The first time I had to sit down and draw nature was during highschool. I say ‘had to’ because
I didn’t like it at all!
My teacher was very pleased with the result but I wasn’t. To me nature was utterly chaos and
I couldn’t decide what was important and what not, I didn’t feel like I was making well
considered decisions what to draw and what to leave out.
Until this day I feel the same way about drawing (in) nature. There’s so much going on:
branches, leaves, twigs, shrubbery, it’s just too much!!
But I do love nature. That’s why I decided that drawing outside in nature would be the
challenge for the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge of this September.



Amsterdamse Bos/ Amsterdam Forest, bistre & pencil, 24 x 30 cm

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Published: 02 September 2016

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Last January I entered Leslie Saeta’s painting challenge: Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days.
It was a really good experience, I learned a lot and I ended up exhibiting all 30 paintings
last April. This September I’m having another go at the challenge.
This time I decided to be less strict. Leslie Saeta said it herself: there are no rules, just to
have fun and ‘paint’ more than you would’ve if you didn’t participate. A ‘painting’ doesn’t
strictly need to be a painting, it can be a drawing, a linocut, whatever your medium is.
For the month of September I’m going to draw in nature daily, mostly at the Amsterdamse Bos
(Amsterdam Forest) and my ‘paintings’ will actually be drawings.

I found out about the challenge and Leslie Saeta through her podcast Artist Helping Artists
which I highly recommend!!



Amsterdamse Bos/ Amsterdam Forest, bistre & pencil, 24 x 30 cm

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Published: 01 September 2016

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Last couple of days I’ve been experimenting a bit with lines and layering.
This is an overview of the layering-experiment I did. I started with layer of thick, bright
watercolours and then added pastels, charcoal and pencil.
More experiments coming up!

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Published: 13 July 2016

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When I started this blog I set out to share the good things and the bad things and now I’m
about to share a ‘bad’ thing I hesitate… It’s hard to share when things don’t go as planned.
As some of you might know I’ve been battling a burn-out for some time now.
First I continued to work but after a while I had to stop and when I did, I started to fully
comprehend how bad I was doing. Back then I wasn’t even able to do art, I wasn’t able to
do much of anything.
Just recently the tax authorities got wind of me not making much money and I got invited for
an appointment at their office. The burn-out had made sure I didn’t make much money of my
art and couldn’t spend much time on my art either.
Because of that they ended up taking away my fiscal entrepreneurship status and they will be
checking up on me in 2017.
The appointment was last week and I felt very bad after that. It took me a few days to feel
better but yesterday I had a little help putting me in my place again.
The lady I had the appointment with called to run through what was said earlier and explain
her findings. She repeated once again they would check up on me in 2017 and she added,
because they were not very convinced any significant progress would be happening.
I’m sure the lady didn’t intend or realize it but these words felt like a right kick in the face.
But hey, ‘sticks and stones’, right?!

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Published: 05 July 2016

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