ABOUT ME

My name is Simone Nijboer.

I’m a Dutch artist.

Next to being an artist, I’ve been a life coach in private practice for about two decades. I’ve always loved my coaching work. I’m deeply interested in personal growth and spiritual deepening, and in my experience, they are inseparable from making art.

A joyful and fulfilling life

Being an artist, I know how fundamental creativity is for living a joyful and fulfilling life. And being a coach, I know how important it is to create from a deep and still place inside of yourself.

The beautiful thing about making art is that it helps you to combine both. It’s wonderful to express yourself in a creative way. And it invites depth and stillness in your life, from where wisdom, truth, and power can emerge.

How I started art-making

My personal art journey is long and winded. For many years, I wanted to paint but did not dare to start. When I had gathered enough courage, I started painting, but dropped it again quite soon, since I had lots of insecurities, doubts, and unhelpful thoughts around painting.

Daily painting

This all changed when I started painting on a more or less daily basis – and loved it! It might sound exaggerated, but I personally feel that daily painting changed my life. Creativity became an indispensable joyful ingredient of my day, and this joy spread over to the rest of my life. In a miraculous way, being in touch with my creativity grew my resilience and resourcefulness, and it strengthened my ability to simply enjoy life instead of staying trapped in negative thinking.

The Joy of Collage Making

When I started making collages, I found it to be so much easier to sustain my daily painting practice, even in busy times. Making collages happened to be a fantastic counterpart to more time-consuming types of painting.

Because I enjoyed the collage-making process so much, I decided to make an online course about it: ‘The Joy of Collage Making’. I wanted to inspire other people like you to start making art on a regular basis and in a very intuitive, easy, and light-hearted way. Collage making is the perfect way to do so.

Freedom

I had always loved the freedom and joy that some paintings seem to radiate. And when I started painting, I knew one thing for sure: I wanted to paint in this free, liberating, and intuitive way. From that moment on, I’ve experimented a lot. I was always focussing in the first place on the joy of the process instead of on the outcome of the paintings.

Of course, I didn’t always manage to paint that way. Often I got stuck, harassed by my inner critic, doubting and second-guessing how to proceed in the middle of an ‘ugly’ painting.

But I realized that in the moments I could paint from this free and liberating place, I felt wonderful. I completely lost time and became one with my paintbrushes and painting.

Spirituality

These moments ‘in the Now’ lifted me up and helped me to develop the same attitude for the rest of my life. Whenever I felt stuck in my life, often painting helped me to get in the flow again. It brought me back to an attitude of trust, in myself and for the rest of my life. Slowly, making art became a kind of spiritual practice for me. 

The Art of Now

That’s when I started to create my second course ‘The Art of Now’. I wanted to show how you can learn to experiment, play, and not worry about the outcome. By letting go of expectations, painting becomes a meditative process.

Make Art & Change your Life

More and more, I realized that making art, spirituality and personal growth are interconnected. When you encounter personal issues, your art can help you to break through barriers and get in touch with your natural joyfulness and inner wisdom. That’s why I created the online course ‘Make Art & Change your Life’.

Join me!

If you would learn to let go, use your intuition, discover artistic freedom and make paintings that you love, join me in making art, an check out my online courses!

I wish you a beautiful, creative life!

Bye!

Simone