A hobby like any other….

One of the other bloggers on Thailandblog, after the published 'interview' with your servant on the occasion of 10 years of Thailandblog, asked me to 'show me something of my painting' which I had referred to as 'new hobby' since living in Thailand . 

After some persuasion, I sent him some pictures and since then he has been nagging me on the blog about my 'artistic' production, just to show that besides visiting the traditional beer bar, there is also a massage parlour. or, for example, birding, being the practice of birdwatching, there are other possibilities for relaxation in Thailand….

If I may be very honest, I must admit that painting is not really a new hobby. As a youngster I was often at home messing around with poster paint or I made homemade comic strips. The fact that I occasionally, in the absence of drawing paper, indulged my artistic aspirations on walls and wallpaper was in my eyes only proof of unbridled artistic ambitions... My farsighted parents, in all their wisdom, thought that all that creative drive might be quite possible to be sent. Consequently, for several years I spent Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings at the Institute for Creative Education in my home town. It wasn't really a waste of my time, and I'm deeply indebted to some of the teachers of the day for sharing their knowledge with such a self-confident brat as your servant.

I think back in particular with gratitude to the sculptor Paul Verbeeck, who through trial and error taught me more than just muddling through with a lump of raw clay, and certainly also to Hugo Heyrman, who, as I would only discover much later, was one of the most important hyper -realist painters of his generation was in Belgium and would do pioneering work in the field of new media art. Not only did they teach me the art of observation, but they also stressed the importance of technical expertise. It was due to this basic education that I would later follow art schools in Turnhout, where I was further trained by unforgettable teachers such as 'Creative Factory' Cyriel Van Den Heuvel and Eddy Geerinckx. By the way, the latter ensured that I would spend a few years - and not unnoticed - working on cartoons, but that is a completely different story…

As professional and ever-expanding family life grew in importance, my artistic urge to create decreased proportionately and understandably. I had to set other priorities didn't I…. The drawing boxes and charcoal sticks started to collect more and more dust and the tubes of paint slowly but surely petrified somewhere deep in the depths of some basement or attic room… Only a few years before I left for Thailand, somewhere around 2010, did I suddenly get regained the taste through the impulsive purchase of a massive studio easel. After much deliberation I decided to no longer work with oil paint but with acrylic paint. Acrylic dries much faster than oil paint, so you are automatically obliged to work faster. A challenge that I like… A fact that I later had to take into account in Thailand because the high temperatures, especially when painting 'al fresco', quickly took their toll on the usability of the paint… The number times that a dollop of paint on my palette transformed into a kind of plasticine in no time I can't even count on the fingers of two hands anymore.

When I started using the spacious veranda at our house in Satuek as a studio, I first bought the necessary fans to steer this process in the right direction. The rapid drying of the paint has meanwhile also ensured that my average working time has become significantly shorter. Usually my paintings are finalized in less than one day. Fortunately, during our move I had taken the necessary precautions and put a lot of paint, spatulas and quality brushes in the moving container, in addition to a number of stretched blank canvases. This turned out to be a smart move because here in Isaan there is hardly any decent painting material to be found and even in Bangkok one can easily count the specialty shops for artists on the fingers of one hand. By the way, I didn't limit myself to the canvas in Thailand.

Our home, Baan Rim Menaam or Riverside, is located on the banks of the Mun River and I painted two large frescoes at the entrance where I was inspired by the spectacle of the sun rising and setting over the river…. Although I used to mainly paint women's portraits, the rich landscapes and cultures of Thailand and, by extension, the whole of Southeast Asia, are starting to inspire and challenge me more and more. As I write this my fingers are starting to itch again. I can't wait to stretch a new canvas….