A good advice...

10 of 10 : The art for Shay

Aaah... the challenges in life, such as what to create for a woman that is creative herself. And not only that ... shows in her blogs the many facets of her existence. 

Well here it is... and yes, as usual I leave the good stuff out, so the owner of the book will not see the whole picture. But I will reveal that I made it in acrylics and ink on paper... One could take pleasure in mysteries...

And that will be all..... for now...

Dita Von Teese is teasing again

Here is a short commercial with Dita Von Teese.... seriously this is a Commercial for Perrier...

Watch it here.

Another reason why Dita is in my top 3 list of women.

She is already in my top 3 because I love her "burlesque" eroticism and she is a beauty.

Oh, you want to know who are the other women in my top 3?

Well.... Marlene Dietrich: untill her very last day she remained a very classy lady who took no bulls@%t from anyone. 

And the most sexy woman of the 1920's and probably of all times as she is a contemporary / timeless beauty : Louise Brooks

I was a little girl (6 or 7) when I saw a picture of her face the first time and her face is in embedded in my artistic mind and spontaneously pops up in some of my works.

Who is in your top 3 women of all time?

A silly Day

I went to South Beach to meet up with my friend Ily. I left home at half time in the soccer match between Germany and Spain. It was still 0-0. The team that wins this match will play in the finals against Holland (no not me ...lol). Secretly I am rooting for Spain, because then we have two teams that never won a world champion cup in the finals, and I was not alone: Paul the octopus also rooted for Spain. 

So far the two year old Octopus predicted all the German matches correctly in this world cup and he choose Spain as the winner. 

The moment I arrived in South Beach I asked a woman in a German shirt who won and she looked at me as if I was from another planet, then noticed my orange toe nails and the orange scarf around my head and grumpily spitted out the words I almost expected (due to Paul the octopus' prediction): "Spain did...1-0, the Germans did not play." I had to swallow my cry of joy and thanked her for telling me. When she walked away I did a little victory dance as if I made that goal.

I met with Ily at the Mediterranean  restaurant on Lincoln Road and we sat down for some food, wine and conversation... and we ended up discussing what we would do if we would wake up as a man (for 1 weekend). Well I know for sure that Ily would wake up as Johnny Depp. No doubt about that. 

But more interesting is the question if we would be a heterosexual or homosexual man for that weekend... What would you choose if you woke up in the body of the opposite sex?

Also Ily gave me a beautiful CD with Brazilian music (to be played whenever she has dinner at my place prepared by the hitman). I asked her if she was serious about giving Brazilian music to a Dutch woman and she thought I was not happy... I was very happy with it as I do like Brazilian music and even more so now as the Dutch team won from the Brazilian team... Yeeeaaaaahhhh!!! (sorry, I just can't help myself)

And here I am showing how difficult it is to fit multiple objects (a shared dessert, espresso and myself)  in a small screen of a digital camera... but somehow we manage...

After dinner we went for a walk over Lincoln Road where Ily took this really great shot of me...

I don't know  but I think it shows how happy I am with the Dutch team... (hmmm why do I keep coming back to soccer these days...)

Have a great week and cheer for Holland this Sunday!

What a day!

Yesterday was an important day for me. I took two paintings to the gallery for a new show called "Word and Symbols". I really liked the subject and I know that it will be a good show because every artist will interprete it in a different way.

One painting called "Change your words and you will change your world" where the text starts on the side of the paiting and finishes on the front.

The other is "Listen to the colorful words of my silence".

The second painting (and I apologize for the poor quality of the photo's... but hey I am not a photographer) is inspired by a converstation I had with a close friend of mine about lack of communication... which I translated into silence.

Now the real challenge for me is how to take two paintings of 24" x 24" to the gallery with the bus-bus-metro-bus in the rain. I looked around the house if we had any plastic bags big enough which we did not have of course. But I found those plastic coverings from the dry cleaners and guess what... it works to protect the paintings and at the same time if could carry it like it was plastic bags.

