Studio PuRRR opened up for the first time for Kadefestival 2017 - including small showcase of Witty Art!

So, last Sunday, we opened up our Studio PuRRR for the public, who came to the Kadefestival Delfshaven (a local festival in the Rotterdam area Tussendijken), right at our very doorstep at the Spangesekade and organised by our partner Schiezicht. My creative partner Deborah van de Beld and I'd decided to put together a small showcase of our creative skills, resulting in some Witty Art on the walls and a bit of Deborah's handmade costumework on display.

As this is my Witty Art Blog, I will focus on my own presentation here, but you if want to follow both our individual and combined creative and culinary projects, please follow Studio PuRRR on both Facebook, Instagram and ofcourse, our brandnew Blog.

For this occasion, I opted for a small presentation of a series still pretty much in progress: ''TEST L.A.B. (Lost Accidental Babies)'', a series featuring one of the most popular characters in Witty Art: UnBunny. This time, UnBunny finds himself captive in what appears to be a test lab facility where UnBunnies like himself are subjected to a series of sinister experiments, resulting in them losing shape and form and ultimately their mind.

A gruesome fate, you wouldn't want to wish upon anyone, however, as we catch glimpes of life outside, the question comes to mind whether life in the madhouse is to be prefered above the real world gone even madder. Also, if you have lost your mind, who says you cannot be happy regardless? Does one really need a sane mind to be really truly and fully happy in this world?

To be fair, questions like these pop up in my mind quite often...

I showed this series, which I originally started in 2012 and is very much up and running in 2017, before at a Pop Up Expo in the beginning of 2015, but for this occasion I thought it'd be nice to show some of the drawings still in progress. As to give the viewers a bit of an impression how Witty Art is created, in this case from the initial first pencil sketches to adding the lines in ink and adding the layers of watercolouring.

Consider it a bit of ''The Making of Witty Art'', so to speak.

Directly facing those poor little TEST UnBunnies, on the opposite wall, you can see a small selection of four so-called Singles, all of them created back in 2013-2014. These have been on display on several locations before, amongst others at Route du Nord (edition 2014) and at private artgallery Lijnbaan140 (2016) and I felt that their minimalistic mood would contradict with the colourful explosive force of the TEST L.A.B.-series in an interesting way.

After all, both type(s) of work reflect the World of Witty Art, albeit in different manners, but they definitely are firmly rooted in common ground.

During the day, quite a number of interested people came into our studio and had a look at our presentation, which led to often very entertaining and interesting conversations about our work and our studio.

So this was a very good 'test run' as far as opening up our studio is concerned, a thing we definitely are willing and planning to do more often, by organising exhibitions and other creative and culinairy events, such as our pop up restaurant Tante Timmie Kookt (Tante Timmie's Kitchen) and more!

As said above, if you don't want to miss out on upcoming Studio PuRRR events, please follow us on Facebook and/or Instagram.

Very happy with my brandnew Witty Art Promo Flyers!

Today, I am very happy to have my brandnew Witty Art promotional flyers delivered, thanks to my prefered printing company Drukland.NL for their quality service, as usual.

So, earlier I ordered a set of brandnew Witty Businesscards, for which I used the image of one of Witty Art's favourite characters: UnBunny, always balancing the tight rope when bridging the gap between the corporate, commercial world of the entrepreneur and the more social and creative aspects of life as an artist.

And when deliberating on which image to choose for my Witty Art promotional flyers, I didn't have to doubt for too long: ofcourse, it had to be UnBunny again and this time, too, I opted for one of my series 'Innovation In Corporation'. Because after all, UnBunny IS one of the most loved Witty Art Characters and, not totally unimportant, series featuring him are amongst my best selling as well. All in all, a good choice for a promo flyer, I suppose.

Anyway, am looking forward to utilize these flyers to the absolute max and spreading them all over town and beyond or handing them out during art events such as exhibitions and so on. So, if you live in or around Rotterdam, The Netherland, you are bound to see some of these in a place near you, very, very SOON!

Also, look out for more new Witty Art promotional items in the near future - and yes, some of these will be available on line as well!

Going ''Up And Down The Rabbit Hole'' is a system labyrinth in itself

 

Some of you may have read this earlier blog, in which I posted some previews of my new series ''Up And Down The Rabbit Hole'', which, although its title might have you believe otherwise, is certainly NOT about or related to the whole ''Alice in Wonderland'' story. I also promised to write a blog about which children's books and stories did make a lasting impact on me, enough to inspire me both as a child and as an adult, and enough to influence Witty Art in some way or another. 

Well, that's a blogpost I am currently still working on - as I want and need to take my time for that one. So you will all still have to wait for that one just a little bit longer.

BUT I can show you some works from this series ''Up And Down The Rabbit Hole''. This time, I chose to work exclusively with graphite pencil, just adding a bit of charcoal when I felt it was necessary to create some contrast or a bit of depth to the drawing. Yet, at the same time I wanted to produce some clearly defined, cartoon style lines, creating a pretty much graphic result in the end. 

As the phrase ''to go down the rabbit hole'' (yes, courtesy of Lewis Carroll, ofcourse, so much for claiming not to be inspired by Alice, huh?) basically means ''to enter a period of chaos and confusion'', and is basically ''a metaphor for an entry into the unknown, the disorienting or the mentally deranging'' or even a ''slang expression for a psychedelic experience, from the same usage''. There might also feelings of ''adventure and discovery and maybe even some excitement', while stepping into unknown.

The whole point with rabbit holes, is you often don't see them. You don't always have a well-dressed, well-mannered rabbit-in-a-rush leading the way. Or there might be a rabbit, but you just don't recognize it and you're not even aware that you, in fact, have already entered its burrow and you are well on your way into the unknown.

And for some, that means adventure and excitement, full of opportunities and possibilities. For some, it means a period of worry and uncertainty, of anxiety and depression even.

Because entering the rabbit hole comes with change, sometimes severe change or a series of lifechanging events. And, unlike Alice who in the end just wakes up from her dreams (or hallucinations), you cannot go back. A real life rabbit hole basically has its own event horizon, its own point of no return, once you have entered, you will have to experience the whole journey, every single step of the way.

And while you are walking ahead, climbing, stumbling, falling down and getting up, you will discover that there is not one, but an seemingly endless series of rabbit holes to go to, all intertwined, all connected - a whole damn' system labyrinth of it.

It will take a lot of steps going forward and backward to keep on going - untill you will find your way out.

'One Step Forward (How Many Steps Back)': ALL 16 of them!

After having shared a couple of previews with you all, I am now proud to show the whole series ''One Step Forward (How Many Steps Back)'' on this blog. This is a series I am very happy with, as the main character (and yes, this is yet another rabbit or in Witty Art vocabulary: just another UnBunny) came out on paper exactly like I portrayed him in my head: kind of lean, but not mean and determined to just get those steps right - whether they are in fact the wrong ones or whether they take him boldly forward or backward - or nowhere at all.

So, without further ado and with no further comment, here they are, all 17 of them (for now). Let me know what you think, I'm curious!