InspirIng
about what (and who) inspires me
vrijdag 1 januari 2016
Heb ik dit wel nodig?
Deze blog, InspirIng, heb ik die wel nodig? Ik heb een FB-pagina die over dezelfde dingen gaat, Ingidee, nog een FB-pagina over een permacultuur-project, CuraDura (en daarvan ook een blog) en natuurlijk mijn persoonlijke FB-tijdlijn en een Google-profiel. En dan heb ik ook nog twee websites, die op Exto over kunst en die op Weebly over van alles .. Die beide websites bieden ook te mogelijkheid om blogs te schrijven. Dat doe ik ook, op m'n Weebly-website.
Nee, het is teveel! Er moet iets afvallen. Waarschijnlijk wordt dat deze blog hier.
Denk jij daar anders over? Geef hier dan een reactie met jouw goede raad!
dinsdag 29 december 2015
Ingidee, alles anders
Ik ga mijn blog maar anders doen. Toch maar in het Nederlands. Veel ruimer dan alleen tekenen en schilderen. Net als mijn Facebook-pagina Ingidee. Alles wat me bezighoudt, vooral op creatief gebied. Als ik steeds een kort stukje schrijf, dan kan dat vaker ...
Je ziet hier een tas, gehaakt van plastic tasjes. Plastic tasjes gaan zeldzaam worden ... dat is goed! Dan waaien ze tenminste niet meer door de straten.
Je ziet hier een tas, gehaakt van plastic tasjes. Plastic tasjes gaan zeldzaam worden ... dat is goed! Dan waaien ze tenminste niet meer door de straten.
maandag 8 juni 2015
fighting the slugs
In my Garden Journal: start of the herb spiral
A
herb spiral in my garden was what I wanted. I knew about the
principles of permaculture, for years. It was about time to put them
into practice. The spot once was a small terrace. Some years before I
took the hexagon-shaped bricks out, piled them along the edge. In new
soil I tried to grow pumpkins there. I should be aware this spot had
a problem: slugs! They ate every young pumpkin plant in there!
I
thought to know better: the slugs ate the pumpkins, but they wouldn't
like herbs. They never ate the rosemary, sage and chives. Now I know
those are plants they do not like. But that isn't the same for all
herbs ... or the vegetables I was planning to grow there too.
Map / design of the herb spiral
So
I had a spiral in mind. The hexagon bricks were right for shaping it.
In the middle it had to be a little higher. First the soil had to be
prepared. Late 2014 I started. A cardboard box, filled with cotton
rags, soil over it, made the middle part higher. I covered the ground
with cardboard. Bricks prevented it from being blown away by the
wind. And so it rested for some months.
We
would leave for six weeks, from mid February. Early February I went
on with the preparations. The cardboard, already soaked wet, was torn
to pieces. I put over a layer of soil and autumn leaves. Leaves of
planes and willows were easy to find in the neighbourhood. I shaped
the spiral neatly, rising to the middle from one to three layers of
stones. Now it had to wait until we'ld return from the trip.
It
was the start of April. Time to sow seeds. I sowed some different
herbs, marigolds, beans and peas. At the market I saw cabbage and
lettuce plants for sale. I bought some cabbage and planted it at
different spots in the garden. I did not buy lettuce, thinking it
would be 'slug fodder'. I found out all too quick also cabbage is
fodder for the slugs! OK, no cabbage in the spiral then. Let's see
how the seeds grow. Yes, I saw something green coming ... Happy I
portrayed the little seedlings in my Garden Journal. Some days later
they were nowhere to find. Only slug traces ...
The first seedlings in my Garden Journal
I
had to do some research on permaculture ways for fighting slugs. I
asked at some forums and Facebook: which are plants slugs hate? I
thought to put such plants alongside and inbetween the herbs, and
then the sluggs would stay away. Good thinking, but alas ... such
plants do not exist! There are plants slugs do not like to eat:
onions and alike, rosemary and wormwood. But to use them to get the
slugs out, you have to plant three rows of them closely together
around your spiral. So someone from England told me.
Drawing and description of the slug
I
got more advices on slugs. Most people told about coffeeground. I put
a layer of that stuff around some cabbage plants in other parts of
the garden. Now I have one cabbage left (because of the coffee, or
was it a better part of the garden?). A little bit of coffeeground is
not sufficient, it has to be a thick layer in a circle around a
plant. Crumbled egg shells, suggested by some, did not work. I even
saw slugs nibbling at the egg shells.
