Frog prince painting

Acrylic on canvas, 80x80cm



I made this painting as a present for my mother's birthday.

Doodling on the floor: a work in progress

As I mentioned before I meet regularly with some friends from the Big Bug Collection to make awesome art together. Lately we have been inviting a lot of other creative people to join in the fun. After a relaxed meal in the garden, we decided to doodle some more on the inside of my friend’s house (same house where I made my rainbow zebra unicorn painting on the wall).

I like the picture of three of us sitting on the floor. Not so much because it is that aesthetically pleasing (never mind the mess and bad light conditions), but moreover because it illustrates so well the spirit of our evenings together. One guy is making a drawing on the lid of the trashcan, while another one is sketching up some ideas for an illustration on the door, while I just got started on a floor painting.

Somehow it is always extra fun to draw on things you are normally not allowed to draw on. Like walls and floors and doors and objects around the house. The great thing of being a grown up is being able to throw out useless rules that keep you inside a box (although sorry mom for drawing on the couch as a toddler, I like to think it was my artistic expression rather than my anger :p)

What I show here is the result of one evening; I am nowhere near finished. But I think it’s a nice start :)

1000 paper cranes

I folded 1000 origami paper cranes. About a year ago, I decided that a year from then I wanted to have a 1000 paper cranes. And I simply stuck to that plan.

People tend to overestimate what they can do in a short amount of time and underestimate what they could achieve on the long term.

Often big dreams seem far away. Yet we want to have it all here and now, and if that doesn’t work we figure it won’t work at all. We end up doing nothing because the chunk of work is simply overwhelming. What we need to do is to start and work through this big overwhelming dream by dividing it into tiny chunks by asking ourselves the question: What can I do today? If we do this each day, the results after a longer period of time will be amazing. This method seems to work for everything in life: asking yourself how you can be the most loving person today, how to make the best of your day and simply doing something small and creative today.

It isn’t bad to have ideals, as long as we keep them as a source for direction rather than an ultimate goal that gets us demotivated, thinking we won’t ever achieve it because it is unreachable.

I am here to tell you that however crazy your dream is, you can do it. All you need is time, patience and work hard and consistently.

Think about what is a realistic mini-task you can accomplish today, without worrying about tomorrow, the day after and next month. Then when tomorrow comes, simply ask yourself the same question. Because the only thing we have is right now.

I folded these cranes with the aim to give them all away to random strangers. I figured that if I would be happy to receive a paper crane out of the blue, at least some people out there must feel the same way as I would. I will keep you posted on part B of Operation Paper Crane: giving them away.
 

Past project: cassette tape pop-art

I came across this collage of cassette tapes I painted a few years back. I remember feeling that night like creating something, but wasn’t quite sure what or how. I used simple square paper notes and experimented with making something in pop-art style. I think I used aquarelle paint and glued all the separate pieces together.

 Sometimes the act of creation is more important than the tools or the concept behind it. Of course it is nice if those are good, but we shouldn’t feel limited by them. Not to the point that we don’t create as a result from that limitation.

On desirable undesirable results

I once was in a hotel and saw a beautifully carved watermelon, in which the different shades of green white and red were used to make beautiful figures. I instantly wanted to try to do that myself too. I didn’t, and forgot about it for some years. But a while back I saw similar pictures of melon carvings on the Internet. I had a Galia melon left, so decided to give it a try.

 Ha! Was I in for a surprise. Nobody told me you actually need skills to do such a thing.

 My result looked nothing like I had imagined. I kind of arrogantly assumed that I would make the most awesome melon art imaginable by just touching the knife. In reality the melon was overripe, my tools not sharp and most importantly it was my first try. It was like expecting to paint a Rembrandt while the actual result was comparable to a 5 year old’s first time finger painting. Oh joy.

