Tessa's blog

After long deliberation and consideration it finally has happened. Starting February I'm going freelance. Standing on my own two feet. It's kinda scary, no safety net, but also really exciting. My spanking new website is located at: Skizzie. I say "website" but really I mean "splash". At least until I find the time to design a real website. With any luck this will never happen because I'm way to busy ;-)

Time is starting to run out! I need to make some new kites before the new kite season starts. First a Mio! Garu's pet ninja cat. Yesterday i've finally bought the cloth. Here are its proliminary drawings.

It's based on a traditional korean fighter kite + one kitten :-)

As promised. a couple of pictures of my new fish. Unfortunately, taking pictures of fish is a tad harder than i expected... ;-) So i had to cheat with one of them. I got it from the net :-/

First a picture of one of my blue gourami fish. Its dutch name is "blauwe spat" because of its blue colour and signature black dots (3). They are very peacefull, friendly fish. Except towards one another... I was a little worried about the little one (which i expect to be male) because the bigger one (female, picture) kept nipping at it. After a few days he got fed up and started fighting back. They fight dirty by the way. Nipping at the other when its back is turned! At the moment there is a truce only occasionally broken by a few catfights. Especially when i stand in front of the glass. They always seem to greet me when i get home (food, food!). I'm still can't be sure about their gender because the telltale elongated male spinal fin develops when they are fully grown (12 cm). They are now about 6/7 cm long. I'm going to add one gourami. Once i've figured out which genders i currently have. The ideal combination is one male and 2/3 females. 2 males results in vicious fighting...

My fish have returned! After a long period of no fish and a sad empty tank :-( Although it had its uses during Christmas. An empty aquarium makes an ideal extra light-and-greenery feature.

Pictures of my new fish will follow suit!

I started working at Tremani a couple of months ago. If any of you are wondering how I spend my days there. Here is an example of what I do.

Tremani recently set up a website called LoveSafeForever.com. If you love someone, your car(s), kite(s) or your cat. Here is the place to declare your love. Safe for all eternity! They've set up a special system ensuring your love declaration will be safe for eternity.

People who visit the Portsmouth Kite festival often also visit the Bristol Kite Festival. Since they are held only one week apart and it's only an hours drive away. We try to visit both but unfortunately we don't have a car (or a license for that matter). This year we made an return trip to Bristol by plane. It's sounds stupid but that's actually a lot cheaper than staying in England for the week.

Last year August we went to the Portsmouth Kite Festival (again, third year in a row) and again we had a GREAT time. Blue skies, fair breeze, beautiful kites and lovely people.

We took a lot of pictures which i planned on posting as soon as we got home... Didn't happen but no worries, the time has finally come.

Bas Vreeswijk is a regular visitor and as always he brought along a shipload of beautiful traditional Japanese kites. This is just one of many. 

I've changed jobs recently as you all must have noticed by now. My overall happiness has improved by 500% and what better way to celebrate this than by building a new kite!

My new colleagues really enjoyed our kite display (during a company boat trip) and demanded a Tremani kite. I don't know if they really expected me to go along with this but I did so here it is... (drumroll)

We took these pictures on a very drab, windless (newyears) day. But we couldn't resist finally testing the kite. It flew absolutely perfect (tears are forming in my eyes just thinking about it). Not all my kites are this well behaved...

A while ago Frank asked us (Aldo & me) to create a cover for his thesis. Since Aldo is always swinging any number from 2 to 8 jobs at a time and I was having a bit of spare time between jobs I decided to take on the challenge.

Yes, it's really true, it has finally happened. I'm switching office desks. I think Aldo is even more excited than I am. Finally, a new topic of conversation :-)

I'm switching to tremani, a little (but somewhat bigger) design agency. My new job starts in mid August.