The last cabbage plant in my Garden Journal
Another
advice I got: nematodes. Nematodes are like very small worms living
in slugs. If a slug has too many of it, it dies. It's easy to grow
nematodes. First you catch slugs daily, as much as possible. You put
them in a bucket with a lid, with a little water and plants they eat.
Then one day you see all slugs are dead. Then you fill up with water,
stir and sieve it in a watering-can. Pour it all over your garden.
This water contains so many nematodes, they will soon kill all slugs.
It seemed to work. At least the amount of slugs was diminished very
much after this process. Or was it because of catching the slugs
daily?
June
started, more sun, dryer. Not often I discovered a slug. I had some
nicely grown plants in containers. I thought time to plant them was
now ... You guess it: next morning they were damaged again! Even if
there is only one slug, it can damage all plants in one night. The
slug picks out the tasty green point in the middle. That's the point
from where the plants grows. Without that, it's lost!
Some plants around an 'olla' in my Garden Journal
Now
the conclusion. First: start doing research long before you start
your herb spiral. Study the history of the spot, the soil, the plants
and shrubs growing there (now and before). Read (or re-read) all
there is to know about permaculture before you even start your
preparations. Second: wait until everything is in balance before
planting any vulnerable vegetables. In the first year there is
definitely no balance, probably that will take a few years.
How
could I do better? I should have prepared the spiral and planted it
all with slug-resistant herbs. Think rosemary, sage, mint, wormwood,
garlic, chives. After some years, when it's clearly in balance, I can
start experimenting other species. So: no more vegetable plants this
year! Now onions, potatoes, mint (that's like weed) and still one
pea-plant are growing there. The empty places I can fill with
rosemary and sage. And I'll have patience!
A different view on the herb spiral
zaterdag 11 april 2015
Plein Air Curaçao 2015
I am totally addicted
to Plein Air painting now! I was at the Caribbean island of Curaçao for some
weeks. February 27th to March 7th I joined the Plein Air
Curaçao Festival. This festival is there every two years. Yes, I was there two
years ago too. But this time was even better!
the yellow house of Fleur de Marie
It’s so nice to be
with a group of artists together, doing what you like most: painting. You all
paint the same view, but everyone does it in his or her own way. Your styles
are different and you use different materials. The materials we used were: oil,
acrylics, watercolours and pastel. This time I wasn’t the only watercolourist.
view from Klein Santa Martha
Some of the artists
are used to visit Plein Air events, mostly in the USA. Others are studio
painters, not used to the way of ‘plein air’. The advanced plein air painters
know how to work fast, to finish their painting in about two hours. For others
that is difficult. But we learn from each other.
view from the boat at Fuik
After the festival was
over, I stayed at Curaçao for some more weeks. I did some more painting.
Because then the Plein Air Galley was closed, I made them having in mind
selling at an art fair in the Netherlands. I did my best to make some ‘nice
tropical watercolours’.
bird's cage in the garden
Now I’m back in the
Netherlands, I want to go on painting ‘plein air’. But usually the weather here
is not so nice. Often it rains, you can’t go sit outdoors whenever you want. I
was so happy we had some really nice spring days last week! So I painted my own
neighbourhood using the paint that was still on my palette from Curaçao!
my neighbourhood in Meppel (the Netherlands)
donderdag 29 januari 2015
ARTticle 'Art and Culture' *
It seems there is a connection between culture and art. Often these two
words are used together. But what’s the meaning of ‘culture’?
The word ‘culture’ has its origins in the Latin word ‘colere’, meaning
‘plowing the soil’. That still is one of the meanings or ‘culture’. You know
‘agriculture’ and ‘cultivated soil’. Also the product of the cultivation is ‘a
culture’, varying from micro-organisms to roses. The culture of roses is about
growing a certain type of rose. The distinguished characteristics of that rose
are developed, improved.
This is leading us to the other meaning of ‘a culture’. Now it isn’t
about flowers, but people. In ‘a culture’ they develop distinguished
characteristics. The people in a group all have a certain behaviour. They
develop the same values, tradition, rituals, a lifestyle. And this leads to a
style of building, clothes, food, music, etcetera.
Now we arrived at the meaning of ‘culture’. Cultural expression:
everything characterising humans, or a group of humans, a sub-culture. In fact
that is everything except nature. It can be architecture, fashion (clothing), food,
music, fine arts, theatre, etiquette, traditions, and many more.
