Nikki Smits

A while back I worked on a cover for the CD of the new shoegaze/dreampop band Shadowpeak (http://shadowpeak.bandcamp.com/) I had a lot of fun creating it, it’s one of those images that I have no idea how it will look when I color it. Playing around and layering in photoshop until it comes out comepletely unexpected but I really like it.

Last month I worked on a poster for a gig of the band Girlbeard, supported by Marley Blue and Nebraska jones.. I tried creating a woman with a beard that’s absolutely not manly. For that I looked at baroque paintings of nymphs and I think you can see that in the final image.

This chicken with a spaying can for it’s head is a quick poster I made for the ‘pre-party’ of the Counter Culture Festival at Utrecht. Even though I made it in a few hours right after I heard I had to make it I like how it turned out.

I made a poster for a contest of the ‘Zelfgemaakte Markt’. It’s a creative market where people can sell their handmade stuff. My poster didn’t win though, so that’s too bad. Might use it for something else in the future.

A few days  ago my work was featured at HP/De Tijd Expo. it’s an online art blog of a well known newspaper, so that is really awesome, you can check it out here: http://www.hpdetijd.nl/2013-05-04/expositie-de-hybride-dieren-van-nikki-smits/

Arpil 30th is Queensday in the Netherlands and the night before there are always a lot of parties all over our country. I made live visuals at a club during dj’s playing.

One again I will exhibit my Alice in Wonderland Paintings, this time at Café Van Velsen, at Mariaplaats, Utrecht. Two of my paintings are hanging at a galery that also does the exhibitions at that café, so they asked me. The opening will be May 16th and Our Minor Fall will be playing their great songs. See the event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/240160709460301/

And lastly: Tomorrow I’ll be at a physiotherapy office open door day where my other newer paintings will be hanging and I’ll be selling new pillows and bags. So it will be a busy Month!

I finally got to work on some personal projects again, I had an exhibition comming-up in April and I really wanted to make something new. I struggled with the theme for this big project. I though of many animal rights subjects but they only made it harder for me to be creative. So I just started to paint. I painted my cat and that’s when I rediscovered my pleasure in creating. Using all kinds of different colors in many layers.

After that I made a series of fable-like images that are currently on exhibition at ACU:

February 7th I made live drawings on a projector again, this time together with Rosanne Groeneweg. It was at the afterparty of Stukafest in Tivoli De Helling, the student festival in Utrecht I showed a poster of in my last post. The theme of the party was the Mexican Day of the Dead, so there also was a make-up artist that painted the faces of people in that style. It was a lot of fun!

Photo by Remco Brinkhuis

I also sold bags with animals that I drew on Stukafest bags. On the other side there is another illustrtation and the Stukafest logo.

For Valentines day I sold a pair of matching mugs with otters. If you put them together the right way the otters shape like a heart and on the inside of each mug is an otter, if you put them together they kiss.

A new small festival is comming up at ACU, it’s the ACU Triangle Sessions. It will take place in the bar, smoking area and stage area of ACU. This is the poster I made.

I also made a few new pillows and a dress up mug this month.

It’s been more than a month since I last posted, even though my New Years resolution was to post more on this blog! I’ve been busy though. The first two weeks of 2013 I’ve been working my ass of for the Boekie Boekie StArt Award, though now I just heard I didn’t make it through the nominations. That sucks, but maybe it’s just not my kind of contest. The first image I made for that is this:

I made illustrations for a story about a tree that falls in love with a girl. I really liked this image, but the story had to have two illustrations, and this technique just didn’t work for the other one. So I tried painting that one:

So now I had two illustrations that I liked but totally didn’t fit in the same story because of the differnt techniques! In the end I made them all like the second one, but it just didn’t work so well. So much trouble for nothing! Oh well, moving on.

I’ve been making artwork for Stukafest Utrecht for a few months now, but they had to be finished really fast ech time so I never got to make something I actually liked. I took more time for the poster of the opening party of the festival. It’s located in a museum that displays all kinds of mechanical music boxes. I found an awesome wind-up bunny playing the violin on the website, so with that in mind I made a design that fist the mood of the party. There will also be an ending party where I and Rosanne Groeneweg will be drawing live with an overhead projector.

