artists

{inner child} create your own colour...

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At the end of last year, I held another art workshop for 50 students in year 2 (age 8) at Laly’s school. This time, I focussed on colour and chatted to the kids about the power of colour in our lives. I was inspired by my faraway friend, artist & educator Lisa Solomon’s new book A Field Guide to Color - it is full of fantastic techniques on understanding colour through watercolour. And the paper throughout the book is ideal to apply watercolour paint, so you can do the exercises directly in the book which I love…

I took the book in and taught the children a little about Lisa’s art, what I personally love about her work, and some of her colour work techniques like Colour Meditation.

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They were all very excited to be making colour! They knew the basic principles of making different colours (red + yellow = orange etc) but I wanted to stretch this a bit further, to get them to experiment, to not just take a colour from a tube and go with that but to adjust it according to their mood, and to use their intuition when creating a new colour.

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We created a few different stations in the classroom so that the kids could go from one to the other, allowing a few children at a time a few minutes at my station - the colour making station. As I mentioned, one of the many things that Lisa does is create colour meditations with watercolour, it’s a wonderful activity so I used this idea as one of the stations for the kids. At this table, they were to repeat a marking on their paper over and over again using a different coloured marker for each one. Another station I set up with a whole bunch of colour samples from the paint section of the local hardware store. These I had gathered over the previous months for my own photoshoots, as I use them to create colour palettes in my storyboarding. For this station, the idea was to look at the names of the colours to gather inspiration, and to then come up with a name for their colour that they will be creating. They came up with so many creative names!

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At my station, it was all about the mixing. It was no easy feat to manage this to accomodate 50 kids in two hours! Their excitement and gratitude though was worth every drop of sweat as I frantically prepped for each round of children. I let them choose a base colour from a group of mixing vessels I’d prepared before they arrived at the table, and then we got adding - I asked them what colour they would like to add to see what happens, and off they went. I tried my best to teach them that the more colour they added, the more it could become brown, but at the same time I also know that they need to learn this from trying themselves. Stepping back to allow their own lessons to transpire while also being available to teach them when they need it is a challenge. I have always had immense gratitude to the teachers of the world who manage this daily, in their own journey to find their own balance.

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After they’d mixed their colour, they went to the painting station to paint their colour onto a piece of paper and write the name of their colour and their name onto the paper. So. much. fun.

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Meanwhile at home, I’d been making my own colour palette for a backdrop and painting I was working on. I’ll be sharing the process in detail of developing a shoot from start to finish on the Wandering Hearts Collective in the coming week, as this process is transferrable to how I design intuitive websites for my mentoring clients as well as intuitive business practice.

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Although I hosted this workshop for children, it’s an activity I would recommend to my clients and anyone at all who is needing to connect with their intuition, creativity, and inner child.

And if you’ve been wanting to learn how to play with watercolours and deepen your knowledge of colour, then Lisa’s book is definitely for you.

With love & colours,

Pia xx


Welcome to Amiyo, this beautiful life...

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I’m so thrilled to finally share with you something incredible I’ve been working on for one of my beautiful clients. It’s been an amazing intuitive journey together, from beginning as mentoring sessions in 2017 through to bringing her latest collection into the world and sharing it through its very own online space…

Susie Duggin is an incredible artist, jewellery designer, and maker based in Bangalow, near Byron Bay here on the east coast of Australia. We met back in 2017 when Susie flew down to Sydney for our first mentoring session together. She has such a beautiful and distinctive aesthetic, and was in the midst of creating the most stunning debut jewellery collection The Native Gold Series, where each piece is art in miniature.

The name Amiyo came into Susie’s life while she was creating the collection and for her she describes this as an ancient word that portrays “this beautiful life, enriched by our dreams and visions, made to be a touchstone to remind us of our inherent magic.”

Each piece features native gold in quartz stones that are sourced locally, and carries its own story which is reflected in the names of each piece: “Landscape of the Soul” , “The Beloved One”, and “In The Sky, On The Ground (and in the Sea)” , just to name a few.

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Together over the past few months we’ve been designing and styling her new website, and it was an absolutely pleasure to create the visual storytelling, capturing the magic in this collection. Susie came and stayed at my studio and we spent the weekend photographing the pieces in the studio and down by the waters edge too.

After a wonderfully successful, private launch last weekend, it’s my absolute pleasure to be the first to share with you her collection online. So please take the time to visit her world, read her journal, learn more about her and share her work with people you know will love it…

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Congratulations beautiful Susie! It’s been such a pleasure mentoring and collaborating with you on this creative endeavour. The intuitive journey is a jungle path for sure and worth every step when you see what you’ve created led by your heart all the way. This is real magic in the palm of your hands, and you’ve shared it with us, there is nothing more special than this.

With love,

Pia xx

Website design & styling by Pia Jane Bijkerk and Susie Duggin

Production and visual storytelling by Pia Jane Bijkerk

Logo Design by Rick Shearman

Jewellery photography by Michelle Eabry

Amy's Wonder-Walking world in the palm of my hands...

