Why did I start painting?

I was brought up with fine art and from the late 1980's I visited more and more galleries and museums. Looking at paintings became a natural need and I enjoyed looking at paintings from a technical point of view ("how did he create the softness of the velvet or the transparency of the glass" or "why is this composition so strong?" I asked myself...) and from what the painting provoked in me ("Why does it give me emotions of joy, respect or why did it take away my breath?").

Somewhere around 1993 I realized that I wanted to decorate my home with genuine paintings. Soon I found out that genuine paintings can be costly, depending on which artist painted them and how attractive the subject is to the market.
Art can be affordable though...


As a young kid I had received a paint box from my parents and painted from the age of 12. I never went to paint classes and just enjoyed painting the subject that I had chosen.

In the period 1973-1992 I did not touch a brush.

In 1994 I set myself a challenge: I am a great admirer of Dutch still lives painted in the 16-17th century. Balthasar van der Ast (Middelburg, 1593 or 1594 - Delft, 1657) is one of my favorite artists.

He had the power to paint flower arrangements in a very realistic manner, but somehow his works look more beautiful than the real flowers he painted. His paintings show precision and admiration for the delicacy and the evanescence of the flowers he painted, which were so seasonal in those days. The settings are focused on the flowers and often show neutral backgrounds in warm or neutral colors.

My challenge was to paint a still life in the style of B. van der Ast...

I decided to paint a tulip in a glass and went for a sober painting, moving the eye from the dragonfly in the left bottom corner over to the glass with lillies of the valley, to the tulip in the right upper corner. It took me 6 weeks to finalise "tulip in a glass". Up to 10 fine layers of different shades of paint, called glazures, make a color with a certain tone and all these layers need to dry, so the process is time consuming but so rewarding...

Tulips were the symbol of wealth, rareness, evanescence and came from other regions in the world. Rich Dutch people would pay fortunes to get rare species to demonstrate their wealth and influence in the times of "Tulpomania".


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