Make Art That Sells course

I have enrolled myself into a MATS course, Make Art That Sells. I started with MATS A, talking about designing for 5 different markets. I just finished the first market, Bold Fabric. The great thing about the course is that you are guided step-by-step thru the process, with sooooo much information on the market, on what customers are looking for, about technical terms, about colors, and so much other stuff.

This weeks assignment was to create a Bold Fabric Design with pasta and casserole dishes. Here is my submittion. I started with sketching the dry pasta shapes, and while looking at images of vintage casserole dishes on the internet, I thought about the stack of handpainted papers I made. I selected a few papers to cut out the casserole dishes. Then I scanned everthing and combined all of the items to this piece in Photoshop. I am really happy with it!

Mixed media collage's

These Mixed Media collage's are made with vintage papers, mark making, ink, handpainted papers and a postage stamp.

Link naar Etsy

Link naar Etsy

Link naar Etsy

Link to Etsy

I made 8 of the same style mixed media collage's, all 10 x 10 cms (4"x 4"). A few are still for sale in my Etsy shop. They make a lovely holiday gift for your loved ones, or yourself :-).

RedBubble shop (kittyvdheuvel)

Since a few weeks I have a shop on RedBubble. RedBubble is a print on demand shop, where customers can buy lots of products (t-shirts, posters, prints, mugs, pillows, clocks, phonecases, etc.) with the designs that artists all over the world have created.

I have been uploading lots of my older paintings, drawings and illustrations. And I am very happy that some of my designs have been purchased by customers from all over the world. Really exciting!!

My best selling design is my dancing puffin watercolor illustration, I have a single puffin and a 3 puffins design, both sell well. This is an example of the pillow:

And another bestseller is my watercolor illustration of this sweet dog:

And I also sold 2 wall tapestries of this alcohol ink landscape painting:

I am so thrilled that people appreciate my work, and I think I might go and order some Christmas gifts myself :-). I do love how my mixed media collages show on the different products!

My shopname is kittyvdheuvel, just type it in the search box and you can take a look yourself!

Creating more stock

I sold a lot of ACEO's and small paintings in the last few weeks from my Etsy shop. I am working on new ACEO's at the moment. Here are already 2 new Mixed media ACEO's:

And I worked on watercolor (and pen) paintings. Both paintings are 5" x 7". A lovely sleepy and cuddly koala and a lazy dog. Is there anyone who wants to play...? 

And one with watercolors on YUPO paper, also 5" x 7". This is a view from the Pacific Highway 1, running down the coast of California. I will be going to California in a few weeks time, and I will blog about my adventures and show you some sketches I make along the way.

What to do with all these gelli prints?

Today I decided it was time to do something with the great painted papers I created with the Gelli Plate. I have a bunch of different kind papers (deli paper, regular copy paper, rice paper, etc.), in all colors, with all kind of motives. It is really addictive this Gelli Plate. I was thinking about creating some birthday cards, but started with a collage instead.

I took two similar colored papers for the background and braided them. I put some gel medium on the back to stick them together. The collage is actually created in a Visual Journal 9" x 11". I am going to dedicate this journal only for Gelli Plate prints, collages and journal pages with Gelli prints.
Looking for a table I found this lovely purple Gelli print on delipaper. The vase is delipaper as well, and you still can see thru it.
I cut the petals from the tulips from 2 different kind of red prints.

I love it, and it does feel good to create something with all these lovely prints!

Monoprinting and linocuts

I am still enjoying playing with my new Gelli plate! I am trying different ways of using the plate and am creating lovely papers.

I have an idea that I need to work on, combining gelli plate printing with linocuts, collage, and more. I carved a pelican in lino and printed it onto BKF Rives printing paper. The example below is handcolored with watercolors. I am still figuring out how to best print the background on the Gelli Plate and I will keep you updated when I found the right process. For the meantime... enjoy

And as Albert Einstein said: "Creativity is contagious, pass it on"

Gelli plate fun!

