girl giants

"I like giants - especially girl giants. 'cause all girls feel too big sometimes, regardless of their size."

This is a sentence of the song "I like giants" by Kimya Dawson, which I really like. It's so true and told in such a different way then the normal stuff you hear about size and weight and I think it's funny at the same time.  I was listening to it and thought about an older drawing I once made about this issue.

I like collecting sentences and words. I have a book where I collect all different kinds of text that crosses my way: out of books, magazines, songtext or the newspaper. And out of all these different things I make my own story or titles for my drawings. I love words, I just can't find them in myself. Maybe that's why I draw.

hold on - almost done!

 

I'm working on the next drawing and I wanted to give you an idea of my way of drawing and the size of the paper.

undiscovered places

Yesterday we made a trip to the cities "Weert" and "Roermond". They're only about 45 minutes away from where I live and I had never been there. People fly all over the world but they don't really know their own country. So sometimes I go to places that are nearby that I've never visited. In Weert we accidentally walked in a museum which turned out to be a religious museum with mostly old paintings and a lot silver and gold stuff. In a small room around the corner there was this sculpture made by Desire Tonnaer. It shows Maria Magdalena as a mummy in a way archaeologists could have found her. I find this sculpture fascinating and a bit scary and it was a absolute surprise in this museum.
The picture below I took in Roermond. This poor guy was standing in front of toyshop and covered in plastic because of the rain. I immediately fell in love with him! Those are the only two pictures I took the whole day...

innocence locked up

I finished the second large Pippi-drawing. They're so hard to photograph, because of the white paper you have shadows all over it. And because they're so big it's hard to find a good place to hang them and take a picture. I just have to wait for better weather, then I can take them outside and try again. So I'm sorry for the not so good quality of the picture...
This one is rather different than the first one I drew. The first Pippi made her own decisions and was in control. This one is not, I guess. It's not even clear to me if she put the cartridge-belts on her body herself or not, or if she's forced by the other Pippi's. In the end, working on this one for 3 or 4 days, kind of frustrated me, because she is so pithless and at the same time I feel sorry for her. I have lots of time thinking about her story if I'm drawing. Now I'm already working on the next one, this girl gets a little more guts again!

tomato-girl

In May I introduced you to my red hot chili pepper-girl. I got inspired because I grow my own vegetables and I thought a sculpture in as always nice in the kitchen! Now the pepper-queen is no longer alone: I made a tomato-princess. She's a bit bigger, about 100 cm. Because of the bad weather this time no pictures of the sculpture in the garden. Both sculptures are standing in my kitchen, on the window sill.

peek in sneak about

I started another big pippi-drawing, also in red. This one is a bit different then the first one I made. This drawing has a different kind of energy, because there's less movement in the figure. But I write more about it when it's finished, because you can't see the whole drawing at this point. But I can show you a preview on her dress:

PS: a little something I just wanted to share with you about my trip to Rotterdam. Thanks to Nelleke's blog I visited the exhibition 'Colours in My Hand' of Ayako Rokakku. She's a Japanese artist (1982) and she moved her studio temporarily into the Kunsthal's ‘daylight hall'. Every day for three weeks until 17th of july she will be working on an ‘artwork in progress'. Rokkaku will be painting large murals, or ‘live paintings', which she creates by applying acrylic paint directly to the canvas with her fingers. She shares with the public her very own world of bright colours and recurring symbols such as flowers, animals, boats and houses. A recurrent theme in her work is that of little girls with large eyes and long arms that she often portrays in close-up. Everyone can join in with Ayako as she paints at the Kunsthal and she was there as we visited. That was really a great opportunity to talk to the artist about her work that you have just seen. And she was so nice and sweet.
So thank you Nelleke for the wonderfull tip!

silly sorrow part 3

Tomorrow I'm going to Rotterdam for 1 week. I studied at the Willen de Kooning Academy and I lived there for 5 years. I left Rotterdam in 2003 and only visited friends for a day or so. Now I'm going back for a bit more days and I wonder how that will be. I picked some more of my cabinets to show you. This painting girl  and the mouse go well with Rotterdam, haha. The text is in mirror writing and it says in dutch "fuck geluk", which means "fuck happiness". In dutch it rhymes very nice. This cabinet is called "putting in change".
The next one is called "rainy days with views" and I'm standing in front of my window and hoping for nice weather for my trip!