28 february 2009

My very first blogpost. It has been 5 years of blogging this year. I just started, never gave it much thought. Other artists were blogging, I read blogs, I liked blogs. And and it seemed so easy. So I started my own blog. And it was so easy. If I read my old blogs again I'm surprised how free and creative my blog was. How did I capture my own creativity like that?
5 years later i have quite my job, Im a freelance illustrator and I still have my blog that is visited by several hundred visitor each month (really? yeah really, still find it difficult to believe but google doesn't lie does it?) I'm more of a professional these days and I love my professionlized creative life, but at the same time I miss the carefree creativity that I used to have. There were no limitations.
I still follow and see a lot of blogs, and it seems a lot of blogs professionalized as well. A lot of bloggers found their 'color', their character. Or maybe, their comfort zone.  The pictures are very perfect, and their lives seem so perfect as well.
And blogging was so new years back, there were no rules, no set boundaries. And now, it seems, there are. And there was no Facebook, no Instagram, no Pinterest. Maybe the character of the platform changed with the entry of other beautiful creative, visual platforms. But I strongly feel the need to color outside the lines again. Be as free minded as several years ago. Look at some ones hair and make a conclusion about life. Draw a bathtub and add a shark. Why? I don't know, because I can.

Spring just has started, and isn't spring the perfect season to start something new? Im gonna try to add some space to creative life, think and draw outside the box. Im leaving my city for 10 weeks in my personal life, so it seems to be the perfect time to be an artist and bring some surprise, amazement and freedom back into my work. I hope I can bring it across to all of you.
And, for all those readers who have beared with me all those years. Im so very happy. My blog feels like my own little playground and to know that people look at my work moves my heart. It really does. Thank you all, Marike.

Ps; all this blog-mesmerizing was the result of a wonderful afternoon initiated by 101Woonideeën. I met 12 other bloggers and talked about our work, lives and blogs. Have peek at the other blogs if you like: Jans, Elske, (who inspired me to think about moving to Friesland), Wimke and a few others, I will post about them another time.