Dots, dots, dots

 

Maybe you know I am a huge fan of dots...

 

I have used this basic design element abundantly in my art and still feel its attraction today

 

(If you search the label Design Elements in the category cloud in the side bar, you can see former posts about this subject)

 

It appears I am in very good company with regard to this:

 

Brenda Holzke is an artist working mainly with clay and showing the same love for

 shape, rhythm and even colors

in a limited color scheme

 

 Another artist that I have been admiring for a long time is

Shane Drinkwater

This image of a very simple work of art took my breath away the first time I saw it

In fact it was this work that triggered me to find out why I love dots so much...

 

and even now I still don't have the one and only answer, 

for it can be found in many fields of life, with as many possible meanings

 

Drinkwater is an Australian and his work seems to be influenced by the Aboriginals

 

 

And finally the works of Karine Leger

 

 

this is a painting that you can hear people think:

a child can do this...

However, after having painted for some years now, I know how deceptively difficult it is to create like this!

 

 

the same for this

 

 

ceramic plate, also made by Karine Leger

dots, rhythm and a little bit of color

 

I Love it!



Dots, ceramics

 

Hello!

 

Today is a day full of possibilities for me:

no appointments, no musts or whatsoever

 

the only thing I have to do is finding inspiration for my new painting

which will have to be: WATER (in the broadest sense)

 

So despite limiting myself ref. surfing time on the www, I had to go there and (like often) came across some eyecandy, oh boy..!

 

 

As you may know I love many things, materials, colors though of course I have my favorites... During my creative life there have been many questions from friends to participate in all kind of workshops (with different materials). Mostly I refused. Not because I did not want to try, on the contrary, it was more the fear that I could get hooked and would develop yet another passion...

 

Nowadays we have the luxury of being able to enjoy a myriad of art and/or decoration without going to a museum or participating in workshops. That luxury (I really feel it as such) brought the images in this post.

The above pottery is of Christina Guwang, a French ceramics artist, she makes the most fantastic 'bols'. I just love the simplicity, the neutral color scheme and of course the dots!

 

 

this ceramic piece is of Alan Wallwork, a British potter

The rhythm of the dotted pattern makes my heart sing...I just get happy of looking at it. I have tried to analyse this phenomenon but until today did not succeed to explain why, what it is that exactly makes it a feast to look at. Must be something psychological, I don't even know whether I want to know, haha

 

Last but not least this picture

 

 

my favorites are:

nr 3 top row, 1 and 2 middle, and 3 bottom

This is students work of the MIT in Cambridge, USA

 

These patterns could be sewn on my Pfaff machine one day!

 

 

So far my eyecandy for today. Gonna use my possibilities, see you!

 

Regina

 

 



Dots...

 

 

There is not much happening here in our little Spanish fisherman's village on the Medittarenean coast. Now the weather is moving into more 'fallish' temperatures, there is more enthusiasm with me to make long walks and also spend more time inside the house.

 

I look back on a September month with, for me finally, a lot of blogging. It feels as a good decision to make my rentree in the blogosphere, all be it alone for my own pleasure, to record my creative/artistic accomplishments and more general things that take place. And I am more than happy and grateful that a handful of faithful followers have made comments on my posts, thank you so much!

 

Today I started my new painting of the sailing ship, it is in its first stages and will require lots of more paint until I will show it here, but it will come soon I guess.

 

That's it for now, as I already told, not much news but just a little hello from  me here with some details of a photocollage full of dots that I recently made

 

As always, thanks for visiting my blog,

 

Regina

Dyptich

 

 

(click the image!)

 

Hi!

 

On the few cold, grey winterdays here in Spain, I love it when I can just stay inside and play with my pictures. This dyptich I made yesterday consists of details of journal pages I made years ago.

 As usual(with me)  the circle is present and remnants of words, sparingly.

 

That's about the only creativity life brings me at present. But no complaints, renovation works are still in progress and the end of this 'upstairs' phase is getting near! Then: working in my studio and maybe a little vacation, a break at least I suppose...

 

Stay warm and cozy!

Regina

Dots and circles

 

 

... always and everywhere!

 

While browsing through pictures of my fiber and paper work, it struck me how many of these contain dots, circles and the like!

 

It is a design element that apparently is very, very popular with me...

 

The brown part of this dyptich is the bottomside of a rusty iron scaffolding that stands at the side of our house at the moment; my attention was drawn to the light coming through the circular openings, thus showing the beautiful pattern and regularity. The right part shows some (maybe familiar) metal pans, in which the former owner made some holes herself. Not as regular, but with handmade charm nevertheless

 

This is about the only creativity coming from me currently, oh no, I forget to mention that I sewed myself a new tunica this week. It is antharacite colored, with white dots!

