Seth Apter and "The Pulse"

I am sure you've heard of Seth, right? He's the amazingly generous artist behind the blog The Altered Page. Anyway, he has bravely collected a bunch of information from over 200 artists for his fourth zine "The Pulse Artist Survey: The State of the Art". I can't wait until it comes out!

If you can't wait either, head over to Seth's blog because he's posting delicious tidbits here and there. And keep going back because one of these days you might see a little something from me :-)

What I've been doing...

Making a mess.

Painting, making rings, taking photos. I also went to Germany where I drank gluhwein and ate bratwurst at the Christmas markets. In other words, I've been having fun. Obviously I've not been updating this blog, LOL!

And just as a reminder to myself... I love this site: Sketch Theatre.

"De Kat" Paint Windmill in Zaanse Schans, Netherlands

Over Roxi's school break, we took a few day trips from our home in Den Haag. One afternoon, we went to see the windmills at Zaanse Schans. I was particularly excited to visit this one: De Kat, "probably the last wind-powered dye mill in the world". If you ever get a chance to visit this mill, I know you will love it. We had such fun climbing around inside.

Happily, they sold these beauties. I've always wanted to try mixing my own paints from pigments.

Aren't they gorgeous?

Mural in Rotterdam, Netherlands

Near the parking garage Westblaak in Rotterdam.

I hope that's my muse come knocking

A very artistic front door, not far from where I took my Dutch lessons.

I am done with my four-week intensive Dutch class. While I am by no means fluent, I can have some very simple (and short) conversations. Anyway, the class was a huge jump start and I expect that I will continue to learn more on my own using the Rosetta Stone software we bought before moving here in June. I'm going to put in an hour a day. It think that's doable.

So, finally I have some free time to work on art. BUT I also want to make sure I use my new language skills. So I've been looking around for some art classes... we shall see :-)

Eta Carina Nebula

I am totally blown away by this photo. Delicious colours! It won the Royal Observatory Greenwich's Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2009 Competition. Well deserved. There are some other amazing photographs in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Flickr pool.

Self portrait Wednesday

Den Haag, Netherlands.