Custom Made Mindful Drawing Products

Order your Mandarin Duck Art Card (frame-able)

Would you like to order a professionally printed Mandarin Ducks (Aix galericulata) art card or postcard that can be framed? You are at the right place. Over the years I have drawn and painted many Mandarin duck couples as commissions but also free hand.

Two cards are double folded, others are postcards. All come with envelopes. Plus, as long as I have them in stock, I will include an Asian, vintage mandarin duck postal stamp. For large orders I need extra time because large amounts will be printed on demand. Please, contact me for orders of more than 5.

What do I have in stock?

I have this double folded art card with the drake (male duck) on the left side:

Two (2) Mandarin Duck Art Cards. (Standing)

These marvellous mandarin ducks sit closely together to confirm their bond. The drake (male) is dressed up in his brightest colours to show off to his loving female (duck); she is dressed down because soon she will have a nest and ducklings and should therefore blend in as much as possible for safety reasons. This couple stays together for life. It is therefore that they symbolize love, loyalty, and long lasting friendship. Apart from that, they are small ducks and very cute. This is a double folded art card. Professionally printed with a larger image inside that can be framed. Frame it and put it on display; this is suppose to confirm the bonding between partners. Artwork by Paula Kuitenbrouwer

€17.00

And this double folded art card, with the drake on the right side:

Two (2) Mandarin Duck Art Cards (Resting)

€17.00

Plus, I have two postcards. A monochromatic (a romantic 19s century graphite drawing) post card with mandarin ducks resting near a forest stream:

4 Mandarin Duck Postcards (Monochromatic)

These marvellous mandarin ducks sit closely together near a forest brook. They do a last scan for possible dangers but are already in resting position. Overflying birds and a beautiful sunset add to their decision to relax. Notice their reflection in the pure water. This couple stays together for life. It is therefore that they symbolize love, loyalty, and long lasting friendship. Apart from that, they are small ducks. Take away their colours and they still are mesmerizing cute. This is a postcard. Professionally printed. Artwork by Paula Kuitenbrouwer

€18.00

Last, this vintage coloured (watercolour) one with mandarin ducks resting under large, lush lotus leaves. Low in stock!

Two full colour ‘Vintage’ Mandarin Ducks Postcards

Two beautiful Mandarin Ducks postcards with golden hearts in all corners. The original painting was done with subtle sparkling graphite water paint which is even visible on the photo as that deep ‘vintage’ atmosphere this painting gives. As long as the stock lasts, this postcards will be accompanied with a small vintage mandarin duck postal stamp. Many have decided to not send this card, to keep it ,and frame it. It is therefore that they come as a set: one to send; one to keep.

€17.00

FRAMED MANDARIN DUCKS

In case a postcard is not enough, in case a more substantial gift is needed, I have a few mounted mandarin ducks available too. These are coloured pencil/water-colour original artworks. They are mounted with professional Kadinsky mounts (UK). They will arrive at your home in a strong package. They can be framed but there are customers who do not frame them and put them on their shelves on a small painting’s easel (which I have available as well). For more information on these lovely mandarin ducks, click here. This link provides you with the option to add a small painter’s easel for displaying your mandarin ducks without a frame. Take good care: there are mandarin ducks looking left or right. You probably prefer a mandarin couple looking to the directing of the welcoming door of the room where you will put them on display.

Would you like to order my original artwork via Etsy, follow this link.

There are many MANDARIN DUCKS at my ETSY. Sometimes I think my Etsy shop is a duck pond with the most colourful and cute ducks imaginable (including wood ducks, teals and swans)

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Paula Kuitenbrouwer, Drs. M.A. Paula holds an MA degree in Philosophy and works as an artist in Utrecht. She is the owner of mindfuldrawing.com, a website with academic essays, short articles, and artworks. Her pen and pencils are always fighting for her attention nevertheless they are best friends; Paula likes her art to be brainy and her essays to be artistic. Contact Paula freely for commissions or articles.

Art Study Joachim Sandrart

Joachim von Sandrart was a German Baroque art-historian and painter, active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. He is most significant for his collection of biographies of Dutch and German artists the Teutsche Academie, published between 1675 and 1680.

A chalk and ink drawing by Joachim von Sandrart of ‘Baden van Diocletianus’ Rome 1631, owned by Neurenberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum prompted me to make a graphite drawing. I replaced Sandrart’s human figures with resting sheep. Two of the human figures were so small, I only noticed them whilst drawing the third arch. I drew the two sheep as small as Sandrart drew his human figures emphasizing the grand scale of the ruins.

The ink drawing interested me because the ruins show – from the perspective art-historian and painter Sandrart took- a series of arches. This repetitive perspective creates depth but also creates a drawing full symbolism. We feel that some significant events are like passing a gate. We have replaced one place or lifestyle for another, never to return. Our lives consist of walking from one place to another, transforming ourselves, accepting changes.