On my way to Coconut Grove, I met a man carrying a sign saying "Be a role model" around his neck. After working so intensly on my paintings referring to words, it made complete sense to me. I asked him why he had this sign around his neck and he replied: "Each morning I make a new sign to carry around, because each day I learn something new and I want to share this with other people." That is a very positive idea and I really like it. Does it mean I will do the same? I don't know... It takes guts to do this and a very great smile to pull it off.

Of course I was excited about the upcoming soccer match between Holland and Brazil. My toe nails are orange (yes, I root for Holland, suprise!!! lol) because "We kick ass!". In the bus, when he noticed my orange toe nails, a Brazilian fan told me that his team would beat the Dutch team with 2-1. I replied with a bg smile: "Bite me and good luck!".  Everywhere the yellow/green from Brazil was dominating here in Miami. When I finally got to work - where they showed the match on tv - it was 0-1 for Brazil. My heart dropped onto my orange toes, but at the same time I knew the match was not lost yet. I saw the Dutch team hunting for the ball.

And boy did they hunt... Holland won... 2-1 from BRAZIL!

I wonder if the Brazillian fan will remember what he said to me...

10 of 10 and a painting I am working on

Here is my little artwork for the book of Doreen. No the colors are actually different in the book but you know that I distort my pics so there will be an element of surprise when the owner of the book can see it him/her self.

Tomorrow I will dash off to the post office again but this time I will add something to the package. A wonderful initiative by Carmen. She has send me a book... to be honest she has send me a second book as well... I have read both of them but I will keep the first one... I just love the book and cannot part with it.
The second is a wonderful book as well. Now the deal is simple: read it and send it on... or don't read it and send it on... or (and here is a new "rule") read it and keep it... but find a nice book to pass on. That last part, I will submit myself to it and hopefully with the next shipment of the 10 of 10, I will pass on another book.

I love to read and I think it is a wonderful idea (thank you Carmen!!!)

During the last two weeks I was crazy busy and not always in the best way. But I did find time to keep painting and below is a painting I am currently working on... some of you saw the sketch on canvas in Ily's blog and here is the result so far....  it is not yet finished so it gives you another opportunity to guess what he is looking at...

Spanking with a Feather

Last night I was in South Beach with my good friend Ily. Whenever we are there, we like to have some dinner together, a little wine and - how could one not like it - just talk about all and nothing. It is a great way to just break away from the day-to-day ups and downs.

So we sat down and shared a bottle of Pinot G. and then the strangest thing happened: Ily saw Johnny Depp!

"Where??" I asked her

"There..." pointing at some shrubs across the street. I saw a Latino looking man...

"That's not Johnny Depp... That is Juanito Depp."

"That is Johnny Depp... I tell you"

"He doesn't even look like him"

 "No, no... that is Johnny Depp... trying to disguise that he is Johnny Depp... "

(Wait, wait... there is a logic to it)

"If you were Johnny Depp wouldn't you want to be able to walk around without everybody (read: the screaming herds) following you?" She continued: "So with glasses, a wig and a different walk, nobody would recognize him."

(I told you there is a logic to it)

I could not stop laughing. That man was very, VERY good at not looking like Johnny Depp.  

After we left the restaurant.. we sat down with coffee and my cigarette (get over it... I am European...lol) A few feet away a man sat down as well to smoke a cigarette... I looked at him and turned to Ily and said:

"Look Ily... There is Mickey Rourke trying not to look like Mickey Rourke..."

And now to the title of this post... "Aaah Finally..." I hear you say. I found that a lot of times people try to out scream each other to have things done. You know the boss that is screaming and bitching, the impatient "Come on" if somebody writes a check at the supermarket, the yelling at the staff if something is not in stock...

You probably all know the expression "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar". But who want to have flies in their honey? So I changed the expression a little bit and turned it into "Spanking with a feather" and it is all about being persuasive in a sweet gentle flirty way. And it sounds so much better than the flies in the honey thing

Why is it in the title... oh well... it sounds great and for sure it got your attention...