Barcelona, out and about.

Feeling high from all the shopping.

Creepy crawlers.

14 years.

Magic moment.

Yup, we were also tourists.

Gotta love the rainbow suspenders!

Can't think of a better way of displaying food.

Visit to Mar's new place.

Loads of space! High ceilings! Beautiful floors!

Amazing staircase!

Big, quiet terrace!

Super guapa!

Patates y xibeca!

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Mar has one of the most beautiful flats I've seen in Barcelona. I was very happy to see how well she's doing there, it was a wise decision to go back after all (despite me missing her so much back in Rotterdam...)

Cuqui, guapa!

Paella day in Gavà, Barcelona.

Oh yum.

I think it was definitely worth dragging Leti out of bed.

Food and wine make us giggle.

Happy Janneke!

Next stop: Barcelona. School reunion.

I flew straight from the UK to Spain to my 10 year school reunion. We all looked as gorgeous as always. I was surprised to find this wall still painted as I left it. I painted it together with other students (and I should say the awesome design is mine). Back then, planets, skies, stars and people in bubbles was like, the coolest thing.

Emil Tröger was my art teacher. Very inspiring man. I wonder what he's up to now.

Bucks New University.

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This is where Phil did his furniture design studies. I was really impressed by all the space and machines they have here. It's a shame it will all change soon, they're moving all the workshops into a smaller building to fill these spaces for "cleaner" studies that don't require so much space and complex machines.

Main course: Phil's graduation.

Phil's "Pippin bedside" objects. And I'm lucky enough to have them in my room!

Phil's "Quello Table and stool." My favourite.

Phil's "Pippin Hallway" objects.

Talking to man from Ercol. Ercol is the company that selected Phil's "Quello table and stool" to make in their workshops. It's so beautifully finished.

Debbie designed the coziest chair I've ever seen.

I want one!

Podgy and her designs.

Clock in a sugar pot.

Ruth Phillips' designs. The milk should be delivered in the plant pot where it can stay nice and cool.

For starters: London.

Urbanised leaf.

Don't come too close, you bird, you.
Traffic sign not taken seriously.
Stencil.
Scary skies.
Lovely Mamita.
Super soft donkey ears.
Minimal flowers.

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I had a couple of days in London to get my passport sorted and see Mamita and Helen before going to Phil's graduation.

Dear visitors,

I know you have been checking my blog regularly and found no new posts for a while. It's lovely to know you come by to check up on me, thanks for that. I've been away for a while: Phil's graduation, Barcelona accompanied by Janneke, Froukje and Jurjen's wedding (for which I was asked to do the photos of) and a couple of days back in Rotterdam with Phil. Soon I will compensate your disappointing visits to my blog with updates of what I've been doing for the past few days.
Love,
Rachel

Dre's garden.

I have to practice with the SLR camera for the wedding I'm going to take pictures of. The tones are a little different in each picture because I was trying the white balances of the camera. The first photo (Dre chillin) is the tones I would go for for outside pictures.

Cheeky chops.

Buse eating candy.

New screentprint: The Coolest Dog in Town.

I made this illustration about five years ago during my illustration postgraduate in Eina. I did it in Alexis Rom's workshop, he was one of my favourite teachers of the course. Great taste and super handy techniques he didn't mind sharing with the students (some teacher were a bit paranoid about us copying them). He showed us how to get this textured effect. He does lots of screenprinting but back then I didn't know how to, so the coolest dog was just lying there, in an old folder in my computer, waiting for me to do something with it till now. I know it's not an amazing illustration, but it has sentimental value to me.

If case you'd like to know, to get this textured effect, you simply dab a sponge with acrylic paint all over a piece of paper. If you're going to use it for screen printing, the paper should be transparent (film) or tracing paper. Then you can cut the pieces to make the illustration from the painted paper, or you can also scan the whole paper and cut the pieces in photoshop. Really high tech techniques.

If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. So they are spared the guilt and anxiety that so torment human beings and they are full of the sheer joy of living, taking delight not so much in persons or things as in life itself. As long as your happiness is caused or sustained by something or someone outside of you, you are still in the land of the dead. The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy.”

—	Anthony de Mello

À bientôt.

Ares and Uri are moving to Paris. They will be missed.

Ares, Uri: un plaer les xarreres, bromes, els menjars boníssims, els consells estilístics, les barbacoes i la bona companyia. Sou maquíssims! Molta sort, ens veiem aviat!