketches
Week 25: 24-30 June
24-25 June: Seed sketches, 26 June: digital and AI art, 27 June: Mushroom forest fineliner sketch, 28 June: digital art, 29 June: watercolor, 30 June: digital art
Week 26: 1-7 July: Succulents in ink
Week 27: 8-14 July: Patterns in ink and markers
Week 28: 15-21 July: Patterns with markers on blue cardstock
Week 29: 22-28 July: Retro patterns
Week 30: 29 July – 4 August: Pics from my birthday weekend in Limburg. 29 July: Special orchid Wespenorchis found in the forest near Centre Parcs of Limburgse Peel, The Netherlands. 30 July: birthday celebration with a nice day out to the beach at Callantsoog, The Netherlands. The rest of the photo’s were taken at Mind mystery, an upside down house and optic illusion museum.
Week 31: 5 – 11 August: 10 hours of work on a color pencil botanical fantasy artwork (can be seen in my portfolio) called Effusis Natura.
Week 32: 12-18 August – snippets from my Summer holiday trip to Croatia:12 August: Engelbrau Beer at Vorderberg, Bayern, Germany (illustration done by my daughter, Katja); 13 August: delicious zwetschgen prune plums of Austria (also done by Katja), 14 August: Traunsee, Austria, 15 August: Lake Bled, Slovenia, 16 August: Bled castle, Slovenia; 17 August: On the Ferry to Dugi Otok, Croatia, 18 August: Dalmatia figs abundant on the island (done by Katja).
Week 33: 19-25 August:
19 August: Fresh sea bass from the fish market on the island, Dugi Otok of Croatia, 20 August: Delicious filled squid as evening meal on the island, 21 August: beautiful pebble beach with turquoise sea on Dugi Otok, 22 August: swimming in the beautiful sea of the island every day, 23 August: Stargazer fish on a snorkel dive (illustration done by Katja), 24 August: the southern cliffs of the southern park on Dugi Otok, 25 August: my view on the harbor at Brbinj.
Week 34: 26 August-1 September
26 August: cat in the harbor, 27 August: The boardwalk of Plitvice Lakes Park, Croatia, 28 August: a cat from Schloss Neuburg am Inn, 29 August: Limburg an der Lahn, 30 August- 1 September: mixed media canal houses
Week 35 & 36: 2 September-15 September: Zen doodles
Week 37: 16 September – 22 September Effusis Natura 2
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