by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday March 3, 2010
The paper tell me that we have more snow this winter then in the last 30 years.
It started a few days before Christmas. I had taken the last few days for Christmas holidays off of work and that turned out to be a good thing. I never would have been able to reach my work because trains and buses didn’t run.
Luckily the snow was predicted, so I had stocked me cupboards with enough food to reach the first day of Christmas.
For the last 15 years my father and I have created the tradition to eat out on the 26the (we call it second Christmas day). So it didn’t seem necessary to stock for more then a few day. Especially because I was planning to order take out for the Sunday after Christmas.
But with both the weather and the weather forecast getting worse, it didn’t seem very likely the me father and I would have our Christmas dinner.
My father is 79 yrs old and is a little afraid that he might fall and break something. So with the kind of snow that was expected he was thinking of staying at home.
So two days before Christmas I decided that I had to go to the shops and restock my cupboards.
By that time we had 30 cm of snow. Which is a lot for the Netherlands. I can’t even remember ever seeing that much snow in the streets.
Since the last time I cycled on a slippery road I broke my hip I decide to walk.
Going out I expected it to be very cold. But despite the cold I found it to be a very nice day.
There are two routes from my house to the shops. One takes my passed two very slippery bridges and the other takes my along a road filled with dozens of cyclist who don’t take kindly to annoying slow moving pedestrians.
Since I didn’t want to fall and break something it seemed wise to take the latter.
But I found that I wasn’t the only one who had decided that cycling was to hazardous. The road was filled with pedestrians. Mostly middle aged and old folks. The kind of people who usually take the car.
By the tracks in the snow I could see that some cyclist had past.
Looking at those tracks in the snow it felt as though I was traveling through some mountaines moon landscape. It looked far more beautiful then I would have expected.
In hindsight I feel it’s a pity that I didn’t take the time to wander around to admire this winter landscape. But that day I just felt cold and wanted to get my Christmas shopping done as soon as possible so I could return to my warm and cosy home
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by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday October 29, 2008
Here’s the first edition of the new Art showcase. For this first edition I’ve received three submission (plus a few from people trying to sell me something 
).
From A.Decker I got a article about a nice drawing he made last year for his his blog Resonant Enigma. He talks about his way of finding inspiration for his drawings.
Looking over his blog I found that I had made a serious omission when I started this blog carnival. Although I haven’t done many reviews about them the in the last year, photography is also a very important form of art.
On mister Deckers blog I found an other nice article about finding inspiration for photographs.
Todays second entry is a nice art review from the blog The Intellectual Hooligan. The review consists of a few very nice picture of something you might call sculptures by Tara Donovan. Especially the first object made from styrofoam cups is brilliant.
Looking through his older posts I found an article with a very long title: It’s The End! Lexicographers and Linguistics Professors Alike Fall Upon Their Swords! Anarchy! Chaos! Terror Stalks The Land!.
The article is about the problems faced by, among others, the modern artist who wants to show his work on the Internet.
I will be holding the third review in reserve because her server is giving an internal error at this moment.
Hopefully this is a temporary problem. If so I will be reviewing this site next month.
Update: The second edition of the Art showcase will be November 26e, 2008.
If you like the stories I tell. Or like the art and music I show. Feel free to leave a donation.
by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday October 7, 2008
Describing why I started the Art showcase Blog Carnival.
Anyone who has ever started a blog knows that it is very hard to find your audience. You tell your friends. You link to your site from your social bookmarking site. You try to digg yourself.
But with all your efforts you may be lucky if you can get a steady audience of a few dozen people.
For the last year I’ve been featuring a series of artists. But by the nature of the way you find information on the Web, most of those artist were well established. Working for years with their own following and a large number of paintings/drawing/sculptures.
I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to show the work of a few artist who, just like me, have only just started on their journey. Artist who are still learning their craft.
Artist who are juggling a day job with their need to show the world the images and feelings they have in their head and heart.
For that reason I’m starting the Art showcase Blog Carnival.
If you draw, paint or sculpture and you write a blog and you would want to extend your audience, posting an article at Art showcase will be just the thing for you.
Other art Blog Carnivals might demand work of a certain quality, but since you’ve just started you can’t give that. Some Carnivals may seek work of young but promising artist but nobody can say about himself/herself that he/she is promising and to be honest neither can I.
I’m interested in your growth as an artist: Growth in your drawing, painting or sculpting skills. The process by which you find subjects, the way you work with them and learn from them.
You can submit two kinds of articles:
- Articles in which you show your work either with or without comments. Preferably two articles so you can show where you was a while ago and where you are now. (Enter the second link under “remark”.)
- Articles in which you talk about your creative process. (For instance articles about: Where you find your inspiration.With what kind of subjects you work. How you develop your skill. etc.)
When you find that I’ve listed your work in the Art Showcase you might feel tempted to link to my site. To show your appreciation and/or to show your friends that you finally got some recognition.
Don’t! Google frowns upon two way links because spammers use them a lot to sell their V*something. (Angering Google will hurt your ability to gain an audience.)
I would, however, appreciate it if you would bookmark this article at any social bookmarking service you use. By doing so you will not only show your appreciation (which is nice), but you will also be helping other starting artist to find the Art Showcase (which is even nicer!).
If you don’t use any social bookmarking service, might I strongly advise you to start doing so. Not only is it a lot of fun to show people links to what ever subject that interests you, but it will also help you to promote your blog.
This being the Internet you’ll find that nobody is interested in a list containing only links to your articles. But there are a lot of people who are interested in the same kind of things that interest you. While looking through your list of interesting websites/articles they will also find your blog.
If you feel that your blog falls in the category of sites that would benefit from a listing in the Art Showcase blog carnival, head over to the entry form and submit your work.
If you like the stories I tell. Or like the art and music I show. Feel free to leave a donation.