Hello hello,
For the first time, a welcome video of me in my studio!
If you like watching someone feeling very uncomfortable in front of a camera, the next 5 minutes and 39 seconds are all for you. I am pretty shy by nature, but since I enjoy seeing other artists' faces and their studios, I thought I'd just give it a go. And as expected, I felt very awkward 🙈
On the other hand, my cat Tommie is very relaxed, so hopefully, he will provide some balance to the video. Also, I edited out about 167 “uhms” for your comfort.
Walking around for inspiration
I go for an hour of walking every day to reduce my stress and take my mind off things. Along the way, I often encounter all kinds of inspiration. October is a great month because here in the Netherlands, there are many mushrooms to photograph and use as a reference.
Studio stuff last month:
I promised to keep you posted about the SEO. I had a 120% increase in visitors! And I still have to do a lot of SEO tweaking, so I might even be able to improve it. It might be worth looking at for your website.
Also, my latest sketchbook tour is on YouTube, watch it here:
As for studio time, apart from wrapping up client work and doing acquisition (yes, I’m shy, but not too shy to reach out to potential clients 😇), I found little scraps of time to paint for myself.
I painted a peacock butterfly, made it a little 3D and managed to finish the mushroom painting I talked about in the welcome video.
In our art community
First of all, thanks so much for all new subscribers! Since offering a new set of content for Substack and Patreon there has been an increase in subscribers, and it couldn’t make me happier to be able to share this creative space with you.
For free subscribers, October will deliver:
This newsletter
A possible bonus post
For paid members, I’m sending you these lovelies:
A post with inspiration; things I like and inspiring work from others (this month, it is inspired by witches and myth)
A video showing my art process. Most likely forest-themed :)
A live drawing session: Familiars. We’ll draw witches' companions (see below)
A timelapse of one of my artworks
BONUS: A drawing session with from The Time Foragers Club! The theme is Local Landscape Treasures (see below)
Interested? I’ll gift the 3rd and 5th person to comment below a month for free :-)))
Draw with us this month :
Our live sessions in October are
🧙♀️🦇🌙🐈⬛ Drawing Familiars; Witches Companions - Thurs 24th of October at 20:00 (8 PM) CEST
Think cats, frogs, ravens, owls, etc. If you’re up to it, you can make them match your personality with tips and tricks I’ll share in the session.
SIGN UP HERE
🌳🍄🏠🍁 Drawing Local Landscape Treasures - Tues 15th of October at 20:00 (8 PM) CEST with
of the Time Foragers Club! We will talk about an interesting connection between our hometowns and will draw seasonal images we found in our surroundings in Haarlem, the Netherlands and Doncaster, England. More info will follow soon!Please use this time zone converter to find the times in your area: www.worldtimebuddy.com
In My Sketchbook
In the last few years, I’ve become a sketchbook junkie. These are a few pages from last month:
Lovelies
Baking blondies - this recipe is excellent
Books - Inspired by our holiday in Cornwall, I’m going to re-read Monica Furlong's Wise Child trilogy with my daughter Alba. It was one of my favorites when I was a kid. I got us this wonderful copy, with cover art by a colleague.
Walks in the dunes (apart from the fact that my kid always needs to pee halfway:)
This Youtube video showing how the wallpapers by William Morris are printed. What a process!
Time to get back to painting and forest walks, I hope you have a wonderful witchy, cosy and hot chocolatey month!
- October - Akwardness, decorating the studio and mushroom hunting