portraits of a couple

I had made these two portraits around the same time I made one for uncle Sjoerd, but I didn't have the scans anymore (Mike's hard disk died*).

luckily the portrayed sent me these pictures for me to post! I like how they put used the background, creating a nice composition and the portraits seem to have a stronger connection by using the same background.

(*stay tuned to find out who Mike is!)

Lae178 in Ymere Werkt

As you know, I won a scholarship a few months ago.

The scholarship was funded by my urban district, Amsterdam West, and the housing corporation Ymere. Ymere has a magazine for their ..relations? (Excuse me, I do not know the proper English term here..) In this magazine, Ymere Werkt (Ymere Working), is a column consisting of an image and an accompanying description. The subject for the latest issue was this particular competition, so I was asked to contribute.

So here it is!

For those who speak Dutch, or those who took the insane effort to transcribe all this text and google translate it:

the information given is, unfortunately, faulty. Even though I like always being thought to be 17 years old (hey, my nickname is even Seventeen, so I identify with being 17) , I am not 17 anymore.
Also, I did not make a photographic collection (bestaat 'vierluik' in het Engels?) about people living in North Korea. I did make figurative paintings about the daily life in South Korea.

But anyways, it's the first time for me that an illustration by me was published in a magazine, so yay! (well, okay, W.I.T.C.H. once put a drawing I made in their mailbox section when I was like 11, but let's not mention that.) What d'you think? :)
I tried to keep in line with how that column is usually done. While my drawing is very very different from the photographic, photoshopped compilations Buro Met usually makes, I tried to keep the collage structure and use at least one building. (the building you see is actually quite typical and recognisable for the Westerpark, the park where the events took place and that's 5 minutes from my house!)

Fun facts:

• I first wanted to also post my sketches, but.. there's only a few and those are in blue pencil, so you wouldn't even see much.
• I actually own that exact outfit and yes, I do look cute like that.
• The people I drew in blue are the other kids who won something and I drew Anna (the photography girl) and Said (the drumming boy) in the clothes they wore at the awards.

Well, if you read the whole text, I applaud you and ask you to leave me a comment; you've already spent so much time on this post so you might as well spent another minute. ;)

uncle Sjoerd

Here's a portrait I did of my 'uncle' Sjoerd. It was a request by a family member for his birthday.

During that same period, I also made some portraits of another family friend and her partner. Unfortunately I don't have scans of those (only some in progress pics, no finished product) but I'll post them if I do get those.

from the USA to South Korea

It has already been quite a while since a friend of mine asked me to draw a portrait of his parents.

He has been studying in the USA for 10 years and has not been able to go back to see his parents in Korea. They have visited him and his brother, but as you can imagine, they still don't see each other in person that often...

So to show his appreciation towards them, he asked me to draw their portrait.

So I did, with his help, this is the result.

(sorry for the low quality picture, since my computer broke down, I lost the scans I had and used this photo from my mobile phone)

commissioned portraits

another batch of finished portraits. ^^

Today I handed them to the customers, it was so good to see they genuinely liked them! :D

all of these portraits were commissioned by the parents of these boys.

the first 20x20cm commission: sweet sixteen

These two portraits were my first commission in this size, I got requested to make a portrait of this girl for her 16th birthday by her mum.

I made two portraits because I wasn't satisfied with the first one, the second one turned out much better luckily. :D

(they were both sold however because the mum thought they still look nice together ;D as a pair)

this is the second and final version (click on 'more' to see the first one)

portraits of two sisters

these are two sisters, I was asked to make these portraits for their mother's birthday.

In about a week or so, I might be able to show the first portrait I did in this size (20x20cm).. stay tuned! ;)

Commissions

interested in my work? great!

I make portraits, using the same technique as I use for my ongoing series One Shot (click here for a small example selection), which I also applied in my Christmas series.

up until this moment, I've been making them in two formats:

• 10x10cm for 20euros
• 20x20cm for 40euros

If you'd like it to be a different format, don't worry; there's more canvass-sizes than these two. ;p

And feel free to mail me about any other requests concerning my work. ^^

click hereto see a few of my previous commissions

Christmas portraits

This is a selection of portraits I made for my family's Christmas dinner. These portraits are a bit different from the ones I usually make, and not only because they've got Christmas-themed background colors, neen. In these portraits I also drew lines with pen after finishing the colors and such, this can make them look more like drawings instead of paintings, and more detailed. I think.

Japanese Castle in the Sky

this is a castle in the sky I designed for Yvonne Schoutsen, the request was a castle in the clouds that looked like a Japanese temple. So I tried to combine the structure of Western castles with the style of Japanese castles.

Yvonne is going to visit temples in Japan and has made a small book about it, more about that on her website: http://www.yvonneohenro.tk/

and these were the clouds, duh