I realize that most of my drawings and texts are about nature, about the beauty and poetry in it, the positive vibes it gives. I feel that it's not really a free choice, more an irresistible urge and I don't want to oppose it. I do not close my eyes for all the grief and misery in the world, but I don't have the drive to focus on that, with all due respect for those artists who have the profound aspiration to do so and succeed in transmitting their beliefs. But in my work I want to show the opposite side of ugliness, negativity, misery and harshness. So here's a spread in one of my sketchbooks, filled with nature. The tree on the left side is the tree in our garden that I can see while  eating in the kitchen. Especially in the morning, there are plenty of birds on the tops of the branches and it inspired me to make a drawing of it. In all honesty, I have to say that our birds are not yellow: they are sparrows, blackbirds, chews, titmice, collared doves and robins. On the right side of the page, I drew a plea to preserve and keeping survive folk art, very close to my heart! This can be in many areas such as woodworking, pottery, painting, embroidery, ironwork, furniture, silversmith's craft ... and that in all continents of the globe. I love to look at folk-art objects, generally simple in form yet amazingly beautiful! They keep inspiring me.

A few weeks ago, I made this drawing of a Chinese vase in my sketchbook. I really love to elaborate in detail all those elegant motifs that show the mastery of the designers from centuries ago! And a poem should not be missing here :)

I have my sketchbooks to try out new ideas. When I'm happy with it, I take a nice sheet of paper and do the whole thing over again. This drawing is my representation of paradise. The words on the left and right are translations of the word 'paradise' in different languages of the world. A lot of people ask me how many pigment liners I use for one drawing like this so I put it to the test and, although this piece is quite big (50 x 70 cm), I only used one fineline,  just at the finish starting a second one.
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I'm immortalizing important objects in my life. When I was 19 years old I made an adventurous trip to Afghanistan. Along the way, in the pasar in Istanbul, I bought this so-called kelim. Its actual colors have faded, but for this color pencil drawing I've brightened them up!
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