Oooohhh.... I haven't posted in a while... Sorry about that, I hope to get back into posting on my blog..

I got a Gelli plate for my birthday. It is not my birthday yet (still 3 more weeks to go), but I already got one present. A Gelli Plate. And I love it! I created some lovely colorful prints, marvelous for backgrounds and art journalling. But the reason I wanted a Gelli plate was to do more monoprinting. And, if I may say so myself, I love the results so far. Yes, definitely my new favorite art tool for the moment!

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday evening, on Christmas Eve, I was sitting on my sofa with a glass of red wine and I felt really happy. I was thinking about the past year, I was thinking about my friends and family,  the trips I made to Spain, Greece and my 6 weeks stay in the US. The short trips and weekends away with my friends and sister. The time I was able to spend on art and creating, the new techniques I tried and the new things I learned. Yes, I feel extremely content with this year. I hope next year will be great as well, I hope your next year will be as great as mine!

And then I woke up on Christmas Day and checked my Facebook messages. Beside lots of messages from my FB friends (some I have met, some are great FB friends, but all precious to me), I see that Cloth Paper Scissors has used my Mixed Media Santa in their Christmas message and article on their blog. What a great gift!!! So much to be grateful for.

More sunflowers

This week I have been working on another sunflower collage. The collage is created with handpainted papers. The size of this collage (and the previous one) is 24 x 30 cms, 9 1/2" x 12". Both collages are for sale in my Etsy shop. Please let me know if you are interested.

Sunflower 2

Sunflower 1

Home again

This will be the last blog post from my trip to the US. My normal life has started again, and I am even back at work.

Last weekend I attended a 2-day workshop with Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson called Paper painting. As I do have a soft spot for collage, this looked liked the perfect workshop for me. And it was! Elizabeth is not only a great collage artist, but also a great teacher and a lovely person. Make sure to check out her blog or take a class with her when you get the chance.

The first day we painted all kind of papers, rice papers, mulberry papers, book pages etc. Elizabeth demostrated all kind of techniques and then it was playtime! The second day we focussed on our collage with our own handpainted papers. We all had to do some homework before the workshop, we needed to bring a 12" x 12" painting of an apple, to be used as underpainting for the collage.

Here is my collaged apple, I am very happy with the end result and will sure use the new techniques in my future work.

And then to say goodbye to California, to summer and to say hello to the Fall/Autumn I will share a last image of the view from the back porch of the cottage in Penngrove.

This month's article on Unruly PaperArts

Today my article has been published on Unruly PaperArts. This month's focus is on layering and there are already marvelous articles posted! Check out the website for more tips, tricks and techniques.

And.... do not forget to submit your work for the Readers Art Request, we have great prices this month!

This month on Unruly PaperArts - Layer on layer!

The subject  this month on Unruly PaperArts is Layer on Layer !  This month the columnists will be exploring the fundamental process of creating layers be it with a mixture of mediums or layers of the same element i.e. paper.

Please do not forget to submit an entry to the Reader Art Quest! Our July Sponsor is the Robin's Nest who have a beautiful range of speciality scrapbooking papers and embellishments. Some of the columnists will be working with a range of their texture products throughout the month and they are also kindly offering an assortment of these products as a prize for our one lucky Reader Art Quest winner valued at approx $70. 

This month I will be showing you how to create some lovely layered journal pages!

Lavender

I am trying to paint in the same loose style as Jean Haines. Very difficult. I started with a wash in blues and greens as background for the lavender. Then added the flowers, but was missing something... The composition was not good, this painting is on a full sheet, but I cropped it to this size. And I finished it with a little bit of ink rubbed thru a stencil and added some text with a rubber stamp. Much better.

Loosing it...

Why is it so difficult to loosen up? Last week I painted 2 loose watercolors that I really happy with. And this week, it is a struggle. I choose the same subject, the daisies and I fiddled with it for days..... This has nothing to do with loosening up, but I will show you anyway.

