Plaster bulbs

Two years ago I made this 'field of bulbs' from plaster and kept it as it was, white. A few weeks ago I decided to spray paint them. I like that the rigidity of the pattern is disrupted by the empty spaces.

Collage revisited

I transferred the photo with gel medium and painted the shadow black with paint and placed a whiter copy of the girl in front of it. This was an exercise to see if the stronger contrast would make the image as a total stronger. My colleagues at the art academy didn't think so.

 

This was the original.

I've been weaving

At the DIY Textileschool we had a lesson from Marianne Kemp, a weaver. She works a lot with horse hair. In my stash I also had a kind of interesting rigid fibre in green and purple. I combined it with two shades of green cotton thread. It's a very time consuming activity and not my favourite. (And I had only half the number of nails on my home made loom in comparison with the looms other people had.)

Cardboard cocoon

One of my latest projects is a big cardboard cocoon, made of small pieces sewn together and spray painted afterwards.

Chaos and order

Two large pieces of painted paper on top of each other.

Theme book 2016

This years theme book had to be inspired by a book you love.
My book (can you call it a book if the pages are not bound?) is inspired by the novel Kees de jongen by Theo Thijssen. It's my all time favourite about a boy, his real life at the end of the 19th century and his imagined life. It's heartwarming and sad at the same time.
I made my book out of fabric (only the covers have an inside of cardboard) and embroidered scenes that have to do with my own real life as a child and my fantasies. The feel of the 'pages' is soft and if I would sew them together it could be a small blanket. A warm blanket, that's home.

The cover was a piece I made for the textile course earlier and I adjusted it a bit so it could serve as a book cover.

Synthetic fiber mania

I'm always inspired by colour and strange materials. I spraypainted the fibers (from an IKEA lamp) and played with them. By photographing them they get an extra dimension I think. The photos are often more interesting than the actual piece.

Cardboard and a girl

After playing with cardboard and simple forms the piece became interesting when I placed a photograph of me as a child in it. The scale changed. Now it became a kind of décor.

Art academy products

I'm still trying to find out what I really want to tell with my artwork for the art academy. There are so many stories and emotions in my head, constantly changing. Also, the textile works I make are even more different. I'd rather bring the two together. But maybe that isn't possible.

In this piece below is a picture of me as a young girl, balancing on a big ball, surrounded by the scary world of technology. At least, that's what I meant to convey.

The front and back of my embroidered face.The back is the most interesting one, anxious almost, because of the extra threads.

Free motion machine embroidery

Another project for the DIY Textile School: free motion machine embroidery. I cheated a bit because part of it is silk ribbon stitched on. The girl is from an old photograph when I was seven. It's transferred on cotton with gel medium and attached to the background fabric with three small paper fasteners.
The image is from an old photo yearbook and I used it upside down.

Textile book

Another project that started with the train photos. I transferred them on fabric and organza and embellished them with embroidery. And I stencilled with textile paint. I mostly use the Dylon cold water paint because you don't have to prepare your fabric beforehand. I like that because I'm the 'spur of the moment' type. The letters on the front are also embroidered.

I kept the threads on the edges of the fabric to soften the look and give some contrast to the hard steel of the subject.

Textile colouring

What fun to have my own coloured textiles. It's like an icecream shop.

Playing with forms

The art academy assignment was to design a sculpture for a square. I drew several organic forms, inspired by the green sprouts from the bulbs emerging from the earth.
Some glossy cardboard, a big eraser, playmobil figures and leftover pictures from Norwegian houses made it into a mini square.

Art Academy assignments

Photo of a stil life transformes into a textile work

The assignment: take a photograph of this still life and make a black and white collage of it. Then make a textile work of it in complementary colours. In my case: purple and yellow.

I had a piece of purple burlap and threaded different purplish threads through it. I brought the elements of the photo down to three and simplified them. I wanted to make a kind of child's game (you have to throw the textile elements in the exact spot) so I made the pieces a bit dimensional by filling them with some filling material.

Invitation (for Dutch readers only)

I'm proud to announce that a few of my books will be part of an exhibition curated by the bookartist Roswitha Witten (a former teacher).