When I was young the characteristic Romantic element of downscaling humans and exaggerating nature, felt a bit disturbing. Now, 2020, I love it. We should go back to feeling smaller in importance and respect nature and natural forces more. The idea that we are dwarfed by nature is a good one, much better than the illusion that we can dominate nature. We have to accept that changes are inevitable and are often felt as something life throws as us, something big, and overarching”.

A GIFT

This drawing serves as a perfect gift for somebody who loves classical drawings or the Dutch Golden Age in which artists left their studios to travel to Mediterranean landscapes. Also, for somebody going through life changes, transformations, or spiritual growth. The two resting sheep show is that we do not have to hurry through live. Times passes; we should relax even admits life’s turbulence.

Should you have any questions, feel free to contact Paula.

NEDERLANDS

“Een krijt- en inkttekening door Joachim von Sandrart van ‘Baden van Diocletianus’ Rome 1631, eigendom van Neurenberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum zette me aan deze grafiet-tekening te maken. Ik verving Sandrarts’ menselijke figuren door rustende schapen. Twee van de menselijke figuren waren zo klein, ik merkte ze pas op tijdens het tekenen van de derde boog. Ik tekende de twee schapen even klein als Sandrart zijn menselijke figuren tekende en benadruk zo de grote schaal van de ruïnes. De inkttekening interesseerde me omdat de ruïnes laten zien – vanuit het perspectief van de kunsthistoricus en schilder Sandrart – een reeks bogen. Dit repetitieve perspectief creëert diepte en ook een tekening vol symboliek. We voelen dat sommige belangrijke gebeurtenissen zijn als het passeren van een poort. We hebben de ene plaats of levensstijl vervangen door een andere, om nooit meer terug te keren.

Toen ik jong was, voelde het karakteristieke romantische element van het verkleinen van mensen en het overdrijven van de natuur een beetje verontrustend, overweldigend. Nu, 2020, ik vind het geweldig. We zouden ons weer kleiner moeten voelen en meer respect hebben voor de natuur en natuurlijke krachten. Het idee dat we bij de natuur in het niet vallen, is prima, veel beter dan de illusie dat we de natuur kunnen domineren. We moeten accepteren dat veranderingen onvermijdelijk zijn en vaak worden ervaren als iets groots en overkoepelends.”

De originele tekening heeft een Kadinski passe-partout. Het is een passend cadeau voor iemand die van klassieke tekeningen houdt, of van de Nederlandse Gouden Eeuw waarin kunstenaars hun ateliers verlieten om naar Mediterrane landschappen af te reizen. Ook voor iemand die door een verandering of transformatie, of spirituele groei gaat is het een passend cadeau. De twee rustende schapen laten zien dat we ons niet hoeven te haasten. Mocht u nog vragen hebben, neem dan gerust contact op met Paula.

The Baths of Diocletian were public baths in ancient Rome, in what is now Italy. Named after emperor Diocletian and built from 298 AD to 306 AD, they were the largest of the imperial baths.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Paula holds an MA degree in Philosophy and she is the owner of mindfuldrawing.com. Her pen and pencils are always fighting for her attention nevertheless they are best friends; Paula likes her art to be brainy and her essays to be artistic.

At Etsy

At Instagram

Dutch Heritage Nieuwe Gracht Huisjes (Utrecht)

Follow the progress that I make drawing three lovely houses located at the Nieuwe Gracht, Utrecht. This large drawing demands much patience because these three pearls are full details. I will update this blogpost regularly. For videos on this project, visit my Instagram account @mindfuldrawing. Contact me for questions and commissions.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Etsy

Instagram

Desborough Iron Age Mirror Drawing & Essay

‘Who were the Celts?’ a wonderful course at at Oxford Department for Continuing Education gave me so much inspiration. I enjoyed it from the first till the last day and regretted it came to an end. One of the essays I had to read was an essay on Iron Age mirrors. ‘Mirrors in the British Iron Age: Performance, Revelation and Power, by Melanie Giles and Jody Joy.

Iron Age 50 BC – AD 50
Found in 1908 near Desborough

After reading about Iron Age mirrors, I set out to draw the Iron Age Desborough mirror. Through drawing I would gain more insights into its decorations and its function. Iron Age mirrors that were beautifully decorated and made of bronze and iron were found in graves of high status Iron Age women.

I like to say something about high status Iron Age women. One might think ‘high status’ refers to rich women or wives of rulers or kings. But although both accounts can be correct, high status refers in the Iron Age more to women being leaders or shamans.

