You have to look closely at these vegetables…produced in extraordinary textiles, designed by Dutch Designers Scholten & Baijings…
Having brought armfuls of 0range and pink flowers back from Amsterdam to inspire my Art Team, I thought…I’ve never painted Gerberas and Peonies before…I’d give it a go…
I have hundreds of images of food! I love cooking, I love growing food, I love the atmosphere around eating, the presentation of food…I have a lot of kitchen things…I was a teacher for a week in a Teacher Trainer College in Amsterdam, teaching the primary school teachers about food and cooking in terms of Sensations. Of tastes, descriptive words, numbers, measurements, weights, dexterity skills, colours, preparation, organisation, countries, traditions, decoration, fun and play…we found you could learn every subject through…food!
I work in collage and 3D…When I moved to Amsterdam I decoded it through Dutch Food traditions using the food packaging with my observations and textural paint. The HEMA is my favourite shop! It’s full of well designed, modern household goods, children’s goods and stationary all for a reasonable price ; true Design for All with flair and quality…it’s also famous for selling half a Smoked Sausage, hot in the shop, my favourite. Watch out when you bite the skin, that the salty juice doesn’t spurt all over your clothes! It is traditionally served with kale and mashed potato ; Boerenkool met Worst!
The HEMA sausage appears in ‘Everything Dutch’ for a promotional Queen’s Day mailing. Press out the Queen’s hair and be Queen for the day…30th April…it all turns orange!
…every cafe has it’s own particular shape of coffee cup…
I painted pears…the Dutch love Stoofperen, poached pears, using a specific variety called Gieser Wildeman which turn a heavenly deep cinnamon pink after 3 hours slow cooking, the Dutch grow a lot of pear varieties, they became my acrylic colour studies…then I painted lemons in 38 degrees in Italy which led to a series of 9 cards for HEMA…and later a series of Tasty Pictures : 4 Recipe Cards for sale in a gift-pack…
…and a series of 9 cake cards and 6 stand up cards made out of washing up sponges, ribbons and buttons and things…
…and a series of 9 children’s PLAY!cards with wrapping paper and labels…
Painting flowers…inspired by my joyous weekly trip to the market for cut flowers I’d never be able to afford in Britain…
from sweetie Gerbera colours to classic sweets…
Tulips! after a commission to paint tulips, see more in BUY! : Tulip prints post…
I work a lot with collage and shadows, for publishing, advertising and design…it can get quite surreal…I love the play and theatre of the 3d…
…meanwhile I’m drawing again…15 minute landscape sketches with oil pastels….1 a week?
I found this book drawn and made when I was 6…All about Holland!…It made me cry, for I still love the tulips and clogs and windmills and cheese…I wanted to be a Dutch Girl in pigtails and gingham dress…I’ve collected so many images and objects of all these icons during my years living in Holland…I made so many collages, paintings and pieces inspired by these Dutch heros…A Dutch Canal Scene made from a mint chocolates box, attic toys and cardboard…it’s funny what you can find to inspire you to make…
..A Paper-Mache Herring, with onions inspired by my herring man on the bridge…
