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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!

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