Dark but Happy Monday!

 

Monday morning, outside it is a bit gloomy, inside I am enjoying my (new) dark walls (above just a sneak peek, soon more about revamping my house on the blog). Have to say I have had the most fantastic, relaxing weekend since ages. Friday I had the honour attending the 5th Stars, Food & Art event at Sofitel The Grand in Amsterdam. A culinary feast/charity event organized by my friend Lise Goeman Borgesius of Clafoutis. 6 chefs, in total 13 Michelin Stars, including Sergio Herman, Jean-Andre Charial, Erik van Loo, Giovanni D'Amato, Lucas Rive and Emmanuel Renaut. Yes I confess I am a food groupie!

Have a beautiful week everyone!

 Cake of Piece, Sergio Herman***

 More deliciousness...

  Proud of Lise!

 Having a groupie moment flanked by 4 Michelin stars Lucas Rive** 

and Eric van Loo**

Creating Still Lifes

(still lifes @ home - photo's Mariska Meijers)

(snap shot living room - photo Mariska Meijers)

My home is my inspiration board. I have collected so many things over the years. Everything has a story. I just love moving furniture around, creating Still Lifes with books, art and objects. My interior evolves continuously and consequently my art and designs.
I can totally find myself in Eddie Ross' approach to decorating "I love a well-travelled, eclectic house with furniture and objects, layered one upon the other, that tell a story about who lives there, where they've been and what they love." (note: I found Ross' quote in Holly Becker's fabulous book Decorate)

Fresh start of the week!

It is 9 a.m. here in Amsterdam. Kids just went off to school and I am sipping my first latte. It is cold outside but the sun is shining. I feel happy and I am looking forward to this busy week :). I hope you do too! Here are some snapshots from my sitting room in its current state.

A Touch of Modern Glamour

Pages from Glamour by Michael Lassell

Hope you had a wonderful spooky weekend. Halloween is not that big in The Netherlands so I enjoyed a quiet family weekend partly browsing books for inspiration. Next month there will be another magazine shoot at my appartment and this is such a trigger for change. I am especially charmed by touches of glamour so I am figuring out how to implement those in my existing setting.
This summer I bought the book Glamour by Michael Lassell. Michael Lassell is a gifted writer and editor and former features director of Metropolitan Home. Here are some pages to give you a flavour. The book shows interiors with a high wow factor, it is simply inspiration heaven. If you love Glamour it is an absolute must have and you can find out more about Michael through his website and blog.

Follow me over the coming weeks while editing my eclectic appartment into something just a bit more glamorous.


And to conclude with a totally different book. The winner of my book give-away Before (During) After (Louisiana Photographers reactions to Hurricane Katrina) is the lovely Jeanette of Everton Terrace (blog).

Pretty Spring Pictures

Sitting room of fashion designer Nanette Lepore decorated my Jonathan Adler (ELLE Decor)

Bousssac Decoration advertisement

 

Va va voom glamour: apartment of Julie and Luke Janklow (Vogue ? 2007)

Hopped on my bicycle this morning to run some errands. Amsterdam is really at its best when the sun is shining. Everyone sitting outside enjoying a latte or something stronger. The canals are already filling with small boats. Came back home really inspired and ended up trying to order my boxes filled with magazine tear outs. Problem is that I do not always remember the origin of the tear out so I do apologize if I have it wrong sometimes. Here are three pages that I associate with spring!

Reflecting on Imperfection

pictures: brochure Hermitage museum, Red Room by Matisse, Interior Paintings by Mariska Meijers

This weekend I was struggling with my painting. There are days that I see every imperfection in my work. The hairs of my paintbrush that have settled neatly in the dried oils, crooked lines, uneven colouring...On those days I just have to take a step back from my work. It has never been my intention to strive for accuracy in my paintings but on those days I feel that nothing that I do is good enough.
Best remedy in such case is some fresh air and a museum visit. So I hopped on my bike yesterday to visit The Hermitage Amsterdam. Yes! In case you didn't know St Petersburg's Hermitage has a Dutch baby sister. The current exhibition is "From Matisse to Malevich" (until September 2010). Matisse is my absolut hero.  Standing in front of his Red Room with all its  "imperfections" made me smile again.

Back to Business

Bye bye Austria, hello Amsterdam! The ski holiday was great. I feel completely regenerated. This month my exhibition at Eveline Interior will open on Saturday 27th of March. I did this little water colour impression of one of the current displays in Eveline's shop.

Another Room to Manouver

This morning I saw a black chair in an old copy of House&Garden. I am often triggered by just one object. I start painting the object and build the rest around it. This is the result: another room to manouver.

Room to manouver

I collect, tower & pile stuff. I just can't help it. My house is like an over-sized mood board. I hardly have room to manouver. I admire people with empty houses and just can't figure out how they do it. I need my stuff. It inspires me, it is part of my life. I did this water colour sketch today, sooooo me!

More groove

Pondering on groovy masculine interiors. Pffffffff can I do masculine I wonder and even if I could....should I?
I am wondering why I am even pondering about this. I will just continue what I like to do: explore and discover!

Groovy Baby

"Groovy baby" that is all I have to say today!

Eclectic Interior

Almost done with one of my large interior paintings. Colour can be quite intimidating for some people especially when there is such a bold mix. Can't wait for the response next Sunday when I exhibit this piece for the first time at Stock Interiors.

David Hicks II

Another touch of David Hicks. A page from Maison Francaise. The picture was taken in 1978 in David Hick's interior design store in London. He designed everything from the furniture to the ceramics. A real candy store. I will have MY candy store at some point! davidhicksfrance.com

David Hicks

Today I became a "facebook" fan of www.davidhicksfrance.com/. To you who know my art & designs will immediately understand why I am drawn to his work. Who says colour clashing interiors can't be stylish! Picture: courtesy davidhicksfrance.com.

Holiday spirit

I made an illustration for the invitation of my festive exhibition at Stock Interiors in December. Jeroen and Leonie Stock have a wonderful eclectic taste. They have no fear when it comes to combining colours and patterns and that is exactly why my art and textiles feel at home in their store.
http://www.stockinteriors.nl/

Addicted to tinkering around

Whoops... another day has past and I am still tinkering around with my water colours. May be it is strange coming from an artist to say that I almost feel guilty having done hardly anything else. Unfortunately my to do list does not spontaneousely shorten by itself. Well, tomorrow is another day to tend to the building of my webshop, sales calls, press release, accounting, grocery shopping, getting my winter boots fixed, making homework with my kids, etc. etc.

Tinkering around

I am spending the day tinkering around with water colours. I have a small exhibition in one of my favourite interior design stores, Stock Interiors in Amsterdam, in December. I usually paint my  "Interiors" in oils on big scale canvasses but I am making a series with water colours for this exhibition as the store is small. Water colour is asking a lot more from me in terms of focus as with oils a "mistake" is easily corrected. Here is one I did this morning featuring my French lamp.

Shoot

I gave myself a present today. There are those days that one just deserves it.. So far I have been taken pictures with my phone for my blog. Mwaaaa not too good. I am no camera wizard so I bought myself a very simple tiny canon ixus. Tried to "shoot" my mood board first.

Fearless

I have always been fearless when it comes to mixing styles, colours and patterns. I can drewl over intriging photographs of interiors and I have been collecting articles and books on interiors for many years. Here are two pictures by Pascal Chevalier of Eric Wright's flamboyant Parisian appartment. I believe they are from an issue of The World of Interiors many years back. He didn't want his appartment to look "predictably decoratively correct". Oh how I can relate to that!