We had a tiny little birthday BBQ for my 25th over at my mom’s, and it was fun, except for the wee bit of rain - first time in 25 years that it rained here on August 2nd - but at least it allowed us to barbecue and the rain didn’t ruin anything except our sitting in the garden afterwards.

Despite the rain, I had fun, spent my day with the people closest to my brain - my dad, my mom, her husband, my half-brother and my grandmother - I often find myself wishing for more people to spend it with but afterwards I’m always relieved that I didn’t have to spend time chit-chatting with people who on any other day wouldn’t give me the time of day, and - truth be told - vice versa.

For as long as I can remember it has always been rain-free and hot on my birthdays, hence I’m, like.. barely dressed.

There are some more pictures on my Flickr here.

It’s my birthday! My 25th!

Although it isn’t ‘officially’ my birthday until 10:15 am GMT+1, it is August 2 here, so who cares! Get me a lady stripper! Complete with a cake!

Okay, time to show you what I’m currently, and I use this term loosely — working on. You can click it to enlarge (don’t worry, she not naked, her breasts have smilies on them.)

I’ve never been very good with using colored pencils for my drawings, I normally simply stick with my 4H, HB and 4B pencils and such so I don’t need to panic about what color to use ‘here or here, wait what about there?’ That’s also why my paintings always take so long.

But if you’re not going to challenge yourself from time to time it just gets dull. So I decided I’d throw a bit of color into this drawing, not too much (baby steps,) I haven’t even decided yet what colors to use for the rest of the drawing and it’s been sitting around for a month or two.

So every two weeks I add some shade or finish an arm and then put it away to daydream about all the drawings and paintings I will have finished by the time I’m 60 (about 5, I’d wager.)

For my pigeon loving readers on wordpress, here is Charlie - the 3rd pigeon to have been born on our balcony since April ‘07 - with a nice set of feathers, taken last monday where he (or she) is probably around 3 weeks and 3 or so days old, catching some.. color in the sun - click the pics for enlargement:

Startled by my presence, Charlie hid behind the flower pot for a bit, and came back out again for another pose (he did that 2 or 3 times, so either Charlie’s a very curious pigeon, or was so scared he didn’t know what to do - after all, he’s only seen me 2 or three times):

I don’t think Charlie’s parents are the same as Frankie’s, I haven’t recognized either of them, so I think it’s a different couple altogether.

There are more pictures I’ve taken around the neighborhood this past week in my Harderwijk - July 11-16, 2008 set on my Flickr account, they’re not spectacular, but it was my first week leaving the apartment again since mid-April so everything is new to me, haha.

Look what dad and I found on our balcony last wednesday! That’s right, a wee little baby pigeon! Last thing I expected to find there in the end of June, but there it was, a little baby pigeon! His, or her, name is Charlie (my friend Ticara came up with the name.) Full name is Charlie Bourbon Borgesius, and he/she looks exactly like Frankie did! Haha.
Comparing several photos of Frankie with this one, I think Charlie is about 9 to 11 days old. You can click the picture for enlargement.

How about that? I wasn’t even aware of the fact there was a new egg, I haven’t checked the balcony a lot lately, apart from the fact that the last several months a few new pigeons found our balcony suitable to hang out, so I have no idea which of these pigeons are Charlie’s parents.

It’s done, finally! It’s a bit sloppy in some places but the whole idea was to be somewhat more playful and less of a perfectionist so there you are, plus it’s in keeping with the theme so I wasn’t all that bothered with it, but now I am a little bit. Anyway, the final product (until one day I decide to perfect the rough edges when nobody’s looking,) just click for an enlargement:

Acrylics, linen on panel 30×24 cm.

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My “A Pink Bicycle’s Nightmare” painting is not yet completed, but last Saturday I stood here in my bedroom holding a beer in one hand and in the other, well, nothing, staring at my dull, empty, orange walls.
So I took a sip of my beer and a thought hit me right in the head “This wall would look great with Clint Eastwood on it, giving a thumbs up.” Luckily, I already had a little sketch of that somewhere - well not just somewhere, I knew exactly where I put it - so without any further hesitation, I went at it.

And one thing lead to another, and all of a sudden I found myself working on getting Angelina Jolie on my wall as well, though it wasn’t as sudden as I make it out to be; I couldn’t get Clint’s face to stop looking like Sly Stallone and I wanted to move on to something else for a while.

The blood smudges on the Clint side will probably get painted over with something else, after 7 beers I thought it was a nice touch, a stroke of genius, but it’s not so much.

And then Jolie was giving me a hard time so last night I started on incorporating a lion in there. But why stop there? I will probably add more stuff as I go along.
It’s the first mural I’m doing and it’s also a first that I’m working on something on this scale. The pieces of paper hanging on either side are regular A4 format so that gives you an idea of how big the painting is so far.
Everything still needs tons of work and correcting, but I’m excited about it so I thought I’d share what I’ve been doing 8 hours a day for the past week.

Been working on this for the last 2 weeks and as the title implies it’s still a work in progress.
I’m having fun sticking stuff onto the painting, something I haven’t done before, but after completing my latest painting I realised it’s really fun to be playful with your art.
So, I took some of my rolling paper, crumpled or balled up and stuck it on (girl’s earrings + skirt, beheaded bear’s bloody stump, evil red bear’s foaming mouth - I’ll try to take some decent close-up pics of it once it’s finished.)

Anyway, on to the progression’s picture, just click it to enlarge.

The picture isn’t of great quality because I used the flash, but the final product will get a decent treatment in that respect.

Finally some Frankie news! The last 2 weeks it has been impossible to take a decent look at Frankie let alone a picture what with all his (or her) hiding, but since this weekend I’ve seen Frankie outside his hiding place near the nest, walking around on the balcony and I’ve seen him fly, though I have no photographic evidence of that. ALAS!
But I did snap some photos of Frankie today, sunbathing on the balcony ledge with his/her dad in the afternoon (click to enlarge):

And a little later this evening when I dropped in to say hello, Frankie was wandering near the balcony door but when he/she saw me he quickly flew onto the safe balcony ledge again (click to enlarge):

On a little separate note, if you see my name changing a couple of times; I’m trying to decide on a new one that fits. I had for the most part made my decision but someone made me doubt it, haha.

At last, I’ve finished that painting I’ve been working on since March.
It just sat there on top of my currently non-functioning speakers for the last few weeks waiting for me to finish the dreadful details and yesterday I finally got it done.

The story sort of goes like “FIRE! I go out the window, you take the teddy bear and the fire escape!”

I don’t know what happens to the spiders, I don’t even know what they’re doing in the painting, just a scare-factor I guess, and they probably burn at the end of the story.

Acrylics on aquarel paper, 30×40 centimeters. Simply click it for an enlargement.

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