Magical...

On the first of september I started my final year of studying. This means that the next couple of months I will be an intern. Thank the gods not the coffee making kind! The first of my internships (I'm going to do several) is with Ingrid Friesen, a freelance illustrator. Together with my classmate Andrea we go to her about once every two weeks.

One of the assignments we got was to design an illustration that was to be painted on a drainage tube that serves as a plaything for children at a primary school in Oss. In the end it really turned out to be a wonderful combination of our different input and a mix of several techniques and materials.

Before we started it looked like this:

Not very inspirational at this point.

The theme we chose for the tube was magic and fairytales. Since this is not the only object that's going to get a lick of paint we wanted to have a theme to tie everything together. At this time the other objects aren't ready to be painted yet (a sandbox and a playhouse), so that is something for the future.

When we had finished this is what the drainage tube looked like:

Ingrid's side

Andrea's and my side.

My personal part of the project.

A couple of days after Ingrid finished the inside, since we didn't have time to do it on the day we were there. If you want to see the results of that, visit her blog.

We got loads of positive reactions (up to the point where it got annoying, haha) but it's good to know it was so appreciated what we were doing.

And last, an overview of the mess we made:

numb

Again, it's been a while. I've been painting lately and I'm going to share the result with you. It's a triptych of three self portraits. This is probably one of the most personal things I've ever made, and only a few of my closest friends know what it means. It's partly inspired by the roman saying "inter arma enim silent musae". Which means "in times of war the arts are silent'. I was thinking about putting the saying in the triptych itself, devided over the three canvasses, but decided it would only draw away attention from the portraits itself and disturb the solid areas. So it'll just be the title to the piece =).

bad, bad, bad

I've been a bad blogger and I really should update more. I'm not going to bore you with all the reasons why I haven't (except if you really want to know, but I doubt it ;) ).
One of the reasons I will tell you though. It's been carnaval around here a couple of weeks ago. It was wonderfull. I made a quite ellaborate costume that, in my opinion, looked absolutely wonderfull. Someone took a picture of me in which you can partly see it.

 

So now if any of you who are reading this don't know me in person, you can now somewhat see what I look like.

Another thing that has occupied me is shoes. And not in the girly sense of; OH EMM GEE I need like three pairs of that and four of those like right now, but more in the sense of that my normal shoes for milder weather are completely falling apart (I'll spare you a picture of that). They were basically just like Vans prison issue sneakers. After searching just about everywhere in the city and online, I have not been able to replace them (I'm not giving up though, I will find a pair eventually). That led to buying the cheapest pair of sneakers I could quickly find. Since I don't find these interesting one bit, I decided to draw on them, so they would at least have something different and personal. So, I now present you with... transition shoes:

Definitaly better than the holey pieces of shit I was walking on before =)

shut the fuck up and listen!

I've got several sketch books and in one of them I stick pictures from magazines, newspapers, etc. that I find inspiring. I've started this because the pile of newspapers and magazines was getting to big. It just started feeling silly at one point to keep so many of them just because of one or a few pictures. Yesterday I was going through a magazine and saw an ear. It was an exceptionally large ear. So I cut it out, and started drawing around it.

just stuff

It's been a while. I thought life would be a bit more quiet, I guess I was wrong, haha. Last week we (my study colleagues and I) had a workshop hosted by an animation artist. That was nice! In the mean time I have three other projects to work on and even though we just started, deadlines seem te be scary close. Besides all that, I also still have three classes. So PFFFf, it's a lot, but it's wonderfull. All this work keeps the presure on and I feel like I'm learning in a really fast pase at the moment.
Luckily I still find a little bit of time to see some of my friends. The picture I'm posting has to do with that. I know the four people in this picture and have seen them the last few days, but they never knew I drew this... let's hope they won't see, and if they do, that they don't mind ;).

finally some rest

After a few heavy weeks, the stress has finally gone. Most of the deadlines for school have been met and I'm satisfied with the grades I got. Also, my website http://www.sammyfoppen.nl is now online and working!

To make up for posting so little the last two weeks, I'm going to give you a series of 4 pictures today. These were part of one of my exams.

it's been to long

Hi everyone! Sorry it took a while. I'm better now. I haven't posted the last couple of days because this weekend was my birthday, hooray! And I'm in the middle of examweek at the academy. So the whole week is going to remain quiet. I do have something for you today though. My lovely parents gave me a tablet for my birthday, I'm so happy. This picture is the first try to test it out.

It's a mash up of birthday thoughts and part of my costume for carnaval (which is in a month =D).