Working on the patterns of Desborough Iron Ago Mirror

Detail of Desborough Iron Age Mirror

The essay discusses how Iron Age metallurgy and how a whole community was involved in the making process. Also, it discusses social relations, grave goods, and the compass drawn motifs of repeated and distinctive forms arranged into intricate and flee flowing designs. Fascinating, to say in the least. The question begs why were mirrors used as grave goods? The easiest answer does not always work, one being that the Iron Age lady was buried with her belongings. Perhaps the mirrors were not possessions but (diplomatic) gifts. And why would a deceased lady take a mirror, she wouldn’t need it in her afterlife, or would she?

Imagine looking into this mirror. The effect of seeing your face in the reflective properties of the plate, disrupted or enhanced by its La Tene decorations would …yes, what would you see?

Giles and Joy describe how the decorations on the mirrors are not only used to deceive the eye, but also to reinforce the reflective qualities of the mirror plate. The anthropologist Alfred Gell points out that Iron Age mirrors could have expressed political power and legitimize associations with the supernatural. This is hard for us to understand but in order to understand what Gell states requires us to imagine a time in which you only saw your reflection in (restless or calm) water, in shiny objects, like copper, bronze, silver or gold. How special such mirrors would be! Imagine now that next to not frequently seeing your reflection, you were raised to notice all sorts of shapes in water, smoke, old trees, and rocks. We have a clear sense of what we see is real and what is imagination, but for ancient people perhaps seeing was just seeing, whether it was imagination or fact. If the under-upper and middle world aren’t having hard borders, perhaps seeing imaginative, hallucinative and factual weren’t compartmentalized either.

Working on Desborough Iron Age Celtic Mirror; adding a golden border.

When I suffer a migraine aura, I see things that do not exist and things that I need to see are gone. I can pass a person in a street who is missing his head! Perhaps looking into an Iron Age mirror yields a similar effect as having a migraine aura because Iron Age mirrors have blanked out spaces and thus provide viewers with a disorienting and distorted image of themselves. Yet, an Iron Age mirror has not only missing parts (blanked out spaces, decorated with a basket woven texture) but carefully chosen synchronized but flow-like playful, witty, and mischievous botanical and animal patterns. What effect would looking into a shiny plate, with a deliberate disorienting pattern have? Here the essay explains more about the ‘technology of enchantment‘ and goes deeper into psychological war-fare though powerful visceral and visual effects. It informs the reader about the Fang People of Gabon who used hallucinogens before looking into mirrors, and states that these Iron Age mirrors were not real mirrors (not for checking hair or make-up). In fact, the mirrors played a role in rituals to release the soul to its afterlife.

Desborough Mirror copied by Paula Kuitenbrouwer. Mixed media; Derwent graphite & metallic pencils, and bronze coloured ink.

During the time that I spent drawing this Iron age mirror, I tried many things. I tried to project my face behind the decorations, fusing my face and the decorations and then see all sorts of animals. Of course, this is a very poor attempt to understand its magic. But I have to do it with a large doses of imagination and hours of drawing as there is no way I would be able to hold the mirror up and have a look in it. And even if I could do that, there wouldn’t be a ritual that would be helpfully performed by an Iron Age shaman who would be experienced in travelling between worlds. (Or brainwaves, or different stages of consciousness, whatever way you might define shamanistic journeying).

My concluding thoughts are that by looking into this mirror, in an Iron Age ritual ceremony, with an Iron Age cognitive mindset, maybe, as a dying lady of high status, I would find great comfort in seeing my old face being obscured with these splendid swirling decorations. I would be calm as I have seen, thanks to my migraines, things that aren’t there and fail to notice things that are there. I would probably enter theta brainwaves the same way as after sitting down for a longer time in meditation or -more Iron Age style- looking into the smoky swirls of an open campfire. I might start seeing my face, combined with the swirly flowing embellishments turning into animal and ancestral spirits.

One has to understand that the Iron Age was full of spirits, spirits we have carefully abandoned from our modern life. But just as they have been forgotten, it doesn’t mean these spirits aren’t there. I would most certainly find an ancestral spirit that would ‘present’ itself as so much of my own face would be blanked out, and only essential and familiar facial lines would still linger in the reflective image. Or perhaps, I would see a beautiful stag or another mammal, and experience it as my guiding spirit animal. Perhaps I would see the hybrid human-animal dressed-up shaman of the village giving me instructions to journey to the Other-world.

All in all, it would perhaps release my soul into an in-between world in which I would be able to project comfortably to what I would need to see. I would probably have been fasting during the last days of my life, I would be susceptible for my imaginative mind to dominate and thus the softly and dreamily reflecting mirror would get a transitional quality and function. Or perhaps I would look and whisper some wise words, like Tibetan shamans who look into mirrors to see the future and the past, wise words that would be helpful to my tribe. The Fang people of Gabon use mirrors to contact their ancestors. Do Iron Age mirrors have a similar function?

