Welcome to my blog!

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen! My name is Judith Leyster, and I am the eighth child of my family, and my father’s name is Jan Willemsz Leyster. I am experimenting currently with this blog to see if people will actually comment on my art work! And MAYBE, you never know it might be a great success! So, I am extremely excited to being this blog of mines. To give you a brief overview on what my blog will be about, is that I will add in a few of my daily thoughts and occasionally add in my paintings. I will try my best to get them on my blog, because I would love feedback on my paintings!

             Anyways, I’ll first introduce myself and give you a brief background of my life so far. I was born in the city of Haarlem, and I had first begun to get interesting in painting in the year of 1628. The type of paintings I was especially interested in was Dutch Realism, because I love painting realistic portrayals of secular everyday life of people. It is very relax to paint because it is interesting of how people react to things and carry out their works a certain way. Although, from my prior knowledge, I understand that most of Europe was concentrating on classical or Baroque type of art, but that had never stopped me from continuing on with my type of art. However, there still was that major obstacle I had to overcome, which was being discouraged because I was just a woman. I absolutely did not want that to bring me down, because honestly I know I can prove myself to be a very famous painter of my time! After moving to Vreeland near Utrecht, quickly I had fallen under the influence of the Utrecht Caravaggist and continued to paint there. Once again I moved to Zaandam near Amsterdam, and there I had just stayed not really getting any improvement on my paintings, but that is alright because I will not let this discourage me, I just had to keep trying. Eventually, I was brought back to my hometown in 1631, there I was able to witness a baptism of one of Fran Hal’s children. Although I do not remember completely, I remember that I had taken Fran Hals teachings extremely seriously and always paid attention, and tried my best. Learning under him and his brother had been a great blessing. As a result, I had been able to begin signing my own paintings. This had shown a lot of people in my city, that FINALLY YES! I am an independent woman, and artist during this time. It had been a rough couple of years, but I believe it was all worth it in the end. Sigh,, I wish I could have been taught by him a lot longer. That is okay, because there are things that must end! I will carry a lot his great influence on me, and spread it to other people first, BUT first what should I do?