By mentioning ‘art and culture’ in the same breath the aspect of ‘art’
is widened to ‘all art’. But the aspect of ‘culture’ is narrowed to only that
part having to do with art.
So at one side ‘culture’ is something that makes groups of people differ
from each other, at the other side it’s about what they have in common. It can
be restriction, or development.
a product of culture: a rose
*Voortaan staat de Nederlandse tekst op een aparte pagina 'Nederlands (Dutch)'.
maandag 12 januari 2015
Creativity is a Gift
Creative
Create,
creation, creativity, creative thinking, being creative
'Creativity is a gift', coloured pencils in 'daily journal January 2015'*
Creating is not just ‘making’. An important aspect of creating is designing.
Someone can design a ‘creation’ and have it made by others, but is still the
‘creator’. Someone ‘thinking creative’ can have wonderful ideas … which are
impossible to execute. But these ideas – the thoughts – are created!
It’s my conviction every human has some creativity. I base it on Genesis
1:27 (the bible). There it says God created humans ‘in His image’. God is the
Designer and Creator of all there is. We are ‘in His image’, so we are
designers and creators too. It’s a spiritual (mental) ability, because God is a
spirit. So every human is able to think creative.
The ability to be creative does not show in every person. Many people
never learned to use their creativity. Maybe they weren’t stimulated to think
by themselves. Maybe their toys were unimaginative and the TV was their nanny.
So their creativity was smothered.
When there are no materials, creative children can find a way to execute
their creative ideas. With sand, sticks and stones children can create
beautiful things! If parents tell them to stop otherwise they will become dirty
… they oppose their creativity!
If parents don’t give their children materials to colour and potter with
‘until they’re the right age’… their children might never have ‘the right age’.
As soon as a child can hold something in its hand, it’s able to create. Sure,
parents have to give a little ‘direction’, or the child will create anywhere:
on the wall, the carpet, the table-cloth, etc. All direction needed is: giving
a large tough piece of paper (f.e. wallpaper) and keep an eye on it, the
crayons are used only on that paper (b.t.w. wax crayons are the best for the
hands of toddlers).
But … you aren’t a toddler anymore. You have a history. In the past you
might not be stimulated to show your creativity. You never have any ideas and
you can’t even draw a stick-figure … Do not worry!
'Begonia rex', sketch using cheap felt pens on cheap printing paper
As I said there’s creativity in every human. So you have it in you.
Maybe it’s hidden very deep inside. But you can ‘draw it up’. You can learn to
surface your inner creativity. I mean real creativity, the ability to develop
an idea, to design and create something. Of course it isn’t there in a wink of
an eye … Take your time.
First think: what would you like to do? That’s personal. Some people
want to paint, others to write poems and others to plant a beautiful garden. These
are all creative activities. But you need more than only creativity, you need
to learn and practice skills.
You know what’s funny? When you start learning the skills … the creative
ideas will follow. After all you had them in you, spiritually! While you’re
busy learning the needed skills, the ideas will find a ‘way’ to surface. So you
can search for a course to learn something you like to do. You’ll notice: the
more you’re busy doing what you like, the more creative ideas will surface!
Creatief
Creëren,
creatie, creativiteit, creatief denken, creatief zijn
Creëren betekent:
scheppen. Scheppen is niet zomaar ‘maken’. Een belangrijk aspect van scheppen
is het bedenken of ontwerpen. Iemand die een ‘creatie’ ontwerpt kan die zelfs
door anderen laten maken, maar is toch de schepper ervan. Iemand kan ‘creatief
denken’ en zo tot heel aparte ideeën komen … die misschien niet uitvoerbaar
zijn. Toch zijn die ideeën -de gedachten- dan wel gecreëerd!
Het is mijn overtuiging dat ieder
mens creativiteit in zich heeft. Dat baseer ik op Genesis 1:27 (de bijbel).
Daar staat namelijk dat God de mens schiep ‘naar Zijn beeld’. God is de Ontwerper
en Schepper van alles wat er is. Als wij ‘naar Zijn beeld’ zijn, dan zijn wij
ook ontwerpers, scheppers. Het gaat dan om het geestelijke vermogen, want God
is een geestelijk wezen. Ieder mens heeft dus het vermogen in zich om creatief
te denken.
