know a colour

These are the ink bottles of Winsor & Newton and I just really like them. I don't draw a lot with ink but the few bottles I have of them are standing on my desk, most of the time just to look at. It's the drawings on the bottles I love: each colour has a different drawing. Some of them are beautiful and others I think are funny. Winsor & Newton has 26 drawing inkt colours and one day I would like to have all bottles! Not really to use, but then I have all the drawings for inspiration!

And the boxes the bottles are in are just as nice.

for the good times and the bad times

The second painting about a "grow up-kind of-pipi-girl" is done. There's a lot of empty space in this painting, which is new for me, but I think I like it here... This pipi doesn't look very happy, maybe she is done with the whole pipi-stuff, haha! She has become to old for it. And the poor little monkey just wants her attention.

monkey number two!

I started my second painting with the monkey and the red-hair-girl. I hope I can finish this one this week!

Pawel Althamer

Today I went to the Ludwig Forum in Aachen (Germany). It's a museum for modern art and they are now showing work of Pawel Althamer. He is a polish artist who won "The Aachen Art Prize". I really like his sculptures, but the exhibition was a bit disapointing. The museum is preparing for a big exhibition in march so a lot of ereas are closed. But Art Prize is a big thing and they have only three works of Althamer: the film "the golden knight" and the same-titled sculpture and a installation, which you could see in the neighbouring church.

The funny thing is, as I was studying in Basel (Switzerland) Pawel was a guest teacher at the academy in the year 2003. I remember that he didn`t say very much, but he told us that he thinks that walking is very important to watch and observe things, especially in the city. So he made us walk through Basel for three days! At day three the most students didn't even show up. He told us that he had organized a exhibition in "Stadtkino Basel" and we had to make sculptures out of clay, inspired by our walks. So the picture below shows the weird baby-thing I made in his workshop. The baby is holding a plastic bal with a dog inside. I don't know what I was thinking, but making sculptures isn't my calling, haha! I didn't speak a lot with Pawel, but the weird thing is that I remember his workshop and walking through the city.

so changeable

I made another sketch today for a painting, with the same figures: the red-pipi-hair-girl and the monkey. I think I make 3 or 4 paintings with them and then see how it works. Sometimes I like it to work a bit longer with the same characters, but make them different from eachother everytime. They become a sort of friends. And although the paintings have the same figures, they each tell another story.

the doubt will creep and crawl

I'm always very doubtful about my work. If I finish a painting I'm happy and pleased with it, but that feeling disappears after 2 or 3 days and I' starting to criticize it. But on the other hand I think that is a good thing, it keeps me going. If I was only happy with it I could just might as well stop, because it would be perfect. So to start the week: a new sketch to keep me going!

finished!

I finished my painting. I'm actualy surprised how cute the monkey has become. Now I can spend the weekend thinking of a title for it. I don't like it if a work is "untitled". I'm always dissapointed when I read that in a gallery or museum. A title can give a work another dimension or you learn somithing about the artist.
And I'm thinking of making some more paintings with this figure and the monkey, I already started sketching so we will see...
Below a close-up of the monkey.

what is learnt early...

I found this picture of me drawing at the working table of my dad. I think I'm 3 or 4 years old. My father is a graphic designer who used to work a lot at home in his studio. I look very concentrated...
Oh, and my painting is almost done!

preview on my new painting

yesterday I worked on my new painting. Although I do have a easel, I like working on the floor. It's not very good voor my back or knees. I tried to work with the canvas on the easel, but it seems impossible at the moment. It's my favourite way to paint so I have to deal with the uncomfortable position. As I write it down it's sounds like a very conflicting way of working, haha. Anyway, I hope I can finish this painting this week.

don't be afraid of the big bad wolf

Today I made some sketches for a new painting. I hope I can start painting tomorrow. I have never draw or paint a monkey before, we will see what that's going to look like...

in a world of puppets

In the last publication of the magazine FLOW, there was an artikel about Karen Saaman. She is the owner of Popjes Art and she gets inspired by vintage dolls of the sixties, on her website and shop you can find the dolls, but also cards and buttons. The magazine printed a picture of an old vintage cabinet where she had put het dolls and figures in. And I remembered that I have the same kind of cabinet on the attic! This is a great idea to put all my old puppets in my room again. I had them now all in different boxes and somethimes I would look at them. This kind of stuff makes me happy!
On the small picture below  you can see the whole cabinet, as you can see I still have some room left!

shoplift a thought or two

At the moment I'm drawing all kind of figures/situations/animals (real or plastic or stuffed animals), beacause I don't know how to go further with my paintings. Trying to figure it out I'm just drawing from magazines and photo's, but I guess it's time to just start a new one and then see how it goes from there. I haven't paint for the last few weeks and I'm always a bit afraid to start again...

firework Pollock

I wanted to make a different kind of sketch of my rabbit Pollock: make him black and then draw with white inkt and paint the details. Well.... that didn't work out very well! The inkt was to thick for my pen, so I used a brush and then in turned into a white mess. On the other two rabbits I used a ordinary silver pencil, but  that on the other hand you can't see very well. And now with the red and pink background, it seems like you see the rabbits in front of a big firework (my fantasy got influenced by the time of the year...) with bright light. With a little bit of imagination the sketch still works, kind of...

stairway to....bed?

In the house we live there are really small stairs that go to the second floor, where my studio and the bedrooms are. It's not a space where you can do much: to small for paintings and to high to hang something beautiful. So about a year ago we thought we make some kind of artwork in it. We found a nice branch to hang all kind of stuff in it. Old works of me and my dad got a new purpose! My dad even "destroyed" some of his old drawings to make a new work as a background for the branch. We put some lights in it which makes is look a little bit like christmas, perfect for this time of the year! (but it also looks great in the summer!)
In the picture below you can see how the stairs go up, to put all of this in perspective...

nothing personal

A few days ago I watched the movie "nothing personal" by Urszula Antoniak. I think that this movie has some really strong images/stills in it. Especially the one I try to draw in the picture above. But you probably have to know what happens in this scene... (you will have to see it).

The movie is about Anne, she is alone in her empty flat, from her window she observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.
He proposes her to work for him in exchange of food. She agrees but on one condition: there will be no personal contact between them, just work. Soon the two of them become curious about each other and want both: to keep their 'nothing personal' deal and to break it. He knows that breaking the deal and becoming personal may result in her leaving the house. For her, showing any interest in him will equal compromising her radical freedom, which she defines as staying alone and refusing contact with people. 

Below a picture of the original film poster and also the still I tried to draw...

self-made wrapping paper

The christmas-gifts my dad gave me were no surprise: I picked them out myself. So I knew what he was going to give to me. But he still wanted it to be special, so he made his own wrapping paper, based on the content of the gift. I picked out a book of Tracey Emin (I think her art is great!), so the picture above shows the wrapping paper based on the art of Tracey Emin!

He didn't know the content of this book, so he drew me reading and the title is: "a book".

This way it was still special to me, because he had a lot of work making it. It was a big surprise to see all the drawings!

gingerbread-house

This year I made a gingerbread-house! As I finished it I thought by myself: the house needs an environment, it looks so empty and lonely. So  it became a big project! So now it has woods, and rabbits and all kind of figures and of course a bad witch inside the house! It ended up to be a lot of work, but it was fun to do.
I hope you all have a nice christmas and don`t eat to much of everything!

we can settle by the sea

I'm still sketching! Especially with the busy times around christmas (I only have to buy 3 more gifts!), I don't have the time, or the calm, to start a new painting. And I have a problem with new ideas: if I can't  translate my ideas directly (or at least within a week...) into action, I don't want to paint them anymore. If they are that long in my mind, I've painted them a thousend times in my fantasy, I don't have to in real life, it's not interesting anymore. This way a lot of my ideas have never been produced.

dutch winter wonder land

First of all: I love snow! And here in the Netherlands we don`t have a lot of it. Wenn I was young, we used to have winters with a lot of snow, the way a winter should be. For the last 3 or 4 years the winters become colder again and this year it's snowing since the end of november. ( I hear all the people from Scandinavia or Canada laugh...) All there is in the news is the weather and the snow and the ice. The traffic is a disaster, no trains, plains or automobiles! The dutch don't know how to handle snow anymore!
Anyway, I was in our garden today to take pictures of the beautiful landscape we have here in the south. The first photo is the view you have if you sit on the seat in the second picture, which is a part of our garden. And then of course my rabbit Pollock, he doesn't seem to mind the snow!

instantly more pretty

This sculpture used to be just a concrete, weird thing. It had the colour of a sick salmon. A friend of my mum gave it to her and after a couple of years I thought: this thing needs paint! And I saw all these figures in it. So I had two days of fun painting it and now it has a nice place in the house!
It's about 60 cm high and the photo below shows the entire sculpture.