You may have noticed that animals play the leading role in all my collages. Find out about where they live in real life. I will start off with my dearest animals: my two dogs.
Live is good with our fabulous dogs
I believe our dogs are the best. Just like any dog owner thinks they have the best dog in the world. And us dog owners are right about that, aren’t we? Both of our dogs have got their own Surreal Animal Art collage. I have written a blog about either dog too! Yes, I love spreading the word about our Szuka and Valentino. Because…they are the best.
Animals in my hamlet and garden
Zwinderen is a pictoresk small settlement situated in a lovely rural area, and surrounded by farms, forests and moors. Our garden is a heaven for birds. We have owl nests with owlets in our neighbourhood. Young squirrels were born and raised in the neighbours’ tree. I love exploring the area on foot. After all these years, I am still in love with the fields, the moors and the threes, I am surrounded by, every day, every season. When walking outside I often come eye to eye with herons, deer, foxes and sometimes even badgers. I truly live in a magical place.
The birds on the photo below are pied flycatchers from our garden. The little one stars in ‘Yora the bird whisperer’.
Free-range pig farm ‘t Zwien
This pig farm has become a bit of a super supplier to Wondrous Goose! Their free-range mud-loving pigs have been depicted in quite a few works now. It is my firm belive that when you keep animals for meat it is your duty to take very good care of them. That is exactly what the do at ‘t Zwien. We have 12 million (!) pigs in the Netherlands, but only at places like ‘t Zwien you can you see them outside roaming in the mud. Their piglets play football and hide and seek with their brothers and sisters. They really do! I hardly ever eat meat, but I occasionaly buy some from this company. You can argue about eating meat, but in my opinion an evil practice such as the bio industry is not up for discussion.
You can admire the pigs in ‘Hank’s marriage proposal’ in ‘Firecrackers’, and ‘Circus Poggibonsi’. On Etsy where I sell my Wondrous Goose postcards you will find more designs with these pigs.
The zoo
Sometimes my camera and I visit a zoo; Widlands Emmen is close by. I also visit zoos slightly further afield. For instance Weltvogelpark Walsrode in Germany which is home to both Dapne and the flamingos who are ‘Dancing the night away‘ The little giraf here in the picture lives in Emmen. He is the star in my collage ‘I’ll get you through the night’, which is available as a postcard.
Commissioned photos
I have done quite a bit of commissioned work with animals. Over the last few years, I have worked for a few magazines which focus on small-scale farming life. In the picture here, you see the fine dog who drives the tractor in ‘The Hummingbird Shepherd’. This picture of this boy was taken during a job I did for a vet.
Animals I have encountered on my travels
Together with my wife, I have traveled the globe a bit. Along the way, we encountered many animals. For instance, the orange Monarch butterflies which I shopped lilac and put in ‘Bringing the butterflies home’
I love pelicans, I have lots of pictures of these majestic birds. They look quite fat and clumsy on the ground, but when they hunt they are the B-52’s among the birds! They will surely appear in a surreal animal collage one day.
And I would like to create a work of art with a West Australian saltwater crocodile, a Saltie, of which I took photos in 2005. Obviously, from a safe distance, otherwise I would not have been able to write this.
Goose sanctuary ‘Akka’s ganzenparadijs’
Aggy the Goose That Will One Day Dare to Fly lives in ‘Akka’s goose paradise’. Well…in Aggy’s story I use pictures of geese of different ages for Aggy, as she is growing up in the story. Most of the featured geese in the tale about Aggy, live or used to live in this sanctuary. Many of them were released to freedom when they became strong enough.The people of this shelter do a very good job. They mainly take care of birds, but they help also other animals. In the picture below, you see one of the geese that modelled for Aggy. In my portfolio, you can find her as ‘Aggy, the goose that will one day dare to fly’‘.
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