Dat vermogen tot creativiteit
komt er echter niet bij ieder mens uit. Veel mensen hebben nooit geleerd om hun
creativiteit te gebruiken. Misschien werden ze als kind niet gestimuleerd om
zelf dingen te bedenken. Misschien hadden ze fantasieloze speeltjes en werden
ze al heel jong voor de TV gezet. Daardoor wordt creativiteit al in de kiem
gesmoord.
Als er geen materialen zijn, dan
bedenkt een creatief kind wel een manier om toch z’n creatieve ideeën uit te
voeren. Kinderen kunnen met zand, stokjes en steentjes prachtige dingen maken!
Als de ouders dat echter verbieden, omdat het kind er vies van wordt … dan
werken ze de creativiteit tegen!
Als ouders wachten met het geven
van kleur- en knutselmaterialen ‘totdat het kind er aan toe is’ … dan komt het
kind er misschien nooit aan toe. Zodra een kind iets met z’n handje kan
vasthouden is het in staat zich creatief te uiten. De ouders moeten dat wel een
beetje ‘sturen’, anders uit het kind z’n creativiteit overal op: de muur, de
vloerbedekking, het tafelkleed, enz. Maar dat ‘sturen’ hoeft niet verder te
gaan dan een flink stevig stuk papier (bijvoorbeeld behangpapier) te geven en
er op te letten dat kleurkrijtjes alleen daarop gebruikt worden (dikke
kleurkrijtjes zijn heel geschikt voor kleine peuterhandjes).
Maar … jij bent geen klein kind
meer. Je hebt al een heel verleden achter je. In dat verleden ben je misschien
helemaal niet gestimuleerd om je creatief te uiten! Je weet niets te bedenken
en je kunt nog geen poppetje tekenen … Niet getreurd!
Zelfgemaakt 'reisjournaal' (travel journal) met suède omslag
Zoals ik al zei zit creativiteit
in ieder mens. Dus ook jij hebt het in je. Misschien zit het heel diep
weggestopt. Maar je kunt het ‘ophalen’. Je kunt leren de creativiteit die jij
in je hebt, te uiten. Echte creativiteit bedoel ik, het vermogen om zelf iets
te bedenken en dat uit te voeren. Natuurlijk kun je dat niet zomaar ineens …
Neem er de tijd voor.
Bedenk eerst wat jij leuk zou
vinden om te doen. Dat is heel persoonlijk. Er zijn mensen die willen
schilderen, terwijl anderen gedichten willen schrijven en weer anderen een
mooie tuin willen aanleggen. Dat zijn allemaal activiteiten waarbij je
creativiteit goed kunt gebruiken. Maar je hebt meer nodig dan alleen creatieve
ideeën, je moet ook vaardigheden aanleren.
Weet je wat zo leuk is: als je
begint de vaardigheden aan te leren … dan komen de creatieve ideeën ook wel.
Die zaten tenslotte al in je geest! Doordat je bezig bent met de vaardigheden,
vinden de ideeën een ‘weg’ om tevoorschijn te komen. Ga dus gewoon een cursus
volgen om iets te leren dat jou leuk lijkt! Je zult merken: hoe meer je bezig
bent met wat je leuk vindt, hoe meer creatieve ideeën er in je op komen!
Een schets van Van Gogh als voorbeeld voor mijn schets in 'daily journal January 2015'*
* ideas (prompts) for daily journal sketches in January 2015 I found here:
ideeën voor dagelijkse schetsen in januari 2015 vond ik hier:
ideeën voor dagelijkse schetsen in januari 2015 vond ik hier:
zaterdag 20 december 2014
Watercolour pencils, how to use them?
(De Nederlandse versie van deze blog staat op http://lovefordrawing.wordpress.com/inge-leonora-den-ouden-aquarelpotloden/ )
Probably you know about watercolour pencils. They’re pencils of which
the colour is soluble in water. You make a drawing, put on some water … and it
looks like watercolour! Sounds easy … but is it really? What do you have to
know to do it yourself?
Don’t buy a cheap box of watercolour pencils in a supermarket! The cheap
stuff is of bad quality, not nice to work with. Good pencils the special store
for artist materials sells the piece. You can take some colours you like to
start with. Later on you buy some more. I use Caran d’Ache Supracolor Soft.
There are more good brands. The shop owner can advise you.
When you have your pencils, test them. Draw squares on a piece of
watercolour paper. Colour in two squares side by side in one colour. Make the
colour go from light to fierce and back again. Then you take water, dip a small
watercolour brush in, and work over one square only. The other square stays
dry. Start at the light part and work towards the part with more colour,
enforcing the flowing effect.
