Burning that wood, and no... it's not a forest fire!

For years now I have been affectionated with pyrography. Love the fact that you can burn into wood, creating deep burned lines and getting a wonderful smell all at the same time. After the burning you can paint it as I am not to keen to keeping it all "woodsy" in all shades of brown. You are creating your own coloring book so to speak. And I love what Sticks does, first sketch  a drawing, then burn the wood and then color it in with bright colored acrylics.  I did try some stuff myself with a borrowed pyrography machine and that worked out great.

Then I went into a long hiatus of art making, but I kept on looking at wonderful samples on the internet. And unblocking also because of reading The Artist Way by Julia Cameron. And the urge returned. The urge to make stuff. Stuff that would be just as pretty as the ones on internet – more precisely … Pinterest. Just like every one else I have become addicted.

So after a long looooooooong time, I purchased a cheap pyrography machine. And these 2 ravens is what I first came up with.

And the cheap pyrography machine was just that. Cheap. It worked. It did what it was supposed to do... burn the wood. But it also burned my fingers. And then Christmas came. And I got a money present. I knew right away what I was going to do with that. I bought my self a "professional" machine. Well, the best I could afford anyway.

And while cruising the Pinterest boards, I saw this wonderful picture of a tiger. 

LOVE LOVE LOVE the eyes. Totally fell in love with this guy (or girl, who knows)

So I thought I give it a try and first sketched on paper till I was happy with the result. Then I traced it onto a piece of wood and this is how far it has gotten today:

Still have a long way to go before I can call this one finished but I am having fun with it. As far as the professional machine goes, I was hoping it would be the end of burned fingers.... sigh. Nope. But I am loving the process so I will continue. When the tiger is done I have a few more ideas I want to do. I think I'd better invest in some burn salve and plasters.

My Artist Date at the Van Gogh, My Dream Exhibition

I am in a book club with some fabulous creative women. We are reading the Artist Way by Julia Cameron which is such an amazing book in so many ways. In the first chapter which we are doing in the whole month of January Julia gave us 10 tasks. 10 Home work assignments.  The second task / assignment is to take yourself out on a date. An Artist Date. This you should do every week for the duration of this course. Which in my our case will last 52 weeks. This means I get to go on a date with myself 52 times this year! Yeah me!

Here is how I got to spend the date with myself. My first date. Of many more dates to come.

In Amsterdam we have the real deal with Vincent van Gogh.

The impressionist painter has his own museum here. I have been (of course) and enjoyed it but now we also have a temporary exhibition called Van Gogh, My Dream Exhibition.

                                                               The Beurs van Berlage. 

"Why?" I hear you say.

Because over the years the paintings have fallen to some decay. The bright colors that Vincent van Gogh had used have faded. The brightness is no longer there.

The little square shows how the original painting is nowadays. 

The bright colors have faded away.      

The thought behind this exhibition was to bring the paintings back to the way that he intended (or so they think). As Vincent has written quite a number of letters to his brother Theo describing his paintings in detail,  they have taken 200 of his most famous paintings (he did so many many more) and digitally enhanced the paintings with bright colors Vincent might have used. Plus 7 of those paintings are shown in 3D which they say is quite the experience.

The exhibition is held in an Unesco monumental building that used to be the commodity market or merchants exchange of Amsterdam, the predecessor of the Stock Exchange. In the basement where the ice cellars and vaults are 1400 square meters of exhibition space was created specially for this.


                                                                          source

Armed with my camera I walked up the steps and entered the building. I  passed the cafe and bought my ticket, then down the stairs to enter the basement. Classical music greeted me the second I walked into the space but I was also surprised to hear the loud noise of people eating. I admired the first few paintings and the sounds of cutlery on plates grew louder and louder. And I thought geez, this is noisy. They must have the tables of the cafe right next to the walls of the exhibition. How silly. And the sound grew even louder, so much so you could barely hear the classical music playing. Choosing to ignore it I came upon the Potato Eaters. One of his most famous paintings.

I know, I know!! I make lousy pictures. You were allowed to make snaps but without flash. That bright spot on top of the painting is the spotlight that was on the painting.
I looked it up online and in real life the painting is excessively more darker and more grey so this really is an improvement. Right next to the painting was the first 3D booth of the painting of the Potato Eaters. And still that irritating noise of the cafe was right there behind that wall.

I put on my special 3D glasses (would have loved to know what I looked like with them on, but there were no mirrors) and entered the booth. WoW. That is all I can say. WOW.
Of this painting he did (like all of his paintings) first some sketches, and pre studies with paint and then of course the actual painting. The 3D display showed it all.

                                 I tried the capture the 3D magic on photo but failed miserably.

As they played the movie and images I realized that the sound of the cafe was in fact coming from the booth simulating the sound of the forks on the plates of the folks eating the potatoes. Well duh !!!! Slapping myself for this blond moment. Of course it was. Because the cafe is upstairs and the exhibition is downstairs.
I must have been there for 10 or 15 minutes seeing this 3D display over and over again. Moving the special glasses on and off my nose to see how on earth they did this 3D miracle. The 3D perspective is so AMAZING!!! I cannot figure out how they did it. It is like one of those 3D theater displays you used to make at schools with layers and layers to create dept. This was the same. The dept is fantastic. It blew my mind.

Moving on I viewed the many paintings. Took countless of pictures and entered 6 more 3D booths. These really blew my mind and of everything I saw the 3D was the best bit. Even if there were only 7.

The Orchard series:

van Gogh painted the Vase with Sunflowers in several versions. Apparently he made no less then 14!.
In 3D again this was mesmerizing. I. Could. NOT. Leave. the. Booth!! Totally consumes your senses.
Again I flipped the glasses on and off just to see figure out the magic behind this. I swear, I could spend a whole day in these booths.

