Project jelly fish

One of my latest projects.


What to do with a multitude of plastic bottles I seem to be gathering ? Dump them in the recyling bin? why not create something artistic out of rubbish?
So here's project Jelly Fish.

The idea came to me some years ago when I was creating some magic mushrooms for the "Enchanted forest" Party. We used the plastic bottles as stakes and heated them up to deform the otherwise easily recognizable bottle. Liked the effect. At that time I was also toying with the idea of large art pieces made from ,well rubbish.

A few weeks ago I was playing with a PET bottle I had around and after a bit of cutting and heating I cam e up with what looked like a jelly fish.
Well i happen to like jelly fish , that scourge of summer. You only start appropriate them if you take the plunge and carefully watch them in their own environment.But I digress
Anyway the shape came easy enough and with a few tweaks to the technique I soon had quite a few of these critters

What's next.
I have a few ideas. firstly I want to include some light. as you can see from the pics the light really creates a beautiful effect passing through the translucent plastic. The idea is to create as 'chandelier' with LED lights going in the jellies .
Any more ideas?

New website

After a long absense from the Blog and my website , I decided to update my site. Welcome to the new , revamped website. Just follow the link here .

Bit of a mood ..

I was in a bit of a mood when I did this. Dark and gloomy.
I had this idea of portraying some of the realities of our world. The piece is divided into 3 parts.
The bottom part shows an african face , eyes closed . Above it a scene of a polluted world barbed wire, factories belching smoke which form the 3rd pard .: children dying in a poor world.
In a way the factories , which produce so much of the wealth and products we so crave work on the backs of our poorer cousins . Its a reality we have to face and account for.

Painting with coffee

While I was painting i decided to take photos of the steps I've taken to create the painting . It gives me a chance to document the process.


First i prepare the board by sanding it lightly. This makes my life easier . I use a mixture of coffee and tea to stain the canvas. While wet I also sprinkle crushed coffee granules. This gives it a more aged and textured feel

Next I lightly pencil in the drawing . It's more of a guideline as most of the lines would be covered with layers of colors .You have to be careful not to make any line too dark. Otherwise it will be a bitch to remove later.


Using mostly Browns I begin to darken the shadows, slowly bringing the face out of the background
Building later upon layer the face starts taking shape.

Blacks really add a nice contrast to the browns.Black ink does the job pretty well. The highlights are mainly white chalk pastels .

More Work.

I had some time to upload some of my latest work and some old stuff( which i have just taken some good photos of.)

Buy Nothing

And here we are again.. It Christmas or at least will be soon. Soon Christmas decorations will come up , bathing our streets will the light of a million colored bulbs. Shop windows will be covered in snow spray, plastered with messages that while wishing you a great holiday also tell you to buy. And Buy . And Buy.
It's seems part of the modern day Christmas tradition. From mid November we start seeing subtle messages in the media of what we should buy. Toy commercials become more common( as if children only exist round Christmas). Than there is the rush to buy the dreaded Christmas presents , which lest face it sometimes end up in a drawer or on a shell , never to be used or seen again. You see people's faces as they think " I've got now idea what to get X this year" followed by the realization that a few days before Christmas and you haven't bought all the stuff.
There is the mad rush and rush in the shopping centers. Crowds pushing and bumping into each other in the streets. Sometimes a push leads to an exchange of angry looks and occasionally followed by a few words in anger. Traffic builds up as cars spend hours looking for parking , spending to much time staring in the tail lights of the care in front thinking what the hell am i doing here. Tempers flair.
Than there is the inevitable realization that you have spent a shit load of money..
Is this the modern Christmas spirit?
In the winter of 1914 Germans and allied troops stopped fighting for one day , Christmas eve. They sang Christmas carols and greeted one another much to the dismay of their superiors. Remember this is Belgium in the first world war , one of the bloodiest conflict in modern history.
That is the Christmas spirit. Good will to you fellow human being , charity and bringing a bit of happiness i someone's life. But this seems to have taken a back seat in today's modern world.
Now its buy, spend and give useless gifts to each other and regretting every cent you spend.

The Other Way.
So what can we do about it? Simple. Buy Nothing. Lets face it we could be much better off for it. In countless ways.
Firstly the most obvious of all. The money you save. In these times of economic hard times we all need to save cash. At the end of the day we all have more important things to use the money on.
Than there is all the useless crap we will avoid throwing away sooner or later ( and in most cases quite sooner). The plastic packing, paper wrappers fuel spent going to and fro shopping center endlessly looking for parking....well the list is endless.

And there is less stress.

But there is something you can give to the people to care for. You can give time. Something money can't buy. Spend more time together , have a coffee and a long chat and a good laugh.Sometimes the greatest gift you can give someone is yourself.
Give them a smile.Be more kind to the people around you. At home , at work and even in the streets while driving. Maybe ,just maybe we can achieve the spirit of 1914:)
If you really want to give something why not make an effort and make something yourself.
And even thou its early but i really from my heart wish you all a happy Christmas and all the best .
Ian

Playing with my nuts.

(tree of life)

Ok . It's been a while. But ,hey, there was summer and the sun and than other stuff. Couldnt really site down and right stuff and update the blog .
But... I wasn't idle and here is what I've been up too.

Working with Coconut shells.
These are some jewelry made from coconut shell in combination with other materials. The colored sections are crushed stones (turquoise, Jasper...depending on the colour I need.) I'm also trying to use metals( see the tree of Life). The idea came from seeing the work of a good friend of mine, Peppi. ( also check the BahrijaOasis project. Later on this)

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Latest Painting

These are the latest paintings I have made.

This is my interpretation of "mother and Child". I know its not the happiest of images but it's a reality we want to forget but have to face.

A portrait of a very special person to me:)