So, I turned back to alchol inks for a while. Alcohol inks are so hard to control, you will loosen up even if you do not want to. LOL. I have painted this rooster with letting the inks flow in the background first and then following the inks in the rooster. I love how he turned out!

What do you want to learn?

Hello everyone, as I told you in my last post, I am about to explore and investigate new possibilites. Very exciting!

I am looking to publish several inspiring online creative workshops and can do with your help. Please click on the following link and fill out the form! Your feedback is highly appreciated!

Kitty's art & crafts - only takes one minute!

A new year, new business, new opportunities....

It was my birthday yesterday. And also the start of a new exciting phase in my life. Most people are probably not aware that I am a freelance project manager in my daily life. I am managing large ERP implementations (Finance and/or tax related, i.e. project managing implementations of Finance and/or accounting systems, tax engines, consolidation software, etc) at large multinational companies.

And .. that I combine this life with the creative part of me. I also own a creative business, teaching workshops in the Netherlands and creating and selling my art work on Etsy etc. I have been thinking for a while, on what I want to do with this business and where I want to go. And during this time of considerations, I received an email on how to create beautiful online programs. Mmm... you can call it luck. I think it is an answer to one of my questions :-). I attended the webinar and enrolled in the program. So the next coming weeks I will be learning on how to create beautiful online programs. I will keep you updated on my progress.

My new article on the Unruly PaperArts blog

Goodmorning all! Today is a lovely day, the sun is shining, it is my sisters birthday and my new article on the Unruly PaperArts blog has been published.

This months subject is all about Mail Art and Moos. I started my Mixed Media career with making ATC's, artist trading cards. Do you want to know more about ATC's and my love for them? Click here to go to my article on the Unrulies blog.

Alcohol ink course

This month I am taking Karen Walker's landscape class in alcohol inks. She has some marvelous classes with lots of video's, encouragement and inspiration! If you are interested in following one of her classes please  click here.

This week the focus is on Forest and Water and so far I have finished one painting. This one is from the Tropical Waterfall exercise, using an image shared by Robyn Lovelock on PaintMyPhoto http://paintmyphoto.ning.com/photo/waterfall-8.

I am now moving on to the next exercise on reflections. I have printed an image I took from a very Dutch landscape about a year ago, when I was on a painting holiday in National Park De Wieden in the Netherlands. I am very curious how it turns out in alcohol inks. To be continued....

More Spring in alcohol inks!

This week I have been on a roll! I created 5 alcohol ink paintings in total. All in the Spring time theme. I do love Spring.

This morning I finished an alcohol ink painting of the magnolia in bloom. I started it yesterday. And this afternoon I tried working with the Pinata inks. I love the vibrant colors. The ink is also easier to handle, it doesn't flow as wild as the Rangers does. Certainly a good buy!

Magnolia - 7"x 11" (18 x 28 cm)

Daffodils - 6 3/4" x 8 1/4" (17 x 21 cm)

Spring is in the air!

I has been a while since I posted on my blog. I have been busy! Not only with my day-to-day job but also with creativity. In March I though a workshop Mixed Media Canvas at the Volksuniversiteit in Soest (Netherlands). 10 ladies created a beautiful canvas to take home with them. I love how these canvasses all start out the same and with the use of the same techniques, they all end up completely different!

Next season I will be teaching 2 workshops at the Volksuniversiteit Soest, a 2-evening workshop on How to start an art journal and a 2-evening workshop on How to create a portret in mixed media. When the site is ready for registration, I will let you know!

And then, after some busy weeks, I went on a marvelous trip to Andalusia (Southern Spain) for a week. So much inspiration, beautiful things and great people. I am back to work again, but must say I have some problems adjusting... ;-).

This week I ordered a few more bottles of alcohol ink, some new colors and a new brand, Pinata. I am happy to say they are now available in the Netherlands as well, at the same shop I order my Yupo paper. But I could not wait.... so I started to create some daffodils, spring is in the air!