Category: Digital art

Spherical panorama Bourtange, The Netherlands

27. April 2015

The Link between Bourtange and Rotterdam (and between a Pentagon and a Sphere)

A few weeks ago I was in Bourtange, the well-preserved fortified village in the Dutch province of Groningen. At least, I’ve always thought that Bourtange was a nicely preserved piece of history. But that’s not entirely correct. For more than a century, the fortress was completely gone and Bourtange was a boring farming village. In the nineteenth century, the fortifications were demolished and the canals were closed, which happened in many places in those days. Reconstruction Not until the sixties of the twentieth century came the idea to rebuild the fortress. In the seventies and eighties that idea was carried… Read More

Paintified image of former cruiseship SS Rotterdam, with the neighbourhood of Katendrecht in the foreground and Waalhaven industrial area in the background

Digital art

28. February 2015

Markthal, Katendrecht and other Rotterdam Paintifications

Rotterdam, as you may know, is packed with tall buildings. But unfortunately most of those buildings are not accessible if you don’t live or work there. And that’s a pity because the city is at its most beautiful and surprising when viewing it from a higher point of view. Higher ground Fortunately, in every year there are those days when you suddenly can get to places that are otherwise off-limits: Architecture Day, Construction Day, Heritage Day. Over the years, I ‘ve been able to look at my city from above many times. The photographs I made on those occasions now… Read More

Kerstkaart met schilderachtig beeld van een kerkje in het winterlandschap in nationaal park Thingvellir in IJsland

Design / Digital art / Space art

15. December 2014

Merry Christmars

For decades, I’ ve been putting a great deal of work into my Christmas cards. And sometimes into those of others. This year I made one by commission of Explore Mars, a (mostly) American non-profit organization that promotes Manned Mars exploration: The design and the text “Two Down, Mars and the Universe to go” is a reference to Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind” and the recent landing of the European spacecraft Philae on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Mars comes into view as the next big step. And after that there are a few hundred billion stars and their planets to… Read More

Buispanorama van Het Park, Rotterdam, met twee nijlganzen en de Euromast, gemaakt op een zonnige dag in de herfst

Digital art / Photography

14. November 2014

All Year Round Spherical Panoramas

I’ve been making a lot of spherical panorama’s lately, often referred to as “little planets”. But of course I have not invented the concept myself. I’m certainly not the only one who makes them; anyone with a camera and a recent version of Photoshop can produce them quite easily. And of course I do want my panoramas to add something, to stand out among the many other small spheres that are being made. Wet asphalt One of the ways I try to do that is by showing the influence of the weather and the seasons. The panorama below, for example,… Read More

Spherical panorama of Gelderseplein in Rotterdam, featuring the White House, the reconstructed Wijnhavenhouses, the Old Harbour with the Cube dwellings and more

Digital art / Photography

26. September 2014

Gelderseplein Rotterdam: Another Spherical Panorama

Gelderseplein (Gelderland Square) is a new square in the center of Rotterdam. It’s on a site that lay vacant for years after the construction of the railway tunnel. Around it we find a diverse catalog of architectural styles. Most prominent is the White House, which was the tallest skyscraper in Europe after completion in 1898. At that time it was criticized by many as “too American”. The building survived the 1940 bombing but was nearly demolished in the seventies for the construction of a huge roundabout that fortunately never came. Next to the White House there’s a row of eighteenth… Read More

Spherical panorama, composed from 24 photographs, stitched together and mapped to a sphere in Photoshop, of the market square and town hall in Gouda, the Netherlands

Digital art / Photography

28. August 2014

Spherical Panoramas: How to Make a Little Planet

Spherical panoramas: you see them quite often nowadays. Little planets, they are sometimes called. Photos, apparently made with a huge wide-angle lens, on which the Earth seems to have shrunk so much that there’s room for only oa few buildings.Only eight months ago I made my first spherical panorama, of the Schouwburgplein in Rotterdam. These days I even make them in commission. Time for a little tutorial. The Big Picture The great thing about spherical panoramas is that they give an overall view. They show a place in one single glance, unlike tradional widescreen panoramas where you have to pan… Read More

Computer generated sketch of an ear of corn on a woodstrip floor

Digital art / Various

28. July 2014

Ear of Corn on a Woodstrip Floor

The past two weeks I was in Orsennes, France, to do volunteerwork at Sadhaka, a small organization that offers yoga and creative holidays in and around a converted watermill. It was good to be away from internet, phone and other things that make life pleasant but sometimes also rather complicated. Besides working in the kitchen, the garden and the henhouse there was also time to take pencil, marker pen, brush or pastel and to be inspired by the abundance of flowers and plants around the Moulin: Photoshop But no matter how fun and useful it is to work with traditional… Read More

Images of Gouda cheese combined with sketches of houses and town hall at Gouda's market square, as part of a proposal for a Welcome Wall near the railway station

Digital art

8. May 2014

A City of Cheese

The City Marketing board of Gouda (yes, home of the famous cheese) recently organized a design competition for a Welcome Wall, composed of canvases with a height of 4 meters and a total length of 63 meters. The structure is going to beautify a windowless wall next to the station. It should, according the contest conditions, evoke a warm and positive image of the city. Cheese and history Typical Gouda themes like cheese and cultural history should find their way into the design. I took that last condition quite literally by combining images of all types of Gouda cheese with… Read More

Paintified close-up of the Calypso building in Rotterdam by William Alsop as seen from Westersingel

Digital art

30. April 2014

Paintified Calypso

My exhibition, in March and April at the Nivon-building in Rotterdam, was quite successful. Especially the paintification appeared to be rather popular: photographed of Rotterdam buildings, edited into paintings. No, not by pushing the watercolor button, it’s not that simple. A wide variety of Photoshop filters, layers and adjustments are involved. I might eleborate in more detail some day. Feyenoord colors Their success is a good reason to make more paintifications. I want to produce larger canvases and also create series of works that belong together. Here is an example of the latter idea: a triptych dedicated to the Calypso… Read More

Photo of two layers of pre-shattered glass, edited in Photoshop

Digital art / Photography

4. March 2014

The Beauty of Pre-Shattered Glass

What do we see here? I could tell you that these are two layers of pre-shattered glass and that I have placed a photo of the first layer over a photo of the second layer in Photoshop with the blending mode “difference”. But that probably doesn’t mean a lot to most blog readers. So let’s just conclude that the final result is a fascinating pattern.