Blog: Birgit Koopsen

Jumping with… Birgit Koopsen, Rae Missigman, and Joe Rotella – A CJS Interview Series

So happy to share with you today some video interviews I did with some of our Creative JumpStart 2020 teachers: Birgit Koopsen, Rae Missigman, and Joe Rotella. Three very sweet and talented artists to hear from :)

First up is my good friend Birgit Koopsen from The Netherlands who I have known as a friend for many years and who’s artwork I have always admired. In this interview Birgit discusses her journey into art journaling and mixed media, her natural ability to work with color, and how her artwork reflects her personality. She talks about the influence of travel on artistic choices and the lessons she’s learned from her students around the world.

Next we have Rae Missigman, who I have also known for years and who has such a wonderful fun personality that I think shows through in her art. Learn how she came to mixed media and art journaling from an interest in writing and crafting as a hobby, while today still keeping other hobbies outside her regular artmaking as a catalyst for creativity. Rae talks about carving out small amounts of time for art in a busy modern life, trying new materials without worrying too much about how they are “supposed” to be used, and the joys of her pocket journals.

Finally we have Joe Rotella, who I have also known for years and who is so much fun to hang out with that it is always a blast to have him on CJS. In this interview we joke and laugh the whole way through, but you will also learn how his mischievous and curious mind as a child sowed the seeds for his creative life to come. He talks tools, tech and magic. He encourages viewers to not be intimidated by new tools and tech. And he discusses how he visualizes and plans projects ahead in his style of working. There is definitely a bit of magic in the interview and for the ultimate laugh at the end, be sure to watch the bloopers :)

I hope you will join Birgit, Rae, and Joe and all the amazing teachers for this fun and inspiring challenge beginning in January: Sign up TODAY for Creative JumpStart 2020 and get 31 different mixed media lessons from 31 Super Hero Artists.  Hope to see you in the CJS classroom soon :)

Nat

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June 22-24, 2018 3 Day Workshop in Coventry, UK

Birgit Koopsen and I are so excited that we are coming back to teach another 3-Day Workshop in Coventry in the U.K for Art Workshops.

Take a Stroll Around the Block with Birgit and Nat and discover that inspiration is all around you!
In this 3 day workshop, we’ll embark upon a creative scavenger hunt to seek out inspiring clues in our environment. You’ll learn how to turn these inspiring clues into artwork by using inspiration maps, some of Birgit and Nat’s favorite techniques and tools, and your own personal style.

Based on what you have seen on your stroll and how you apply these tips and tricks, you’ll come away with very unique and personal art journal pages that work. In the end, you’ll have learned about pattern design, composition, and other Elements and Principles of art and a new technique for gathering inspiration for your art-making.

After these three days you’ll know how to find and look for inspiration in architecture, street art, nature and museums and how to translate all this into meaningful and creative artwork.

I hope you will join us, we had such an awesome class last year in Coventry- you can see some pictures of the 3Day Workshop back then here.

Here is a little video where Birgit and I are talking a bit more about the workshop and what we will do:

Birgit and Nat talk about the Stroll Around Block Workshop from Nathalie Kalbach on Vimeo.

Information for sign up and pricing can be found at Art Workshops.

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Nat

Comments (2)

  • Karen Bearse

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    Dream team this look awesome! How much fun that would be.

    Reply

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Color Crush Workshop in Coventry, UK for Art Workshops

Last weekend my friend Birgit Koopsen and I taught our 3Day Color Crush Retreat for Art Workshops in Coventry in the U.K.

We had a wonderful group of 34 super talented and sweet ladies creating an art journal from scratch.

Birgit and I both love color but we both have a different style and we set the mood by putting a lot of colorful stuff out.

we started with some color theory and color exercises and some ink drawings and stamping.

so many happy faces – it was such a great group.

Look at all those colors!

Aren’t those gorgeous? The second day we did a lot of gelli printing techniques

Now if you do not call this a yummie color crush!

And we even had a short session for making your own foam stamps outside- the weather was great…who says it is always raining in the U.K?

And a lot of the new Art Foamies were used as well

And of course there was a ton of opportunity to buy some stuff …always love seeing the ArtFoamies, most were gone after 3 days.

It was wonderful to see Tali, Tsila, Iris and Hedi from Israel again -it is so many years ago that I met them when teaching in Tel Aviv. Thanks for coming all the way to the UK to join us.