 

Happy Sunday, thanks for visiting!

 

Regina

Landing poles

This post is on, what I have come to call, landing poles.

I was looking for inspiration in my digitale archive and saw this picture (the first) again. It is a photograph of the remainder of what once was a lift to take a yacht out of the water.

Our favorite breakfast spot on the island is a French bakery, that has its terrace at the lagoon-waterside. Both sailors from their yachts as well as people living here frequent the place for they sell delicious ' baguettes' and 'croissants' and make a very good cappucino. But I digress... back to the poles!

This one sits in the water and every time I am there, I admire it because of its (to me) artistic beauty. The colour, the rust, the water and reflection... 

And then I remembered the similar pictures I seem to make, wherever I am traveling. Tried to figure out what it is that is speaking to me in these pictures, I really gave it a good thought, for it intrigues me...

old landing poles on the island of St. Eustatius

 

along the Surinam River in Paramaribo

and finally somewhere in Maine last summer.

What inspired me most in these pictures is

contrast

the water

 rhythm

and last not but least the memories I have of all these places!

Thanks for visiting my blog today!

Regina



One day

I will be making textiles with one of these designs!

It has all I love: contrast, neutral colours, graphic patterns. The material is in the house, so one day...

BTW: These storyboards are really fun to make. You can download them from this site, you do need Photoshop however...

Grtz,

Regina

Current work

It all started some weeks ago with discovering a how-to of making shishas.

(you can read more about them here)

Since we do not have much possibilities to buy this kind of materials on the island, I started to look at what I could use for the big mirrors instead. Scarcety can be good for creativity...

Instead of the large sequins I now use the bottom of peanut cans, the Pl-brand that is. I draw tiny circles with a small Antillean coin and cut them with an old pair of scissors. To make them less sharp, I sand the sides et voila: mirrors!!

The cushion above is one of my first completed works and boy do I love it!

I can not show it in full, because it might be a Christmas gift or something for sale at Art in the Park next February, don't know yet...

detail of another cushion, cotton and silk, rather earthy colours, machine applique and hand worked sishas. This work is not finished yet, some 20 more shishas to go...

detail of a more contemporary panel, inspired by one of the 'bols' at this site,
ready to be made into a wall hanging

On another note: we are approaching the end of the 2010 hurricane season and I am glad that we only had Earl passing the island. I cannot even imagine the damage a category 4 or 5 hurricane might cause, seeing what already this one did to infrastructure and houses.

Another reason to be very thankful!
And now we have winds again, and cloudy and greyish weather some days, that are good for getting back my energy and inspiration!

I hope you have a wonderful Sunday,
thank you for visiting today!
Regina

Working

on this, now ready for the next step

feeling full of energy and inspiration...

more after the weekend, so please keep coming back and in the meantime:

have a great weekend!

Regina

Little circles

keep playing an important role in my work.

In the shisha's that will find their way in an embroidered throw cushion (India style), in a painting I recently did...

It has been a good week; a week of variation, of moving between helping other people and all kind of activities, good for everything but for my art. I find it difficult to focus at the moment, with so many things going on. The tropical weather has been a constant item with all the rain that has been falling. Helping out a friend that is without a sewing machine while she has to finish a piece for an exhibition in December. All this keeps me sidetracked, but I hope to get back on track the next week.

Have a great Sunday!

Circles and dots everywhere...

The more I focus, the more I see!

So it is time to continue my series of blogposts on the circle, on dots and also spirals. Not necessarily in the mathematical sense, but the circle as a design element. It all started for me with reading this book. Though this post might be too urban for the esthetical aspect of the circle, I think the design in itself has to do more than being esthetical. In my opinion design is about functionality also, which is clearly visible in the following pictures.

you can clearly see it in these cable-drums

and this manhole cover

We saw this one in Banff (Alberta, Canada) last year and I was thrilled by its beauty!

There is a lot of information about manhole covers on the web, just google the word and the most beautiful examples show up. On this blog you can find pictures of very artful Japanese manholes!
These are the huge wheels of the biggest truck in the world that we saw in Sparwood (British Columbia Canada) Image is clickable so you get an idea of its dimensions.

logo's are often made in a circular form

and the circular pavement around a tree is quite common in the urban world

I could, again, go on and on with this, there is so very much to see around, wherever you may be in this world!

