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Sunday, January 29, 2012

My workspace

New ATCs

These are for Cathy´s It´s all about Marie-Swap on ATCsforAll and are handdrawn with ink pen, marker, gel pen and colored pencils.






Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Interview with Kitty van den Heuvel

Kitty is a wonderful artist (and wonderful person, too) from the Netherlands. I was lucky to meet her "in Person" last summer during a Meet-up from a few members of ATCsforAll. You can check out her art at her etsy-shop and her new website, where she also will be offering workshops. She kindly agreed to answer a few questions.

1. How did you become interested in art? Have you had any formal art training?

  It just happened... my mother has always been very creative and I think it is in my genes. I never went to any formal art training, I actually studied economics :-). About 10 years ago I decided to work 4 days instead of 5 and at that moment I also decided that I needed to do something useful at my day off. I enrolled in a sculpture class, working with stone. I did this a year or 2, and really liked it. Then moved on to painting and took classes in oil painting. Learned a lot and moved from oil painting to portraits, to pastels, to collage and mixed media. Every year I am going on a painting holiday for at least a week and I love taking workshops. I am not in a regular painting class at the moment, as I travel regurlarly for my work.

2. Where do you live? Do you have a family of pets? Tell us a little about yourself (if you want to).

 I live in the Netherlands, in a small village close to Utrecht. I live in a lovely house all by myself. I have never been married and have no kids. And no pets by the way. I am a freelance project manager and work for (international) companies on projects between Finance and IT. For example implementations of new financial systems, but also restructuring and streamlining work processes. I do this 4 days a week.


3. How did you discover ATCs and Mail Art? Why does Mail Art appeal to you?

  I was on WetCanvas for a few years and sometimes participated in their projects, sending one postcard to each participant. They called it ATC sometimes, but I had no idea how big it was! And when I was in between projects I had a lot of time to surf the internet. I found some videos on Youtube from Milliande and enrolled to her site. And discovered ATCs and ATC swaps! And after a while discover ATCs for all. And now I am hooked. I love making ATCs, inchies, twinchies as well (but they don't trade well) and now chunkies!

4. What formats do you like and make?

 I love making ATCs, inchies, twinchies and chunkies, but I also work on bigger size paper and canvasses. Currently I am working on canvasses in the size of 10x10 cms (4"x4") and 20x20cms (8"x8")

5. Which art themes do you like?

 I love everthing well made, collage and mixed media especially. Themes that I like are birds, butterflies, nature inspired cards, steampunk, zetti, black and white, vintage, etc.

6. Do you have any favorite techniques?

At the moment I love collaging and mixed media. But I love learning new techniques and using the ones I already know.

7. Is there anything else you would like to tell us?

Yes! I have started a new company at the beginning of this year. It is called Kitty's art & crafts. I am working at my website at the moment www.kittysartencrafts.nl. This year will be used mainly for research. I want to focus on organizing workshops for mixed media, art journalling, atcs, new techniques, etc. I am very excited about this and very excited where it will bring me. To be continued!

Monday, January 23, 2012

Parrots

These ATCs are for a swap on ATCsForAll. I used ink pen, marker and colored pencils:



  Red-Winged Parrot
Rose-Breasted Cockatoo or Galah 
 Hyacinth-Macaws

Yellow-Colored Lovebirds

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Doodles

Yesterday and today I´ve been doodling with ink pen and gel pens on papers that I first colored with Glimmer Mist (first one) and watersoluble crayons (second one). These will make nice backgrounds for journal pages or ATCs, or borders for whatever (if I have the nerve to cut them;))


Blog Hop

It´s weekend - YAY! Time for another blog hop. Check it out and join:D





And remember - there´s still time to win an ATC!!!


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Interview with myself

How did you become interested in art? Have you had any formal art training?

The only art training I ever had was in elementary and in high school. In high school I had an awesome art teacher who somehow knew how to bring out the best in someone when it came to arting. He was very encouraging. During this time - my teens - I joined the art school club. Mostly we made the stage designs for the school´s drama club. These definetely were the largest works of art I ever did.

I also started drawing and painting in my teens, but somehow lost interest in it when I left school and started my first job in 1988. In the mid 1990´s I started again with drawing and painting with watercolors. I´m not sure how I got started. And I made my first quilts then. About ten years later I discovered mail art, especially ATCs.

Where do you live? Do you have family or pets? Tell us a little about yourself.

