Category Archives: Creativity

The Troglodyte

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I feel the need to think and be reclusive for a while so I can put my thoughts in order. I’ve started reading again which, in my case, is exceptional but I guess the words come looking for me in a different way when I decide to be quiet. It’s funny because it’s the book that I still haven’t finished *working on it though* and that I mentioned several times in previous posts. Last night I picked it up and started reading instead of playing a few of the very addictive Professor Layton puzzles on my Nintendo DS Lite…

In quiet moments, if there ever is one, I’m working on my business website which will be a combination of a front page representing the business, a flash portfolio with work examples and a blog where I’ll discuss design in general, my own work for clients and other design related topics. Quite often I receive emails from companies asking me to write something about a product, design contest or an event. I received one from New York last week with the same request but this is a personal blog so I’ll use my other outlet.

Last night I read a chapter about ‘The Red Shoes‘ with an explanation about the deeper meaning of this fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen: ‘when a woman has a famine of the soul, she will take any substitutes offered, including those that do absolutely nothing for her, as well as destructive and life-threatening ones that hideously waste her time and talents or expose her life to physical danger. It’s a famine that makes a woman choose things that will cause her to dance madly out of control too near the executioner’s door.’

‘And when we hit bottom, it is exactly there where the best soil is to sow and grow something new again. In that sense hitting bottom while extremely painful is also the sowing ground. There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them…’ And that is exactly why I need to become the Troglodyte for a while: I want to create and design, be quiet, think, be in my own world/cave and like I said above allow answers to come looking for me, in other words: let things happen…

A very addictive game… with amazing drawings and cute characters, a mix of Japanese and European [Eurasian *hehe*]

Creative Collector

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I have this addiction for colours, paper and ink or to be more precise about the latter: the process of printing. Each as a separate drug or a combination of them will give me my ultimate high. I can’t remember at what age this started but I do remember what it started: felt-tip pens and ‘vouwblaadjes’. At times my mum would take us to the toyshop after nagging her for hours, explaining that we ‘just wanted to have a look around’. My brothers would go for Playmobil or Lego toys, I’d always make a beeline for the craft and art supplies section.

I would be instantly mesmerized by the organised ranges of colours no matter what it was: beads neatly arranged by colour in their separate compartments, crayons or felt-tip pens sets sorted by the colours of the rainbow and 250 sheets packages of square and coloured paper called ‘vouwblaadjes’ used for the Dutch version of origami: paper folding art. I still know a thing or two about paper folding and whenever my mum would buy me a package of ‘vouwblaadjes’ I would try my best to keep it neat and in exactly the same order of colours.

Not just the folding paper, I also had to keep my felt-tip pens arranged by the colours of the rainbow. You see, all these craft and art supplies were treasures to me and of immense value. I wanted to enjoy this for as long as possible which meant you’d have to look after it and keep things tidy and neat. My parents always encouraged creativity over grades: both have amazing drawing skills and my mum has a degree in fashion design and sewing. School was important, just not as important as a natural skill set, the grades were good anyway.

This is how it all started. These days resulting in a large variety of beautiful designed labels: food, whisky and wine, intruiging [Moleskine] notebooks, Talens Acrylic paints, Daler Rowney brushes, Conté crayons, Derwent watercolour pencils, Derwent color pencils, Van Gogh soft and hard pastels, hand-made paper containing cotton fibers and embedded leaves and/or flowers, Joss paper, wrapping tissue paper, rice paper, blue airmail paper, Chinese ink and nib pens, Pilot fineliners, Staedtler markers, glitter pens and my good old fountain pen…

And what I just mentioned is probably not even half of the things I have neatly stored away in my cool chest of drawers flight case… There’s another collection of graphic design tools, like a Pantone Color guides set, cutting tools, drawing tools and lots and lots more. So you see… this is why I could not resist the urge to buy those two notebooks last Saturday, it’s in my genes…

Blame my parents *wink*

Aladdin’s cave: Paper

Aladdin’s cave: Pencils

Aladdin’s cave: Pastels

Aladdin’s cave: Vouwblaadjes