Handwritten Text

More than a long time ago, a friend approached me with the possibility of doing a piece for him. He and his wife both appreciate my work and he wanted to surprise her for her birthday with a piece. So we discussed a few ideas and thought it might be nice if I had a look at some material they had generated on their honeymoon in the greek isles to use as a point of departure. I looked at the material and after doing some preliminary drawings decided to focus on the text for starters with the possible incorporation of an image.



Hand written text is fascinating for me in the same way that a fingerprint is in that it inherently represents an individual.








This is a small sketch I did for my friend Christian Marti and his wife Sole when they bought the text piece. It was right after I did the "Forever" Heart. I am quite happy with it and thought that much larger might also be quite nice...

Going to the Chapel.....

Heart, Steel, 160cm x 120, 1999

Love, well at least the human heart as icon is an image that I have been busy with for a long time. In fact the image of the heart I have created has been one of the more popular pieces that I've ever done and has figured as a gift in at least three weddings and is displayed in two heart clinics in Holland as well as a handful of private residences. I have a lot of cariño or feelings for the image. Recently I was approached by a group of friends that were interested in buying a gift for a close friend of their's who was tying the knot. As time was a factor a lengthy design process was not an option and I told them that it would be much easier to work with an image or design that I already and tweak it to personalize it. I half jokingly said to them that it would be great to incorporate text as currently I'm working on another piece that involves text. That's when a slew of possibilities hit me. We agreed that the idea had potential and I agreed to do a couple mockups. The result is what you see below.

I wanted a really ornate and frilly font which I was able to track down online seeing as the ones I had on hand weren't quite baroque enough.

Forever,Steel,158cm x 140cm, 2007

The result for me is an homage to classical tattoos from another era (although in researching the project I found that those classical themes are very much alive and present in contemporary tattoo design.

The finished piece in an interior.

And another....