 So here is the lesson. If you are going to try new things and challenge yourself creatively you are going to fail. Not once. Not twice. Endless number of times. And that’s not a bad thing. Of course, the moment itself it can suck big time -or small time- but in essence it is just another necessary result of your growth. I make crap that I am not happy about all the time. I just don't show every single one of my failed experiments on my blog.

 Don’t be too hard on yourself. Don’t have unrealistic expectations (as a perfectionist I am guilty of this more often than I would like to be). Don’t expect to get to the result you want to without struggling.

 We need to realize that most often good results take hard work and a lot of effort. Most often we don’t get to see the journey to such a result, we only see the result. If we then start comparing ourselves to others it might make us feel incompetent. Comparing ourselves to others is a bad idea in the first place, but especially so if we are selective in our comparisons. It makes us narrow minded.

 So please get out there and fail big time. It’s OK. It is necessary. Desired results will only come after facing many undesired results as well. Which, in a way, makes those undesired results kind of desirable doesn’t it?
 

JNK ILL ft. Big Bug Collection skateboard painting

Last weekend we painted with Big Bug Collection at another party. In stead of painting T-shirts, we painted a couple of skateboards this time (the party was located at a skate park). I collaborated on a skateboard with Joris, a.k.a. JNK ILL. He did the line drawing, I did the coloring. He finished the drawing at the end of the party, so I didn’t actually paint the skateboard at the party itself, but I finished it in the days after. It is a kind of dark themed image compared to my personal style, but I liked coloring it a lot and bringing our art together in one piece.
 

The silly things we do

I had a bunch of little helicopters (read: seeds) lying around ever since I decided to be an explorer for a week. The other day I saw them and felt a sudden urge to paint them. So I took out some nail polish and doodled over them.

 My point is not that it was the most amazing art I’ve ever created. My point is also not that they still worked, although turned less frequent and fell faster. My point is that the silly things we do without apparent reason tell us a lot about ourselves.

A running theme throughout my life is that I need to create things. We all have our own version of this. Maybe you make up stories. Maybe you love to move around, use your muscles or dance. Maybe you are always singing. Maybe you are the one who is always organizing crazy and silly events.

Pay attention to the stuff you do just for fun. The stuff you do just because you feel like it. The stuff that you don’t need to do, that might not even serve any function, but that you do anyway because you want to. See if you can discover a pattern. Because that pattern will give you insight in your passions and in what makes you tick.

 What do you do without apparent reason?
 

Peanut love

Sometimes the smallest things can make a difference. Sometimes those small things might be peanuts. Literally.

Last week I showed how to make secret peanut messages. This week I decided to spread some peanut love around my neighborhood.

Although I don’t have the illusion that my action will change lives drastically, I do strongly believe that we have the power to make small positive differences in our direct environment. These gestures of love might evoke the effect we hope for, they might not do anything. Either way, we can choose every day to love without expecting anything in return. Sometimes it concerns family, sometimes friends, sometimes people we don’t even like, sometimes strangers. We have the choice to act in a loving way, always.
Love is bigger than saying something nice to somebody we like. Love can be so powerful there where it isn’t expected. And sometimes all we need is some peanuts, paper and a pen and stroll around the block.

Mooi Helder Festival + Sectie C Party

Last Saturday we were asked to paint at the Industrial Design festival ‘Mooi Helder’ with Big Bug Collection. As usual, people could hand in a shirt (although we ended up doing a lot of shoes as well this time), and we would paint something on it. The festival was in the middle of the city centre, and some industrial design projects were exhibited, together with some cool extra-curricular projects students are working on, including stuff with rolling robots and 3D printers. It was a relaxed and fun day with loads of painting and doodling.

After the festival we went to a party that was located in an area where loads of creative young entrepreneurs normally use the huge sheds there as a working area. It was great. There was live music, cool exhibited work, inspiring surroundings and fun people. I danced all night with the paint of the day still on my fingers. I finally hit my bed in the early morning while the memories of the day slowly faded away and were replaced by the images of my sleepy world of dreams.















And a short video impression of one of the live bands 'Fête Royal':