You do this with all of your colours. You’ll remark they don’t all react
the same to water. Now you’ve done this test you can take account with that.
Test of my watercolour pencils
The right paper is important too. You use water, so ordinary drawing
paper isn’t right. Use strong watercolour paper. You can buy it in the same
shop as the pencils. Ask for a brand of paper that can handle all layers of
pencils and water. There is ‘rough’ and ‘smooth’ paper. You could try both to
see the difference.
Nu we start drawing! You draw with watercolour pencils, but the end
result can look like a (watercolour) painting.
First you do the ‘lay-out’ (or ‘sketch’). You mark the setting of all parts of the drawing on the paper. I use watercolour pencils to do that. I draw the lay-out in a neutral colour (grey or brownish), or in the colours I’ll use in the drawing. This lay-out will be invisible at the end.
First you do the ‘lay-out’ (or ‘sketch’). You mark the setting of all parts of the drawing on the paper. I use watercolour pencils to do that. I draw the lay-out in a neutral colour (grey or brownish), or in the colours I’ll use in the drawing. This lay-out will be invisible at the end.
I draw from photos or from my imagination. Often I first sketch the
subject in pencil or pen on printer paper. So I get acquainted with shapes and sizes
of my subject. When I use a reference photo I measure accurately before putting
shapes on my watercolour paper. I don’t use a ‘grid’, I use a ruler to measure.
If you want to use a grid, draw it very lightly in graphite pencil, erase it
when the lay-out in watercolour pencil is ready. You can’t erase watercolour
pencils.
Children portrait, lay-out in watercolour pencils
I explain the way I work. You do not need to work the same way. There
are so many methods for drawing! Do it the way you like.
I often start in ‘shadow colours’. That’s not easy to explain. I analyse
the colour I will put on. Maybe it looks like brown … but it’s a shadow of a
reddish colour … I won’t take a brown pencil. I might start with a dark green.
When I go over the green with the reddish colour, they both mix and become
brownish. If it still doesn’t look the way I want, I put on more colour(s).
It’s more like ‘feeling the right colours to use’. When I’m drawing from
imagination it’s all ‘feeling’.
In this way I colour all of the drawing in one or more layers. Only
white parts have no colour (nor white pencil).
Children portrait, first coloured layer after first wash with
water
The first layer of colour is not fierce. First I ‘wash’ my drawing with
water. I use a small watercolour brush. In the test I wrote how to do it. For
every new shape I rinse my brush in water. Some shapes have flowing colours and
I want to enforce that. In that case I put a lot of water on my brush and work
on until that shape is finished. If that isn’t possible, I take new water on my
brush and go on in the wet part where I was before.
In a portrait I often want a nice flow from white to colour. Then I
start with my wet brush in the white and work over to the coloured part.
When all of the drawing is washed with water, it has to dry thoroughly.
If you go on with watercolour pencils when the paper is still wet, you’ll get
unexpected effects … Maybe that is what you want … the explanation comes later.
A day (or more) later I go on. If I see some change in shapes is needed,
it’s still possible, the colours are still light now. In the following layers I
make the colours stronger, more fierce. Sometimes I add more layers of the same
colour, but often I work over in different colours.
Children portrait, end result
You can add a texture in parts of your drawing. You use small lines, or
other doodles, to get that texture. These texture lines you make with more pressure
on the pencil, in the first layer. I often use a ‘shadow colour’. When you
brush it with water, more colour will stay in the lines, and less in the parts between.
In the next layer you put colour all over. After the wash then, a darker
mixture will stay in the lines. This is a way to draw fur, hairs, etc. Use
smooth watercolour paper, because rough paper has a texture of its own.
Illustration from my imagination, first layer: texture in the
kitten’s fur
Illustration with kitten, end result
As I said, there are many different ways to work with watercolour
pencils. I’ll tell a little about two of those.
You put lines, dots, shapes on your paper and you want them to stay
right there where you put them? So you won’t use a brush; the brush moves the
colours a little from their original place. I use a spray bottle then. The
drawing is flat on the table and I spray a mist of clean water over it. The
drawing stays in place until it’s dry. The water changes ‘pencil’ into ‘paint’,
but the drawing will stay as it was.
You want unexpected effects? Make your paper all very wet and start
drawing with watercolour pencils. When the core of the pencil is really wet you
can even ‘paint’ with it! Just try this!
Two dogs, added more black at last with wet black watercolour
pencil
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