It´s October 2014. I´m driving in the car on the way back from the recordings of a television program called Stars on Canvas in which famous Dutch people are portraited by three different artists and the celebrity can choose one of the works. We had an absolutely beautiful model in the famous Dutch actrice Angela Schijf. She did not choose my work, but what I took out of this experience was a turning point in my live.
My wife was 6 months pregnant and she had to go on holidays alone with her parents as I suddenly needed to finish one of the two portraits I prepared for the program. They had called me to do an interview in my studio to see the progress of my work. This was part of storyline for the televison program. But after the recordings I was told I only had two more weeks left to finsih the painting, where they previopusly said I had four to six weeks. And I had started two paintings of which I later wanted to choose one to submit.
Now I had to pull out of my holiday with my wife and make a decission on which of the two painting I was going to finish. The one created in a style I was known for or the one in which I pushed the boudries and explored some new painting style and added a bit of storyline in. A painting style I did wanted to explore more by the way, but had no experience is. I decided on the more unknown route and finished the painting in which I painted Angela Schijf on a filmframe with her husbands and kids playing in the fields behind her and the village she grew up in on the horizon. I believe some cats or dogs where in there as well. The paintingstyle in which I painted her face was quite nice, but the picture as a whole was a bit over the top. It did not work well.
I was the first to fall of when Angela Schijf choose her portrait. I agree with her choice, I had overstretch my artistic work. Later she told me she did not like the village she grew up in that much to be part of a painting. But what I had done was, I painting her live. She was at the time and still is an actrice in series and movies and I had painted her life on a filmrole. One moment in time, one frame of the 24 frames which are in second on which I had captured her and her family. I had gone for the story and a moment in time, a moment of life.
Driving back from the recordings the day Angela Schijf had to choose her portrait I came to a big realization and had a deep dive into my soul.
To be continued....