The third day we started the day off binding the book and adding the covers. I don’t think Hazel and Shirley were really as scared as they look like in the photo when Birgit explained how to add the covers- LOL

After having the book all together we got a treat.

The food for the event was plenty some and so good and on top of that Sue, B, Leroy, Debbie and Pam made all of us feel really pampered during the whole retreat.

And then it was all about finishing up some pages and showing how we layer on top of our backgrounds

 

And…seeing a lot of the ladies with my book “Artful Adventures in Mixed Media”  made me super duper extra happy. I know I am a dork but it really does!

Since I came home this week I feel so energized and inspired- it was such a wonderful retreat. Thank you so much to all of the wonderful students who joined us, for Sue for inviting us and to her and her staff for taking great care of us and to my wonderful friend, partner in crime and very tall co-teacher Birgit! It was amazing.

If you weren’t able to join but would like to take a workshop with me check out my In-Person Classes. I will be teaching at the Queens Ink in Maryland  and at Runaway Art and Craft Studio on November 4-5 and December 2 -3 in Oregon. And if you are interested in taking a workshop with me and Birgit – we are coming back to Syracuse July 20-22, 2018 for a three day fun retreat – so safe the date.

Nat

Comments (10)

  • karen bearse

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    Looks like it was a lot of fun with tons of ink flying!

    Reply

  • Tania

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    I had such an amazing time, and learnt so much from you two,hope to attend another one of your workshops in the future ??

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      It was so good to see you again Tania- hope to see you soon again <3

      Reply

  • Sue Clarke

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    Looks like y’all had a blast with foamies, food and fun!!!

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      It was really fun …the food of course helped- LOL- gotta have food !

      Reply

  • Ally

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    It was such an awesome weekend- wish I could do it every weekend!!! X

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    • nathalie-kalbach

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      It was wonderful to have you!!! Hopefully soon again!

      Reply

  • Natalie Jane

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    What an amazing weekend :)
    I cannot wait to finish my book with all the techniques I’ve learned and of course to use YOUR FOAMIES!!!

    Until next time – you and Brigit are a great teaching team xxx

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Natalie it was so wonderful to finally meet you – and you are so talented -rock on with it!!! See you hopefully next year again :) <3

      Reply

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Artful Adventures – Interview with Birgit Koopsen

Birgit Koopsen is part of my book Artful Adventures in Mixed Media and I thought it would be interesting to hear more about her and some of her thoughts. Grab a seat and a cuppa and listen to this interesting conversation which I think you will enjoy. We are talking about things like

  • Artful Adventures in Brooklyn
  • Challenge Surprises
  • How Inspiration Strikes
  • Treasures of Nature
  • Exploring a Theme in Depth
  • and some bloopers ;)

Artful Adventures in Mixed Media Interview with Birgit Koopsen from Nathalie Kalbach on Vimeo.

I hope you enjoyed the interview- let us know what you think about some of the topics.

You can Pre-Order Artful Adventures in Mixed Media now

Nat

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Photos of the Color Crush Workshop OOAK in Syracuse, NY

WOW …what an amazing 3-day Workshop organized by OOAK and held by my sweet friend Birgit Koopsen and me.

Color Crush was the name of the workshop and 21 super sweet, sharing, caring and fun students joined us for this retreat!

Friends attended, Friends were made and

the first day was all about color theory and exercises to work with color and get it really down :)

It was a great date with color and pattern

and even if some of the exercises forced some of our wonderful students to get out of their comfort zone…the spirit was upbeat and color crushing.

Look at all these smiling happy faces.

The second day was all about …well Color of course but also Mono Printing. Because knowing your colors really helps getting the results you want.

We marbled …and…

we mono print painted just a little bit…since this is usually a full day class.

And created fun backgrounds. And for some …it was the very first time mono printing- YEAHHH.

We composed some beautiful collage material and made some cleaning tasks artful and enjoyable ;)

And late in the evening of day two, when all the students were gone to dinner …Birgit and I sneaked in to have a happy look at this colorful classroom. We might have been like little kids in the candy store seeing all the work.

On the third day we bound an art journal together out of all the single pages we worked on so far and started finishing up some of the pages

It was pretty cool to see the group combining Birgit’s and my techniques with their own style- so inspiring and stimulating!