That same projector that I used to make drawings at the presentation of Blaahderdt minizine. A tiny limited edition magazine for which I made a poster. Here’s me drawing live:

And this is the Poster I made (it’s about city Utrecht in general):

The next big poster project was for Festival Mooie Woorden. I talked about that in an earlier post when I made a logo, sticker, website and a bag design for them. But now the date of the festival is drawing closer so this is what I made:

It partly takes place in a gardening centre where there are flamingo’s, so that’s what inspired me for this design. I love flamingo’s, the always make me think of Alice in Wonderland :D

Earlier this month I made some new dress-up mugs, which I really liked, but it turned out that after baking you could still scrape off where I painted it :( so they’re not really fit for sale until I know what to do about that.

I also made new pillows and will make some more soon. So I guess it has been a busy month and I don’t think February will be any different, I hope to update with new projects soon!

Today I’ve been making more pillows because I got two orders for Christmas, a panda and a fox. I enjoy making them, and I have to make some more, luckily not for Christmas ;)
But for now I am done, happy holidays everyone!

Last Saturday me and some friends joined the Zelfgemaakte Kerstmarkt (Homemade Christmas Market) to sell some of our stuff. I made pillows, mugs, cards and some tea boxes. I’m really happy about how it turned out!

Thank you everyone for buying and all the nice compliments!

Lately I’ve been working on creating a new identity for Festival Mooie Woorden (Beautiful Words Festival). It’s a festival in Utrecht that centers around literature and music. I designed a new logo, website, stickers and bag. I will also be designing a poster when the festival will take place in February.

Stickers

Bag

Website

Lately I’ve been making a lot of gig posters, I enjoy searching for the right balance between illustration and typography. I always think the hardest part is choosing the colors. They need to fit the atmosphere of the gig and look good together. I spend a lot of time in photoshop changing the colors until they feel right.

Here’s a selection:

Xiu Xiu at Eureka, Zwolle

Free Pussy Riot Party at Vrankrijk, Amsterdam

Glass Promises at Eureka, Zwolle

Glass Promises at ACU, Utrecht

Frames at ACU, Utrecht

As I talked about in this post, 6-15 July I organized an exhibition with two friends at the Pop-Up Galery in Utrecht. We gathered 25 young artists (for some of them it was their first exhition) to show of their best work. It was great to manage an exhibition from scratch, I learned a lot in these past few weeks. We wanted to gather 40 artists, but we were so glad we didn’t have more than 25! It was already hard enough to fit work of 25 people in the gallery it turned out, but somehow we did it!

On thirsday July 5th was the Opening and a lot of people came to take a first look at the exhibition. In the end we had to kick people out because everyone had such a good time and stuck around, that’s a good thing. The days that followed were long but worth it, we sold something every day! Though sometimes it was just a little broche and a card, we knew we were not in the gallery for nothing.

Thursday July 12 my boyfriend helped us organize an evening with two singer songwriters (Ása and Butet) and a acoustic Britpop band (Velvvet, they don’t usually play acoustic so that was cool). It was another great evening. They all played wonderful, thank you so much guys!

As the exhibition was drawing to a close we actually sold the most. In the last day (today!) I finally sold two of my ‘We’re all Mad Here’ Alice in Wonderland paintings! I made them in September last year and I exhibited them at two places but never sold any. But now the Queen of Hearts cat and the White Rabbit are finally gone and I feel kind of sad about it. But I hope the lady who bought them will love them as much as I do. The original owner of the gallery asked me if I wanted to exhibit the paintings (and teaboxes and mugs) in the next exhibition in August, which is great! So if you want to buy one of my paintings, go to the Pop-Up Gallery at Domstraat 25, Utrecht, before they’re all gone! ;D

Outside at the opening

People checking out my work!

Ása

Velvvet

Butet

Me working on some cards

Goodbye my darlings!

A while ago I wrote about drawing live visuals with Rosanne Groeneweg at a concert in Kargadoor, Utrecht. Beforehand we drew some special illustrations for the zine that would be handed out that evening. Next friday they want a zine with illustrations of all the people that drew at those concerts, the theme of the illustrations was ‘my dream holiday’.

So I thought about what my dream holiday would be like, and it would definately involve wild animals. I ended up drawing me and my boyfriend roasting marshmellows with some huge wolves. I like how it turned out, especially because I had so little time to complete it.