Although there were years that I never lifted a pencil, in general painting has been a great passion next to my love of horses. Both came about in my early childhood. The choice to combine the two is rather obvious. My greatest passion, however was and is writing.
My earliest goal was to create an image that was as realistic as possible, preferrably with as much action as I could picture. Old sketchbooks are filled with jumping, rearing and galloping horses, leopards chasing prey, etc. In the early nineties, my biggest passion became the Akhal-Teke horse, which I discovered through a Russian circus.
My life, including art and horses, was put on hold come 1996. I slowly started to paint again by the end of 2000. Horses would have to wait, although I did search the web for info on the Akhal-Teke.
I still wanted to paint as realistic as I possibly could, however in a time frame that was a short as possible. At times I would paint with more dedication, which resulted in work that was sometimes of good quality and sometimes far from it.
From 03/04 and onwards I began to explore the boundaries of colour and contrast. Considering charcoal, this resulted in an important piece at the end of 2004 on which all later charcoal work has been based. "Marron" was also a very emotional piece as it pictured the recently put down mare of a friend.
Because I no longer had the space to work in oils, I switched to pastels.
Realism remained my main focal point. This changed when I discovered digital painting. The digital medium offered a chance to explore and experiment further. I allowed myself greater liberties simply because I could easily undo changes and make multiple versions of one piece looking for the best result.
Halfway 2006.
Old fashioned realism was now banned to the digital media. My growing freedom in my personal work moved back to traditional media such as pastels.
In May 2006 I finally got my life back, after having been put on hold since 1996. My mother died and now was the time to really look at what I was trying to find in my paintings. I started to focus on self portraits. My first was a piece done in markers in which I tried to picture myself in black lines and contours. The development of my self portraits can be seen on Ranshi Ga Suki (part of JoSav.com).
I translated this method to my equine work. The image pictured was the first in that series. This was the start of what is now the core of my current horse related art. Most important are the Akhal-Teke Series and Equus Orientalis, about the oriental horse. Key work in both series is the Traditional Turkoman, pictured below.
My charcoal and digital art is now no longer as important, but still part of my regular artwork. This development only really started in 2007, after I'd officially closed the 1996-2006 mayhem.
Realism is now no longer the most important factor, rather, emotion and colour are key to my work.
Although I have not abandoned realism, I'm not a realism artist. I prefer freedom of expression over meticulously copying a photograph. Plus, I do not like the harsh competition between realism artists and therefore chose to paint what I feel, not strictly what I see.
My earliest goal was to create an image that was as realistic as possible, preferrably with as much action as I could picture. Old sketchbooks are filled with jumping, rearing and galloping horses, leopards chasing prey, etc. In the early nineties, my biggest passion became the Akhal-Teke horse, which I discovered through a Russian circus.
My life, including art and horses, was put on hold come 1996. I slowly started to paint again by the end of 2000. Horses would have to wait, although I did search the web for info on the Akhal-Teke.
I still wanted to paint as realistic as I possibly could, however in a time frame that was a short as possible. At times I would paint with more dedication, which resulted in work that was sometimes of good quality and sometimes far from it.
From 03/04 and onwards I began to explore the boundaries of colour and contrast. Considering charcoal, this resulted in an important piece at the end of 2004 on which all later charcoal work has been based. "Marron" was also a very emotional piece as it pictured the recently put down mare of a friend.
Because I no longer had the space to work in oils, I switched to pastels.
Realism remained my main focal point. This changed when I discovered digital painting. The digital medium offered a chance to explore and experiment further. I allowed myself greater liberties simply because I could easily undo changes and make multiple versions of one piece looking for the best result.
Halfway 2006.
Old fashioned realism was now banned to the digital media. My growing freedom in my personal work moved back to traditional media such as pastels.
In May 2006 I finally got my life back, after having been put on hold since 1996. My mother died and now was the time to really look at what I was trying to find in my paintings. I started to focus on self portraits. My first was a piece done in markers in which I tried to picture myself in black lines and contours. The development of my self portraits can be seen on Ranshi Ga Suki (part of JoSav.com).
I translated this method to my equine work. The image pictured was the first in that series. This was the start of what is now the core of my current horse related art. Most important are the Akhal-Teke Series and Equus Orientalis, about the oriental horse. Key work in both series is the Traditional Turkoman, pictured below.
My charcoal and digital art is now no longer as important, but still part of my regular artwork. This development only really started in 2007, after I'd officially closed the 1996-2006 mayhem.
Realism is now no longer the most important factor, rather, emotion and colour are key to my work.
Although I have not abandoned realism, I'm not a realism artist. I prefer freedom of expression over meticulously copying a photograph. Plus, I do not like the harsh competition between realism artists and therefore chose to paint what I feel, not strictly what I see.
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