Obviously, many things become possible should such a highly valued mirror be available to a tribe. There are many more than this Desborough mirror only. One by one these mirrors and their fascinating embellishments are showing us that Iron Age metallurgy and shamanism practices were interrelated and that highly decorated ‘magic’ Iron Age mirrors were much appreciated by Iron Age peoples.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

www.mindfuldrawing.com

@mindfuldrawing on Instagram

At Etsy

P.S. During the hours that I was drawing the Desborough mirror, I travelled between worlds too. I had to descend from my creative, spiritual plane of manifesting ideas to the mundane world of running errands. As the trees were shedding their leaves, I noticed many decomposed leaves with open parts resembling mini Iron Age mirrors scattered on the street. If you can not enjoy looking into the Desborough Iron Age mirror at the British Museum, do not despair, mini versions are freely available every autumn.

Art cards are available at Etsy (and can be framed as small memories to this exquisite mirror):

Paula holds an MA degree in Philosophy and she is the owner of mindfuldrawing.com. Her pen and pencils are always fighting for her attention nevertheless they are best friends; Paula likes her art to be brainy and her essays to be artistic.

Paula’s art shop is at Etsy and her portfolio is at Instagram. Contact her freely should you like to commission her or buy her art.

Bruntenhof Gate Utrecht

My ‘Gate to Heaven’, a lovely gate is located not too far away from my home, at Bruntenhof, Museumkwartier in Utrecht.

In real, there is no flower vase, just pavement in front of this gate. I received some feedback, stating: ‘There is a great difference between a photo of this gate and your drawing. A photo shows beautiful stonework but you have drawn something dreamy and poetic. The gate has become a portal to another world. You can walk through it and find yourself in a Medieval landscape with knights and dryads‘. I think the feedback itself is rather poetical, don’t you think? Such sensitive feedback stimulates me to make even more progress.

This gate can be found at Bruntenhof, Museumkwartier in Utrecht, in the centre of the Netherlands. It dates back to 1620. But it could be any gate, a dream gate, a portal to heaven, to another world. Gates are symbolic and often stand for a transformation or travelling between worlds. Gardens are set apart from manor houses by a gate. People drive through gates to enter an estate. Gates impress, transform, and show style; Roman, Art Nouveau, Classical, Medieval or gates are used for defence purposes. Drawings of gates can mean so much and are open to your interpretation.

Commissions are welcome for drawing a favourite place be it a gate home, residence, manor house, hotel, garden, holiday-home, estate, or apartment. Contact me for discussing your preferences.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Listed at Etsy & at Instagram

Contact me for questions:

New Work in the Making

I am working on the successor of ‘Praising Plants‘, ‘Ode to All Oak Trees‘ and ‘Sophisticated Succulents‘ and returning to William Morris for inspiration.

For years, William Morris didn’t appeal that much to me because I was still under the influence of my study of Dutch Baroque floral painters. They, as no one else, could create depth and a feeling as if you were looking at a real bouquet. These Golden Age masters positioned their composition in such way that a large flower vases, with all seasonal flowers, would stand proudly on show and you could -in your mind- walk around it. You would admire not only the flowers but also water-drops and insect that rested on big and small petals. But, of course, you were looking at an illusion. Dutch floral painters studied flowers, one by one, made sketches on them, and then set up a composition as if all flowers were all in bloom at the exact same time, which is never the case in nature. A wonderful illusion; a much admired illusion.

William Morris looked one dimensional compared to these baroque painters, yet, I learned to see that compared to modern flower designs, Morris’s work certainly isn’t one-dimensional. He may not create as much depth as I would like to see, but he weaves flower stems, creating the feeling as if you are in nature and looking at bushes, trees, and flower beds. Some flowers are near, some further away.

My drawing will have another lovely title using again a two word alliteration. You are invited to guess. However, before doing that, one needs some botanical knowledge and isn’t that not exactly what makes us love William Morris? He educates and inspired us with his design, botanical knowledge, and colourful palette.

William Morris mainly scatters and extends broad leaf foliage, flowers, and sometimes animals for the purpose of creating a repetitive, yet not too repetitive, wall paper design. There is a difference in what we expect from wall-paper, a painting, and from a mural. We expect a mural to trick us like Harry Potter on Platform 9 ¾: we like to run into the world that is suggested by a mural. Wall-paper, on the other hand, aims at supporting the design and décor of a room. Wall-paper must suggest less depth than a mural or painting, but more than a brick wall, by weaving the stems of flowers and using the technique of foreshortening, Morris does exactly that however not overly.

I have yet many white spaces to fill up with my own designs; this way of freehand drawing is enjoyable.

Here you find more on my William Morris Trellis watercolour painting. (Click here)

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

My shop is at Etsy & and my portfolio at Instagram