Something Old and Something New

Happy Holidays!

First of all I’d like to wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, and artful New Year.
The past few years have been difficult for many of us, and I hope the coming one will bring some relief from personal as well as global difficulties.

Ankara Drawings

Looking back on this past year, I realized that I had never shared the drawings and sketches of Ankara I did in the early months of 2022. That seems like a long time ago now, but I thought it might be nice to share The Streets of Ankara for anyone who might be interested, and for myself as a kind of archive. Though I’ve used a few of these sketches for subsequent watercolors, most of them were done for the sake of drawing alone.

End of Year Sale

Through December 31st, I’m offering a 15% discount on a selection of watercolors. If that’s of interest to you, have a look at my Daily Paintworks Gallery, where the sale paintings are all grouped together in a separate category.

A New Road Ahead

Looking forward to the year ahead, I’m excited to start sharing a body of work that is radically different from what I’ve been doing for the past thirty-odd years. About halfway through 2022, while looking for inspiration and new impulses, I happened upon an online course on Islamic art. This particular course focused on biomorphic (organic, or arabesque) elements, but I also quickly became fascinated with the purely geometric art that is common in the Islamic world. More course work and workshops followed, and soon I was hooked. I realize this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, so if you decide to unsubscribe, I won’t be offended. I hope, however, that some of you may be intrigued enough to stick around to see what this art form has to offer. I can’t wait to talk more about it and hope to do a monthly post, not only showing what I’ve made, but also telling you a little about the historical sources of the patterns and other art forms.

For now, just a preview of a geometric pattern I’ve recently painted (below), and an example of a biomorphic pattern, in this case a 17th century Turkish textile, at the top of this post.

Until next time year!

Mineke