Look at the well used ArtFoamies and StencilGirl Stencils!

And here is our group – minus two who had to leave earlier – with their favorite pages in their art journal!

Thank you so much for coming to Birgit’s and my Color Crush workshop. It was a real pleasure to spend so much time with you creative souls and get to know you better! You inspired me a lot and I couldn’t wait to get back into my studio, it was such an uplifting time. Thank you also to Shelley from OOAK and her awesome team for inviting us and organizing this great event! And last but not least a big hug to my friend Birgit – love co-teaching with you and looking forward to our new plans ;)

Hope you enjoyed the photos of this workshop! If you want to know where I teach next- check out my In-Person Class Schedule – in the next couple weeks.

Nat

Comments (10)

  • Linda Fernandes-Bailey

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    great three days of fun and learning and friendship and food….love all these photos! Thank you

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      It was so wonderful to have you Linda- and you rocked the class – you are my stitching queen ;) Thank you for coming!

      Reply

  • Mary Harrell

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    Thanks to you and Birgit for a fun and artsy weekend!!

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Thank you so much for coming Mary! It was such a pleasure to have you and spent time with you!

      Reply

  • Sherry Canino

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    Thank you so much for such a fun and creative weekend !! xoxo

    Reply

  • sunmoongal

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    Looks like so much fun! Love all the art

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    • nathalie-kalbach

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      It was so much fun- you would have loved it a lot denise!!! Hope you are well!

      Reply

  • Birgit Koopsen

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    <3 <3 <3

    Reply

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Mono Print Painting Fun

Next Thursday my sweet friend Birgit Koopsen is coming from the Netherlands and I cannot wait to see her. Besides some girlfriend time and sightseeing we are also teaching several workshops together, one is a Mono Print Painting class  at The Ink Pad in

NYC  on March 18th, based on a technique we came up with after we went to see the H.N. Werkman exhibtion when I visited her in the Netherlands.

I wanted to incorporate some of my class samples in an art journal and here are some samples of what I was doing last week.

The cat below is of course inspired by Klee :) and I picked up the Manhattan Border pattern in the print on the lest side with the Manhattan Tile Stamp.

I am kind of liking the idea of incorporating the prints which you do not want to hang on a wall or else into the art journal …you see some really raw experimentation with this here :)

This is the stare in my face I wake up to in the morning …ah the joy of being a cat owner- LOL

This one was of inspired by Matisse – the left is the Mono Print Painting using the Versailles Stencil and on the right you can see the smaller pattern with one of the Versailles Foam Stamps.

It is really addicting to play with those Mono Print Paintings and Birgit and I have heaps of techniques to apply to them – and you get two teachers with different ideas on this :) There are still some seats left- so if you are in the NYC area- join us for this Mono Print Painting Class March 18th or the Artful Transfers Class March 19th …or even both (special price) !

Have a wonderful day

Nat

Comments (4)

  • stephanie

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    hope you have some of these techniques in your Artiscape classes too. :)

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    • nathalie-kalbach

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      I will teach loads of techniques on all of the classes there :) Looking forward seeing you – woohoo.

      Reply

  • Lisa Flaherty

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    Wow, wow, WOW!! This Mono Print Painting class looks Ah-maze-balls!!! If instantaneous travel were a thing, I would sooooo be there!! <3

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Awe- Lisa- it would be so awesome to have you!!! Have an amazing week!

      Reply

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A Visual Interview with Birgit Koopsen

Meet my friend , Dutch mixed media artist Birgit Koopsen. She loves to get her hands dirty and experiment with all kinds of media, combining contrasting colors and working with stamps, stencils, inks, acrylic paints and markers.

See how she answered some questions about her in photos and paintings and …a movie :)

A Visual Interview with Birgit Koopsen from Nathalie Kalbach

Birgit is one of the teachers of Creative JumpStart 2017 along with 26 other artists – read more about this Mixed Media Online Class and sign up here.

Nat

Comments (3)

  • Birgit_Koopsen

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    Thank you so much sweet friend for this opportunity! Loved answering these questions in pictures, so much fun :D Huge hugs, Birgit

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      It was so much fun to see your answers like this! I cannot wait to see you in a couple weeks- counting days <3 loves, nat

      Reply

      • natel

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        BTW- I wanna be a cat too :)

        Reply

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