12 Countries Spotlight in Holland : Harriet Damave

While in Amsterdam, I had the pleasure of meeting illustrator and ceramic artist Harriet Damave. As we sipped fresh mint tea in her home studio, Harriet showed me the intricate process of how she creates her lovely hand-painted ceramic artwork using white porcelain and the traditional Dutch Delft technique with cobalt blue pigments to create modern, whimsical, illustrative pendants, jewelry, and ornaments.

First, Harriet rolls out the white porcelain clay quite thinly

and creates the basic shapes for her work using tins and cookie cutters.

After the clay dries it is placed in the kiln

where the clay is fired and is the ready to paint.

Now the real fun begins! 

Harriet is trained as a professional illustrator, and she paints gorgeous, intricate unique patterns and details onto each ceramic piece. The way she works with cobalt oxide pigment is almost like using watercolor pigments, and it is a powdery gray color before being fired again in the kiln - when it turns into the deep cobalt blue that is traditional for Dutch Delft ceramic art. 

This group shows the contrast between the gray painted pieces - not yet fired in the kiln - and the brilliant blue and white pieces that are fired a second time at 1260° Celsius or 2300° Fahrenheit then coated with a transparent glaze and fired once again.

I was very impressed by Harriet's dedication to her art and the huge amount of time and thought that goes into each individual piece!

She creates a wide variety of pieces, some featuring Dutch canal houses 

which bring back wonderful memories of strolling around Amsterdam.

She also paints romantic hearts

sweet angels

fanciful butterflies

playful tea pots

unique Christmas ornaments (not too early to shop for next year!)

adorable rabbits

intelligent elephants

wise owls

leaping cats

in an amazing variety of styles - as brooches, rings, and pendants. 

Be sure to visit Harriet's shop to see her full collection. 

These make perfect one of a kind handmade gifts for someone who is a collector!

Harriet packages everything personally with love

and I can tell you that Harriet is a lovely, fun, and generous person too!

Thank you Harriet for taking the time to drink tea and show me your Amsterdam studio, it was a real treat! I wish you all the best with your many artistic and creative projects and Happy New Year!

xoxo

Stephanie

12 Countries Spotlight in Holland : Dana Komjaty

Meeting artist Dana Komjaty in Amsterdam was a special treat. We drank tea and chatted for a long time in a local cafe. Dana's sense of humor and whimsy is a delight to experience in person and in her work.

Dana studied art and fashion design, and she never ceases to amaze me with the variety and amount of artwork she produces. Her latest collection is much more monochrome than in the past, and includes a lovely series of monoprints, such as her Black Braided Girl an original work found in her LeiLiLaLoo online shop.

I also especially love Catching the Feather

You and Me

The Carnival

and Diamond Mountain.

She has also been creating new, poetic ink drawings like I travelled many miles

and with collage elements The rain dried my tears.

New in the shop are hand printed, naturally dyed, one of a kind scarves, like this one

and this one, more in her shop.

There are also whimsical pillows

and lovely, unusual embroidered drawings on linen.

Wow, Dana, you have been busy in 2012, congratulations on all your beautiful artwork!

You can connect with Dana on her wonderful blog, on Pinterest, and Etsy.

Read more about her story and our meeting in Amsterdam here.

xoxo

Stephanie

12 Countries Spotlight in Austria: Patricia Vincent

Another talented designer who I met in Vienna last year is the lovely Patricia Vincent. Patricia has been featured in some wonderful Austrian press opportunities in the meantime, including this in-depth interview at die-frau.at for all German speakers. Her gorgeous, elegant gowns were also featured in a very fancy "young designer" photo shooting here.

photo by Claire Morgan

Another highlight of Patricia's latest design work can be seen in this poetic bridal dress shooting done by Claire Morgan.

A photo of Patricia looking beautiful in her own custom, self designed dress too! More of her bridal dresses here.

Patricia, who is Romanian born, also presented her 5th Anniversary Collection this year at the Romanian Embassy in Vienna as well.

I especially loved this gown from the collection.

Most recently, Patricia had an Advent weekend presentation in her design studio to celebrate her newest handbag collection called "Valeska."

I would have been very happy to go home with this bag

and this dress too...

Patricia's childhood in Bucharest and her move from Romania to Austria in 2002 were full of challenges, if you remember her life story from our artists who blog interview last year. This makes it all the more delightful to see how well she is doing in Vienna these days!

Patricia's openness, friendliness, and generosity shine through in her work and personality, and I'm happy that I could meet her in person. For those of us who can't visit her atelier studio in Vienna, Patricia now has an online shop here, and you can find her portfolio, Facebook page, and her blog online as well.

Congratulations on such a successful year Patricia! xo

Next up: We'll catch up with good morning - midnight's Manula Buxter, another Vienna based designer.

12 Countries Spotlight in Austria : Valerie Tonus

Today I'm happy to begin sharing a new series of creative spotlights featuring the many talented artists, crafters, and designers I met while traveling through Europe on my 12 Countries in 12 Months tour.

Every day from now until Christmas, I'll be sharing fresh artist portraits from Europe with you!

Some of you might remember the artists who blog interview I posted with American artist Valerie Tonus after meeting her in person at the Hundertwasser Haus in Vienna last year.

In the meantime, Valerie has been busy creating lots of colorful, new work including these lovely Viennese Market Basket Bags which are available in her Square Circle Works Etsy shop.

Valerie tells us about her process: "These baskets require over 100 feet of rope, which I hand wrap with new and upcycled fabrics.  It can take a couple of days just to complete the wrapping process!  I use a zigzag stitch to sew the wrapped rope into the large basket form. It takes over 500 yards of thread just to make the basket body!"

A lot of work, but the results are gorgeous!

Valerie also creates lovely upcycled bowls from fabrics

in a variety of colors, patterns,

shapes and sizes. See more of her handmade collections here.

Be sure to have a peek at Valerie's delicious blog from Vienna too! Valerie recently shared how to make yummy Austrian style mulled wine for the holidays, and she has blogged many delightful Austrian inspired recipes for breads, salads, and other treats as well. 

Valerie also shares fun and crafty tutorials on her blog

and photos from her favorite places in Vienna. 

I'd love to be visiting an Austrian Christmas market right now, wouldn't you?

Learn more about Valerie's interesting, international life story here and connect with her on Pinterest, Facebook, Etsy, and Twitter.

Happy December and much more to come!

xoxo

Stephanie