Hello friends! Welcome to a new year. I last wrote a blog and sent out my newsletter in July 2021, a few days before Fynch arrived in this world. It was a long and welcomed break, but I am ready and eager to kick off this community again. As always, I am grateful and overwhelmed by the support my community lavishes on me. I hope to give back to you by filling your internet and inbox with delightful treats for your eyes and soul. Enjoy!
By now, you should have heard the news. We are imminently emigrating to The Netherlands. What seems like a sudden adventure has been in the making for quite sometime now. Mark and I have wanted an overseas adventure for a while and we are beyond excited to start this new season. Excited and realistic. We are aware that ahead of us we have the biggest emotional and physical challenges we have yet to face. We’ll approach them like we have every other one life’s thrown us: together and with a healthy dose of humour.
As we wrap up our season in South Africa I have to make some serious decisions when it comes to my studio and my art practice. I’ve spent 10 years building up a professional, fully equipped print studio and now I need to downscale and start from scratch in some ways. In the last few years my practice has focused on two major mediums: Screenprinting and gouache/watercolour painting. With this in mind, I’m ruthlessly culling my studio of everything that doesn’t fit into these two modes of practice. I will take one box, and one back-pack of art supplies, and the rest will be sold and re-homed to new loving artists. I know it seems drastic! Perhaps even slightly ‘over-the-top’. Have I ever done anything moderately in my life?! If we’re planning to start from scratch, I might as well do it properly!
This sort of challenge, I believe, sets your creativity in rapid motion. To give myself such dire limitations of art supplies will catalyst me into creating my best work yet. This is how creativity works. It’s always up for the challenge.
This last month I completed my next gouache painting for The Golden Goose Artistry. This kitsch and colourful overload of the senses is exactly how I’m feeling right now. Life is full HD colour right now. And there is no focus point. Every tiny thing demands my full attention. Every ball is set in motion, every work is in process. There is no calm and rest, and yet my heart is at rest and alive in the midst of all this vibrancy of life’s unexpected journey.
These gouache paintings I make monthly for The Golden Goose Artistry are almost like a visual diary of my life and the big thoughts and things I am processing. I’ve come to love them so much that they are a highlight of my month. I also learn so much while painting, about layering and colour and ideas that I can use for Screenprinting. Often one of my gouache paintings will inspire a screenprint, or at least help me problem solve a layering/colour issue I am troubleshooting in my printing. They go hand-in-hand as techniques for me. My gouache paintings make me a better screenprinter and my screenprinting makes me a better painter. Ha!
‘Enchanted’ will be framed and on sale later this month, from Golden Goose Artistry, for R3600. If you would like to reserve the artwork please email me at hello@amyjanevdb.com. I will be making giclee (digital, fine art) prints of the painting as well, for R250. If you would like to buy one of those please email me as well.
Until next time, DAG! (Or Goodbye, in Dutch 😉 )