Drowning thanks to DAP

Ik hoop dat de nieuwe president er ook zal zijn voor de èchte Amerikanen: de oorspronkeljike bewoners van het continent. Deze tekening maakte ik 4 jaar geleden, naar aanleiding van de brute aanval van de Amerikaanse overheid op de mensen in Noord-Dakota, omdat er zo nodig een oliepijplijn (DAP, Dakota access pipeline) door het grondgebied moest. Grrr.

I hope that the new Potus will stand for the real Americans: the native people. This illustration I made four years ago, because of the more than brutal aggression of the American government against the people, to force an oil pipeline (DAP, Dakota access pipeline), which would and will destroy the people's earth and water. So unfair and cruel...

Postslak - Snail Mail Snail

After work, the mail has been delivered.

Sent to Canada.

Portrait of a horse named Olly

'Framed' the way my late grandfather added photos to his photoalbum.

Sent to the owner of Olly (well, people own animals as much as animals own people - so: sent to Olly's human :-) ).

The revenge of the Fish

Anyone who thinks 'sport' fishing is a nice hobby is short-sighted. There is debate about the question whether fish do feel pain or not, but I think no one can deny that having a hook stinged through your lip and getting into an environment in which you're suffering from asphyxia is not such a nice situation.

The postcard you see on bottom right made me make the illustration above.
Sent to Willemien in Germany, who loves fish in a positive way.

More rhinoceros

Rhinoceros I always think nice to draw. Here is an other one!



(Also penguins apparently are a nice theme to draw!)

Ballpoint Snail

Part of an envelope, I decorated with ballpoint lines and this Snail drawing.
I created it in 2016, then lost the envelope somewhere between other papers in my piles/files, found it again today and won't wait any longer to send it :-)

Rhino and chicken

Sent to Ryosuke Cohen.

Do we really see a Gecko?

Drawn in 2015, finally sent September 2017.

Oranjevrouw - from the Dutch woman's soccer team

This member of the Dutch 'Orange' women's soccer team I drew as a reply to Jimmy Connors in Berlin, who has sent me several collages and recently wrote very kind words about our 'Orange' teams.

I guess the player won't recognize herself in my drawing (she's a very good, excellent player!), but at least I had a try. That's what counts, doesn't it?!

Bananawalk and Bananarms

I hope it is not too late for my reply to an invitation Anna Banana has sent to me in Januray 2017 from Canada.



And I guess bananawalking will be too slow, and running won't help either, to have the mail arrive quicker. Enfin, we'll see...



Sent in this envelope to Canada.

To be a Penguin or not to be a Penguin

"Penguin in snow and ice landscape."

I think it always fascinating to see that a drawing suggests a complete object, or in this case, a complete animal, while in fact not the complete object or animal is shown.

Sent to Ti Ar Raden, who has a black and white mail art project.

Economics worth more than animal life...

Some of you might know that in the Netherlands and some other countries the fipronil scandal took place in the past months.
Millions of eggs, hard work for the hens, have been destroyed.
And worse, hundreds of thousands hens have been killed. Some farmers have chosen to have the hens moult to have remove the fipronil from their bodies.

The newspaper article shown above, saying the judge decides farmers are allowed to kill the - healthy - chicken, made me very angry. Because the headline mentions 'gifkippen', 'poisonchicken', a 'framing' word.. What can the poor chicken do about it? And the text says the chicken are 'economicaly worthless animals'... While each and every animal is worth being!

About Chess, Stork and Orion soup

Two people to whom I can send black-and-white mail art are Ryosuke Cohen, for he is turning it into a colourful Brain Cell form, and Alex Witter, who has a mail art project on the theme 'Black and White'.

As I love chess, and horses, I chose to draw them these two chess sceneries.


For Alex, I added a stork on the back side, because the stork ('ooievaar' in Dutch) is the symbol of his city.



To the envelope for Ryosuke, suddenly Orion Soup appeared.



Wishing both pieces a safe and speedy travel!

P.S. There is a third person for whom we should create black-and-white mail art: also Ti Ar Raden has a mail art project on the theme.

P.S. 2. Real chess lovers will have spotted the error in the compilation made on top: nine squares in a row instead of eight! :-)

Mail art for the greatest Piggy Mail Art collector in the world

Yes, I think Nicole the most wonderful collector of Pig mail art I have ever seen. So it isn't hard to find out what kind of mail art I should create to send her: Pigs, of course!
The one below is a pointillistic one. If I ever will have more free time, I'd like to draw and paint pigs in more styles from art history (impressionist, classic, cave murals, expressionist, etcetera). Alas time is limited, so I hope to be able to do so step by step in the coming months, years...

Nicole also creates wonderful collages, of any subject. For me she created many beautiful weird animals. You can see them here; more mail art by NIcole you can find on her site.

The Kancil and the Bridge

'The Kantjil and the Bridge'. Maybe an old, maybe a newly invented story.

Made for Theo Nugraha and the Palangkaraya Batuntur mail art project, in honour of the 60th anniversary of Palangkaraya.

Thumbs up

After the rain there's an after the rain.



Sent to Ryosuke Cohen in Japan.

Superb Fairy Wren revisited

I've drawn a superb fairy wren before. Drawings never will be as good as the real bird, but anyway I love to continue to draw them.

This time the tiny bird flew to Antonia Mayol in Spain, covered by a far larger bird, a razorbill, as an envelope.

Eisbär

Recently I drew some Polar bears on ATCs. Drawing them reminded me of the song 'Eisbär' ('Polar bear') from the Suiss new wave group Grauzone.
In the early eighties - I was in my teens - they sang 'Ich möchte ein Eisbär sein' ('I wish I were a polar bear'), as this way everything would be fine, and, 'Eisbären müssen nie weinen', 'polar bears never have to cry'.
Thirty-six years later I think there are too much reasons for polar bears to cry. Their land is disappearing, and with it they themselves, too. 'Thanks' to ruthless multinationals and greedy politic leaders - the burden of present gas and oil drilling and the threat with more exploitation of the Arctic. 'Thanks' to our consumeristic behaviour, which leads to more production, excessive use of of energy resources. Continuously global warming...

Thoughts like this made me create this drawing (and turn off the light early, buy less, wear a sweater instead of turning the heater higher).
Sent to Ryosuke Cohen in Japan, hopefully he will spread the word image via his brain cell project.

On the back side and on the envelope I stamped these recently carved roosters who are looking back, too.

Playing with stamps

Simple but fun!

To be sent to a dear friend.

Frog mail

Frog, drawn and coloured and sent as a reply to frog mail I received from France.