But now it's time to prepare our vacation that will start in one week, only one week and so much to do...

Have a great weekend and thank you for visiting today!

Regina

Dots and spirals

(click!)

This collage gives me such a good feeling, it almost makes me happy. Can one get happy from something virtual? I think so, yes, at least for a moment it can cheer me up, looking at colours and design elements arranged in a way that pleases. It has everything I love, the colours from warm to cold, the contrast in the dots and the vague spirals in the background...

Pictures of some journal pages layered in photoshop until this emerged!

Have a great day, thanks for visiting,

Regina

Circles and dots (in pattern)

This post is again about circles and dots, as I originally planned to do in my Week of the Circle (see former post). Life with all its complications came in the way however, but my focus remained, so I simply extend 'my week' since this is my place, my very own, where I can do whatever I want, now isn't that fantastic, the idea alone?!

The focus on circles started by reading/browsing the book Elements of Design. And boy, once you focus on this design element (and I suppose this holds true for any topic), how often do you see it around you, in everything, in clothes, in logo's, in jewelry, printed matter, nature, urban structures, I could go on and on...

I have always been attracted to this kind of beads, but never realized why, I just adore it!

But now I begin to discover, it could be because of the contrast, the neutral colours, maybe it is the circle...

this picture from the book gave me a 'pang', love it, love it!

Circles (dots) in a lined pattern even make me feel more thrilled. Soon after seeing this photograph, I discovered Lisa Sarsfield's blog, where to my surprise I saw almost similar lines, now is this focus or synchronity? Please go and have a look at Lucky Dip
Lisa is a very talented lady...

now what's not to love about this?

This is work of Maarten Stuer. Dots, dots and circles, the light falling through so beautifully;
you can find more of his fabulous sculptures here

Another artist I admire is Cristina Guwang, a potter that makes 'bols', which is French for little, round bowls.

Bols are an addiction of me that started a long time ago when I was living in Europe, it kind of stopped when we moved to St. Maarten where I don't see them being made. But the love is still there I realised when I discovered Christina's lovely work.

This one is heading in the direction of my next post that will be about circles in nature.
Guwang's website is here

I hope you enjoyed today's dots and circles, thanks for visiting!

Regina

Week of the Circle (textiles)

Though my dengue is not over yet, I'm feeling less feverish and can't wait any longer with working on my blog. This 'all things circular' was inspired by the wonderful book 'Elements of Design', you can read more about it here.

It is funny how often you see something when you focus on it, on things circular in this case. I remember seeing only pregnant women during my pregnancies, of course I did not really see just women with big bellies, but somehow my eye discovered them before seeing anybody else. That, I think, is the same psychological phenomenon! So, focusing it is I guess, on circles around us, to start with textiles, which I still consider my no. 1 love in the field of art/creativity.

this picture is from the book mentioned above, isn't the cloth in which she carries her child adorable?

circles in an old, tie-dyed t-shirt...

and a blouse of ages ago, but for me so beautiful that I cannot throw it away, circles within spirals, black and white, little dots in between, I love it!

more elaborate, but yet: a circle, almost like a doily

and last but not least this detail of a beachwrap, made in India.
Oh, and then there are umbrellas, tree skirts, drunkard path's patchwork blocks, pillows ,...
Next time more circles, thanks for visiting!
Regina

Design elements- circles (1)

Some time ago Ian Foster, over at Abstract Minimalism, posted about ' The Elements of Design', a 2002 book that looked very attractive to me. So I ordered it with Amazon and since it arrived I love to browse it every now and then. The pictures are very beautiful and inspirational in their simplicity and natural colours!

This morning I had a look again and at seeing the picture below I got a kind of AHA-Erlebnis (sorry for the German), the cowrie shells stitched in a circle reminded me of something I had been sewing a long time ago...

knew what it was and I remembered the feeling of surprise when I visited my daughter last winter in Holland.

There it was: the pillow I sewed some 15 years ago, circles of natural colours on a black linen background, embroidered on my then new Pfaff sewing machine.

Despite the years, it still looks as if it were new and I so appreciate my daughter taking care of it and keeping it in this condition!

Circles, dots and spirals

are design elements that I frequently use in my work, not only these days, but since much earlier times. As far as I can remember I have always been attracted by this form and in honour of this design element I declare this week my very own

Week of the circle

I intend to search my archives and post an unpublished picture every day.

A special thank you to Ian for introducing us to this fabulous book

Wishing you a great Sunday,

Regina