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In October I wrote about Amy T. Won’s kickstarter campaign to produce her beautiful wonder-walking card deck. It was very successful and Amy was able to get the cards made and all the orders have been sent out - I received mine this week and wow, I knew they’d be amazing but not this amazing!!

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Amy’s attention to detail is incredible, so I knew the quality of the cards and her watercolours would be nothing short of stunning but I wasn’t prepared for the level she would take it - the box in itself is a work of art, with exquisite gold foiling in all the right places. Amy’s concept with the cards is to connect us to nature (and in doing so, our intuition) in new ways. The idea is to pick a card from the deck before you head out for a walk, and the card, along with Amy’s notes, will trigger new ways of exploring and seeing your surroundings.

Nature needs to be at the centre of all our attentions these days and I am all for enabling pathways for people to make connections any way they can. This deck for me, is an incredibly creative way to ignite that all important connection…

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In my patreon collective, I do an ancestral card reading for each new moon, and now I will be adding Amy’s card reading as well to enrich the connection. The idea of these readings is to connect each member to their intuition, to make more intuitive choices in their work and home life throughout the month. I am thinking about adding individual readings for each member too, so I’ll be talking about that over there soon. Serendipitously, this was the very first card I pulled in the deck while I was in my studio…

HOME.

HOME.

I’ll be sharing the meaning of this on Patreon later this week.

Thank you Amy for sharing your beautiful world with us in these wondrous ways. X

Swarm Studio, Amsterdam...

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Those who’ve known me for a long time will know that artist + founder of Swarm, Leslie Oschmann, is a dear friend of mine. We got to know each other ten years ago when I was living in my houseboat in Amsterdam and scouting hidden ateliers for my second book, Amsterdam: Made by Hand. We soon became friends, and went on many adventures together around the city and beyond. I’m drawn to people who see the world around them in a unique way, and can transform something overlooked into something extraordinary, which is what I call Everyday Alchemy. Leslie is one of those unique people.

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My daughter Laly, taking in the atmosphere of Swarm & ready to paint, 2016

My daughter Laly, taking in the atmosphere of Swarm & ready to paint, 2016

Each time I’ve been back to Amsterdam since moving to Sydney, I spend time with Leslie and her sidekick, McDuff. I love being immersed in her creative world - her home & studio, which is always filled with her latest projects. There are chairs hanging from the ceiling, piles of found oil paintings ready to be transformed into something new, paintbrushes, textiles, leather straps, ropes and the most incredible found objects from her travels - many of which she sells in her online store.

When I visited her new studio in 2016 with Laly, Leslie had just embarked on the epic journey of writing and making a book. She’d been approached by Rizzoli to write a book about her creative life in Amsterdam, centered around her muse, wire hair fox terrier McDuff. The book was inspired by Leslie’s fun photographs on instagram of the sometimes obscure places her and McDuff would visit, and the playfulness of exploring these interesting landscapes together. Because wherever Leslie goes, so does McDuff - when she heads back to New York, he’s on the plane with her, and travelling to her new studio-in-the-making in France known as Q, he’s sitting beside her in her van. I remember when Leslie and I went to Beaune in Bourgogne for New Year’s Eve some 8 years ago, and McDuff wandered the frosted cobblestone streets with us.

With this book project, Leslie wanted to find a way to create the unique visual layout she had in her mind, and we’d discussed the idea of creating them by hand - each page spread as an assemblage which could then be photographed. When I got there, she had the page layouts pinned up on one of the studio cabinets. It was an honour to be able to see the book in progress at this early stage - to see how Leslie’s visual directing translated into book form, and I couldn’t wait to see the final result….

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Earlier this year, her book was published. It’s called Me & McDuff, and it’s filled with her creative energy & love for her sidekick. Every page is an artwork in itself, with each assemblage created by Leslie & photographed by Sarah van den Bosch. The book tells the story of Leslie & McDuff’s creative companionship in her way - minimal words, maximum visual effect…

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With some of her favourite captures from the book, Leslie has made some into pouches which I love, you can find them in her store.

While on my trip to Amsterdam this year in August, I took my camera with me to photograph her studio for one of my book projects. I won’t be able show you many of the incredible captures (her space is seriously amazing), but here are a few of the photographs from my shoot…

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…in her zone. 2018

…in her zone. 2018

Laly & I playing, Swarm Studio, 2016.

Laly & I playing, Swarm Studio, 2016.

Okay here is one more…

The Alchemist’s kitchen, in all it’s utilitarian glory.

The Alchemist’s kitchen, in all it’s utilitarian glory.

You can click on the links to have a look at Leslie’s new objet d’art, her new book Me & McDuff, and her latest bag collection is stunning. They are one of a kind and they sell fast, so if you see one that pulls at your heart strings, you’ll regret it if you don’t get it (believe me, this has happened a number of times to me and my friends and we still lament over the ones we missed out on).

Thank you Leslie for continuing to be such an inspiration in my life & for sharing your world with us in all that you create!

With Love,

Pia xx