Tag Archives: Addict

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

I’m Addicted

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I think I’m addicted… to games and coffee… You see, I have this new game and I have to play it each and every day for an hour or more. It’s relaxing in a way although I still need to use my brain and think hard *hehe*. It’s Sudoku, well actually it’s Sudoku Master and it’s for my Nintendo DS. I just had my New Super Mario Bros. phase but I gave up on it because I can’t get to the next level. I’m stuck each time at the first four worlds and keep jumping into an abyss, so for the moment I can’t be bothered to eat mushrooms, kick Koopa shells or climb into clouds and jump through hoops. I’d rather use some brain power and logical thinking, it’s challenging and relaxing. I’ve finished 80 easy ones and 10 of the normal ones… I must say, the normal ones are hectic and at times it takes me 25 minutes to solve one. So if you ever need a mental challenge and you own a Nintendo DS I would say: go for it! 😎

So I ended up playing games because I really needed to relax a bit over the last week: I have been busy contacting recruitment agencies, writing emails and adjusting my CV. I also designed and built a separate online portfolio in Flash that I could show when needed. And in between jobs, I’m trying to help out Farfallina from ‘A Roam to Rome’ with some problems she ran into. Today I was called by one of the agencies and I have an appointment with them next Wednesday. They sound like a nice bunch of people so I’m happy that I can go there for a chat and register with them. I hope things will be picking up soon now and I have to admit it’s not as easy as I thought it was but I’m getting there. I guess my patience is tested once again but it feels good so I trust the process to work out just fine.

I also received a really cool gift from Christiaan and it’s sitting on my desk right next to me within reach. It’s another amazing gadget: an awesome USB cup warmer slash USB hub. I don’t know what made him think of this but I remember when I was still working at the Rietveld academy we had rules and one of them was that the students weren’t allowed to bring any kind of food or drink in. This was to avoid having to clean up the mess after them and to protect the IT facilities that we were managing. It also meant that we had to set an example so often I would have to leave my coffee at my desk, help out a student and by the time I was finished my coffee would be cold.

I have the same problem here because I just tend to forget that it’s there when I’m busy. I guess Christiaan knows me too well… 😛


Finally I can have hot coffee all day! *yay*