Falling into the new season 🍂
Is that title a really bad pun you wonder? Yes, yes. It definitely is 👻
Long time no see! 👀✨
Let me start by saying: Happy fall! 🍁 When I came back from my vacation I had a bit of a hard time with the ending of August, the transition to September and of course the fall season. It literally felt like stumbling and falling into something I wasn’t ready for. But now that we’ve fully transitioned to fall and the days are getting shorter and darker 👻 have completely submerged myself in the cozy vibes. By that I mean I have unboxed all of my scented candles (all three of them!) from last winter, my favorite being “Enchanted Forest” because it smells mostly like pine trees and I think that might just be my favorite scent ever.
I realized I’m actually looking forward to more rainy days, blankets, hot chocolate and tea, and some cozy inside projects like building my new Lego Bouquet that I got for my birthday last summer! But I’m also diving back into books and reading. Or not really back to be honest, but it feels different since I’m not reading them outside but instead on the sofa. I had a 2023 reading challenge of 35 books and I’m already at 31 (!) For context; that’s a lot of reading on my end, because for a while (read over 10 years) I had given up on reading until I picked it back up about 2 years ago. It’s been fun!
As I mentioned before these past months I also had moments of not feeling too great. I guess you could say a bit of a rollercoaster with ups and downs. Transitions and change have never been my favorite, so the change of season and going back to work after summer was a little hard on me. I became really down after my break and I tried to fill it up with fun things to do, going for walks, hobby projects, and seeing friends. It did actually lift my mood for a bit. Until last week I got completely overwhelmed.
This is a common thing for me to happen because I feel like I live in extremes and often have a hard time really knowing and feeling what I need in the moment until it’s too late. However annoying a meltdown is, it’s also basically like a big reset and sometimes that’s for the better. I instantly knew I had to take the rest I needed and decided to switch to shorter working days, and seeing fewer people.
I think winter in general is a time when we may need more rest than we actually allow ourselves to. It’s a time of stillness and introspection. And I know that might seem strange and counterintuitive in a world where that’s not really encouraged. Especially with the hectic holidays around the corner. I hope however that if you also feel this tendency, you get to take a bit more time for yourself these next couple of months.
✨ Onto a few exciting updates! ✨
Shop
As some of you may know, behind the scenes I’ve been working hard on getting everything ready to launch the shop. I’m super thankful for the help I’ve been getting from my partner because it’s been a LOT. Figuring out what steps to take, what I want to sell, and how exactly I’m gonna do that (think packaging shipping etc). But it’s getting there and I can’t wait to show it to you once it’s ready. And we’re almost there!
One of the first things that will be available in the shop are:
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Original paintings
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Prints
Once everything is ready I’ll be sure to send out a separate mail so you won’t miss it!
T-shirt collab 👕
Something that I haven’t even shared yet but that I’ve also been working on behind the scenes is a very exciting t-shirt collab with PrintSocial! They reached out to me last summer asking if I wanted to make a t-shirt together with them. And I thought that was such a fun idea. I personally find it very exciting when my favorite artists make wearables. I also loved the idea of more options when it comes to selling my work, and I thought this was perfect for that. This gave me the chance to see if I could turn my painting style into a t-shirt design and I think it turned out great, very excited about this one! Currently awaiting the sample so I can finally show it to you 🙌
That’s all for now, thank you so much for reading! I’ll hopefully see you in the next one 🍁
Lots of love,
Roos 💫
💖 Things I loved 💖
I’ve been excited to pick up this book ever since I saw it in the bookstore. Throughout my education, I’ve come to know few female artists which is unfortunate because there are actually many of them but they’re still very much underrepresented. Especially in terms of (traditional)painters I know almost none. So that had to change!! I stumbled upon this book and decided to get it for myself a few weeks later. It’s filled with both contemporary and historical painters. I’ve been loving it so far, highly recommend it!
On the topic of female painters, I was instantly reminded of this movie I watched a while ago which I loved. Set in France in the eighteenth century, a painter is asked to paint the wedding portrait of another woman and throughout the weeks of doing so we get to see the relationship between the two unfold. I thought it was a beautiful story and on top of that the visuals are stunning, almost every frame is a painting on its own. Go watch!