I´m 41 and live in Remscheid, a town in Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany. My husband and I share our house with two cats, Barrsik and Connor. My parents-in-law live in the same house, together with their cat Quintus. I have my own studio, but I barely work there. My supplies are usually scattered everywhere - not always to my husband´s delight ;) I must admit that I am a totally chaotic and disorganized person. I always was and will be. And I think I´m the world´s worst housewife.

How did you discover ATCs and Mail Art? Why does Mail Art appeal to you?

I discovered ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) and APCs (Artist Postcards - now it´s also used for Altered Playing Cards) via internet. I´ve been member in several patchwork and quilting forums, where we did lots of patchwork block swaps. One day someone came up with a fabric ATC swap. I joined such a swap in 2006, I think, and was hooked. It was about that time that I had a maior depressive episode (I´m bipolar). After a very long stay in hospital and day-time clinic I retired from my job. One of the outgrowth of my disease is the lack of concentration. I´m not able to concentrate or focus on larger projects. So ATCs and other "small" projects like chunkies, skinny pages or whatever are perfect for me.

In 2008 I became a member of ATCsforAll, a wonderful global community for Mail Art artists of all skill levels. Mail Art is a way to easily get connected with other artists. I met so many wonderful people via the internet during the last few years - and last summer I was happy enough to meet a small group of them "In Real Life". We had a little Art Meet-Up in England. That was really great!

What formats do you like and make?

I like expecially ATCs and chunkies (4"x4"). And recently I joined a circle journal trade where we make 8"x8" handdrawn or handpainted journal pages for the other players in their chosen theme. That´s really fun - although it was a real challenge for me in the beginning because of the size.

And I love art journaling. I have several journals for different themes.

Which art themes do you like?

I love nature inspired art, especially trees and bees. Fantasy is great, too. Vintage style cards, especially women and/or tasteful nudes, are wonderful. I also love Steampunk. And - I don´t know why - I also like dark, mysterious, scary, creepy and gothic art.

Do you have any favorite techniques?

Hmmm... - good question! I like drawing with pencils, colored pencils, ink pen, marker. I also work with watercolors, gouache and acylic paints. I love collage and mixed-media art. I´m open to anything - and love to try new things.

Art Journal Backgrounds

For the last few days I have been working on Art Journal Backgrounds. Here are some pics:

















Thursday, January 12, 2012

Here are pictures of some other journal covers:


A Journal for Black and White collages, drawings, paintings only



A journal to capture my childhood memories


For some reason I like dark, gothic arts. This journal is dedicated to these themes


A journal to explore goddesses of all kind


A "Healing Journal"

Monday, January 9, 2012

Blog-Giveaway: Win an ATC!

I would like to promote this blog and get some more followers. So I decided to have an ATC giveaway :)

This is an original ATC called "Starlight Beauty" made by me using ink pen, marker, gel pen and colored pencil.



Rules:

1.)for a first entry
- leave a comment on this post

2.) for a second entry
- become a follower of this blog and tell me by commenting on this post

3.) for a third entry
- make a post about the giveaway or post it on the sidebar of your blog for the month of January 2012, link to this post and leave a comment about it on this post

before January 31, 2012.

I´ll draw a winner on January 31:)

Art Journal Covers

Here are two journal covers I made today.
I decided to start a Nature Sketch Journal and a
Steampunk Journal.






Starting to art journal again...

I think the New Year is a great starting point to get into art journaling again. I did this before, but - for various reasons - got away from it during the last months of 2011.

So now I´m sorting my blank books (I have a whole bunch of them, ´cause whenever I see one I like I just got to have it **LOL**). And I also have some I made myself. I think this time I´ll start with several journals instead of keeping just an "All-purpose"-one. There´s nothing wrong with this, but I want to stay somewhat "organised" - if that´s possible for me, because I´m the Queen of Chaos and Confusion ;)

I´m thinking about keeping an Idea Journal, a Brainstorming Journal, a Healing Journal, a Body Journal and a Watercolor Journal. And I love the idea of a Flip Journal (take a larger journal and divide/cut the pages in thirds, then decorate them individually). I already got the covers decorated for my Anger Journal:

Friday, January 6, 2012

More Journal pages

these pages are for TF Balding. They´re not finished yet. Done with ink pen and watercolors.


Thursday, January 5, 2012

Jyndrase and Mary

These 8" x 8" journal pages are for a Circle Journal Trade at ATCsforAll.
Jyndrase and Mary are original characters by Locke, I hope she likes the pages.



Tuesday, January 3, 2012