 This is a set of 3. Van Gogh made it specially so the color of yellow in the lady's face was enhanced       by the paintings of Sunflowers.

Here are 2 versions of Starry Night:

The Raising of Lazarus (done after he was send an etching of Rembrandt from his brother Theo). This one shows how it is now, as you can see the colors have faded.

Because Vincent described in great detail to his brother what colors he used this must be how he intended the painting to look like. Quite a difference.

Because I took so many photo's you would be sitting here all day. I just show a few more in any random order of the exhibition.

We now left the previous ice cellars of this building and entered the vault. Where they kept all the money. This part of the building is beautiful. Seriously!

Look at those impressive faults gates! And below some of the vaults doors. Wouldn't want to drop those on your toes.

Wheatfield with crows. The 3D version shows you the wheat waving in the wind and with a lot of noise the crows flying in over you. DUCK!!!!

The last paintings in the vault were a series of self portraits of Vincent van Gogh. But my photo's of those were extremely blurry (bleep!)  So therefor a self portrait of me in the giftshop.

This exhibition was truely something else. One the one hand the colors were yummy. Bright and vibrant. The 3D booths were absolutely AMAZING!!!

On the other hand I was somewhat disappointed. The reason for this is that they were not real paintings. They were (as I knew) photo's of the paintings and than digitally enhanced. What was lacking were the brush strokes. The sense of reality. To see the canvas and the thick blobs of paints. It was not there. This was a let down (but only a little).

I resisted the lure of the gift shop although they had some wonderful things but if I am going on a date once a week I better not spend anything in the gift shop. My purse would be empty and my house full. 

All in all this was a fun date. Can't wait for the next one.

♥

A new beginning and my Word of the Year

The new year has started.  I was looking forward to it for a while. It's like when back in school you're getting to the end of a very messy notebook  and you get to start a brand new one just when the last page is all written up. The new one has been lying on the shelve for some time and you grow impatient to use it. And then you make yourself the promise that this new notebook will be kept neat, tidy and organized. A pleasure to look at and something you can show proudly to others.
(mine always started so nice and pretty with beautiful handwriting and pretty drawings as line dividers and then after a few pages my handwriting changed because I had to write faster to not fall behind and the end was so totally alien from the first pages I wouldn't believe it if I didn't do it all by myself!)

Well..... This new year thing has the exact same vibe to it for me. I am looking at a brand new book, with blank pages, ready to be written up. And I will be neat. And organized. I have to be.

Why???

Because I already have so many things I committed to and have planned so much more for the new year that I feel I can only handle this if I am organized.

I am committed to my wonderful Flyer Girls at Facebook. Awesome ladies who are each and everyone of them so goddamn talented I can't hold a candle to them. Some of them are extra special to me.

My new commitments for this year are 4 things (4 so far. And knowing myself as I do, more will follow).

• The first is the wonderful Life Book 2013

The amazing Tamara Laporte is teaching this year long (!!) internet course. Along with 20 other equally amazing teachers I am hoping they will bring me loads of inspiration, stimulation and joy. 52 weeks of lessons. One lesson every week. Easy peasy you think but each week has more then one asignment which has to be made.
The first lesson started yesterday and I looked at it today. Super exciting stuff. I am so thrilled to be taken this. And again with so many wonderful talented woman around the world. And as the cherry on the pie, also with some lovely girls from my Flying Girls group. I am so happy that some of them are doing this as well.

When I signed up for Life Book I could choose to buy it just as it is, or with one extra course or with two extra courses. Never one to say NO!!!!  ENOUGH!!! to anything, I purchased it with the two extra courses ( YES, I know... I am greedy)

• The second thing I am committing myself to is the first extra course which is: FABULOUS FACES

Because truth be told... I suck at drawing faces. I am a dab hand at Victorian houses. I can do great Folk Art. I do whimsical children's illustrations etchings, my pastels are very realistic. But I could not draw a nice face if my life depended on it. I really need this course.

As this course is on 9 lengthy video's which I have downloaded plus loads and loads of PDF's I can do this at my own pace. The course is 6 weeks but if I want to do it in 26 weeks I am free to do that as well.

• My third commitment and the second extra course: ULTIMATE WORLD OF WHIMSY

I can do whimsical. But like I said. I am greedy and this looked like such a fun course using Mixed Media also done by the ever wonderful Tamara Laporte I just wanted to do this one as well. And like the Fabulous Faces this is done on video's. 15 in total and again loads of PDF's. And also it runs for 6 weeks but because you can do it in your own time I can take as long as I want.

• The fourth thing I am committing to is reading The book The Artist Way by the wonderful Julia Cameron. 

Through my Flyer Girl group I have joined a book club and this is the book that will take us through the year. There are 12 chapters (of course with exercises) and we will tackle one chapter per month. I read the introduction and the first chapter and WOW. This is beyond inspirational. I will enjoy this immensely. I get to have Artists Dates. (yes, made you curious huh?)


With these artistic commitments I am hoping to become a better artist. To grow.

Which brings me to my Word Of The Year : 

(image made by Tagxedo)

I have chosen this word because this fits me. I know how to be creative. I am fairly good at some things. I am completely rubbish at other things. This year I will grow more in a artistic way then I have ever been before.

I will Emerge.

I can just feel it. This is going to be my year. I will have to work hard for it and I will have to step out of my comfort zone to make my dreams come true but BY GOLLY ! this will be my year.

I will shoot for the moon. 

Even if I miss I will land among the stars.

Wishing everyone a wonderful, creative, healthy and loving 2013 and hope you too will chase your dreams.

♥