Since we moved to our new home in Bunnik (it’s a house with a lovely garden) I’m suddenly into gardening. I LOVE gardening and although the garden is already very pretty there is much work to do to change the character of the garden from ornamental into a more natural garden that is useful for insects and birds. So I decide to illustrate a gardening scene, and the sketch is now ready.
Here is Spring Girl, my most recent piece. I had the idea to make a seasonal set for a long time after I made Autumn Girl. And because Spring season is coming I suddenly felt the urge to create a Spring version of Autumn Girl. Last week I asked a shop owner of a stationery store near my house if she would be interested to sell some of my postcards. I’m lucky because she likes my work and she had the idea of selling four of my cards, and Spring Girl will be one of them, next to Autumn Girl, Coffee Please and one of the Vintage Swimming cards. I’m so excited that my cards will be available in the shop soon.
The family portrait I was working on is finished! The portrait is located at the beautiful centre of Utrecht: Janskerkhof. It’s known for the flower market on saturday’s. I like to tell a story as simple as possible. So there is a lot of negative space in my work, even though some of the elements are quite realistic and detailed. The Dom tower, which is also shown in this family portrait is the most recognizable building for the city of Utrecht.
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all!
Sketchbook idea. For this drawing I was inspired by my 5 year old, so now you know how our Christmas tree looks like. One of the things I try to keep in mind to make Christmas less stressful – and I guess this drawing is a way to share this thought – is that Christmas is not about perfection.
I was asked to illustrate a birth announcement card for a sweet little boy who was born in november. His mother saw the birthcard I made for my youngest daughter (born in october 2017) and she asked me to create a boy version of the same idea. I even used the exact same autumn leave 😉
She sent me a card and this is the result. I removed the name for privacy reasons; the name is placed below on the right side of the illustration.
Almost finished the family portrait. At the moment I’m quite busy drawing lots of flowers. The tulips are finished, and I also drew the Gloriosa, now some roses, and perhaps there will also be some flowers in the background to create the scene of a flower market.
In my previous blog I already showed the drawings I made for this project. Here are the illustrations, made with glass painting technique. I think I’m going to make a set of Vintage Swimming postcards.
I made this sketch for a family portrait assignment. It’s located at the Janskerkhof in Utrecht, there is a weekly flowermarket on saturdays. I’m going to translate his sketch into a glass painted illustration and adding some details like birds, maybe some tree branches and more flowers ofcourse. 
Next to illustration I’m also a swimming teacher. Basically for children, because it’s a typical Dutch tradition to start learning children how to swim at the age of 5. Why? Because in the Netherlands there is water everywhere. But I also teach swimming to adults, and this work is also very inspiring for my illustrations. I thought about how we teach swimming these days and how we used to teach swimming in history. Sometimes it’s even hilarious to see how we used to teach swimming. I’m thinking of teachers with clothes on, never going into the water themselves imitating swimming movements while they stand on the side of the pool. But I also love the bathing suits of the ’50’s and ’60’s. And most of all, I think that some typical swim positions like taking a dive are the most beautiful scenes to draw.
So I looked at vintage photo’s and decided to make a serie of ‘Vintage Swimming’ illustrations. A lovely summer serie to create some nice prints and postcards.
Here are some ideas I am going to translate into a glass painted version:
