like forever after

It was a great, exhausting weekend in Disney and I had the most wonderful, fantastic, scary and enchantingly meetings and adventures...

feel like mighty mouse

Please don't judge me: tomorrow morning I'm leaving for a trip to Disneyland, Paris. I'm going with some family and friends, we're staying in a small house, so that will be fun! Actually I'm not that into Disney, the most movies I find to "sweet" (but I like to see how they animate the drawings and see them make the drawings). But I realy like amusement parks, especially  roller coasters. So I wish you all a nice weekend and untill next week!

just take place in line

In the meantime I'm still working on my "pipi-girl-monkey-paintings". These are some sketches for the paintings I'm working on at the moment. So I'm working on some different things at the same time, but I like that. It gives me new ideas. Maybe in the future I create a "pipi-rabbit-monkey-girl", haha!

go somewhere breezy

Here is another small painting of a rabbit-girl. I finished it today and I quit like it at the moment to make such smalls works. Just create a small world and think about nothing and let the colour take over. I like the birds in the background. The picture below shows the original computer drawing, I think I made that one in 2009.

dum-ditty-dance (part 2)

Last week I posted a computer drawing of mine. I was thinking about making a painting out of the drawing.
I did and this is the result. It's a small painting, 24 x 18 cm. Of course it's different then a computer drawing, but I quite like this one as well.

amsterdamned

I was in Amsterdam this weekend, unfortunatly is was raining but it was still very nice. There are so much nice shops with interesting and very creative windows. Of course they are often blocked by the typical dutch bikes.

A completely useless fact: "amsterdamned" is a dutch movie (1988) by Dick Maas about a mysterious diver hiding in Amsterdam's canal system embarks on a rampage of gruesome murders, terrifying city officials and leaving few clues for the city's best detective, who doesn't suspect that both his new girlfriend and twelve-year-old daughter may be closer than he is to finding the killer.

Oh, and I met some inspiring old, dutch painters ;-)

dum-ditty-dance

This is another computer drawing of mine. At the moment I`m going through my older work and somethimes I start working on it again, but in a different way. I`m thinking of making a small painting out of it, just to try how it works with paint and airbrush. These computer drawings have a lot of white, which I liked very much when I was making them. This one has actually a lot of white on the left site, so the rabbit-girl is standing in the corner. I cut that of for this post, otherwise you can't see the rabbit very good. In a painting this would change and it becomes probably something else. I like this one, the shoes are much to big for this rabbit-girl so who does she wants to be?

her own little world

I used to make a lot of computer drawings, which I printed and framed for exhibitions. Every drawing was only printed once. So even it is made on the computer and I could printed as many as I wanted, every drawing is unique and an original. This drawing is special though, it's printed on a bigger size (40 cm x 60 cm) and there are 25 copies of it and numbered. It was made for an online sale and later for an exhibition.
Now I found the extra ones that where printed as a test and I decided to frame one for myself and hang it in my room. I still like the drawing, especially the bunnies:

black swan

Did anyone see the movie Black Swan? It's now in cinema's in The Netherlands. I quess you heard about it, it's so present in the media. But if not, it's about a ballet dancer who wins the lead in "Swan Lake" and is perfect for the role of the delicate White Swan - Princess Odette - but slowly loses her mind as she becomes more and more like Odette's evil sister, Odile, the Black Swan.
I wanted to be a ballet dancer wenn I was younger, but at the age of sixteen had a complication at my knee  and surgery followed. Bye bye dream! But after seeing this movie I guess I can be glad it didn't work out, haha. If you like ballet you would probably like this movie. I especially liked the dark scene's of the black swan. These drawings are my version of the swan.

something different

This is going to be a weird post about my toilet, haha! I thought it could use something fun to look at. We have a small mirror hanging on the wall, so I took the mirror and made a bird out of it. I made the bird out of pur foam, it's a great material but not easy to control. I had fun making it and the toilet looks also better I quess ;-)

one more or one less

Just another drawing in my sketchbook. I'm not going to paint this one, although it would be fun to make a really big painting of this one: 200 cm high and 600 cm width and then these range of pipi-girls. I imagine it hanging in a big white room. A girl can have dreams, haha!

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.