Last Saturday, 3 May, I had at the entrance of my stall a mock-up display. Obviously to draw attention to the stall, but also to coverup a nasty looking wall.

Have a look at my new mock-up display with:

• a red backdrop,

• signage

• and an original oil painting

• with some decorative flowers.

I think it looks great!

Let me know what you think!

Next month I'll be there again with my stall on Saturday 7th of June from 8:30 AM until 2 PM.

See you at the Kalamunda Artisan Market!

On 3 May (federal election day) I had another stall at the Kalamunda Artisan Market. The stand looked great with the new improvements I made.

• A new additional side panel;

• I painted the picture wall;

• A curtain under the picture wall;

• A large banner on a frame;

And a mockup display with sign.

It was a great day. A little rain, but overall reasonable nice weather. So people weren't put off to visit. I had a lot of positive responses and talks.

On the 1st of March I had my first market inside the Kalamunda Town Square, and my stall is on the enclosed veranda. It’s huge! 3 meters wide and 7 meters long! Awesome!

As you can see on the attached photo, I have turned it into a small gallery. I added 2 side panels onto the picture wall. Primarily, because the wall needs to stand on its own, and also, simply because I have the space. I was able to put up 2 tables, and another 3 easels with original paintings. I just love this stall location, and I feel truly blessed to have been offered this spot. I hope I can stay here for many months to come, and build up my wall art business.

People responded well to my setup and I had some great talks, follow-ups and some sales.

And again, I am thinking of how to improve this popup gallery.

A)     Firstly, the picture wall could do with some improvements. Most importantly, I need to block some of the late morning sun out. It’s not bad, but it will help. I made another side panel and painted the entire wall Titanian white. I also made a curtain (thank you Karen) for underneath the wall, to block off the disturbing rubble in the background. Altogether, it will look great.

B)     The right side of the gallery is somewhat boring, with nothing to see, it looks neglected. I have now a large banner with my logo and a photo of my dad on a frame that will provide some sunshade and is will bring colour to the stall.

C)      Lastly, also on the right side, there is what I would call a dead spot. Very unattractive, it looks bad. I have made a mockup display for an original oil painting on an easel. I’ve made a red background, with a sign and to finish it off, I have a decoration with flowers on a table. It looks great, and it will catch people’s eye.

The market on 1 March was cancelled, due to bad weather.

The next market will be on 3 May. (And on a side note: that day is federal election day).

Kalamunda Artisan Market

On Saturday morning 1 February I had my first market at the Kalamunda Artisan Market. It was my first time at this market and it went well. I made some improvements on my picture wall and installed side walls, to block some of the sun out. It still needs more work, but it went well.

The market manager offered me another location, because of a vacancy at a covered spot. After the market I had a look and will definitely use this opportunity.

On Saturday 1 February 2025 I will be having a stall at the Kalamunda Artisan Market. Times: 8:00AM until 1:00PM (summer hours).

I'm excited! This will be the first time I will be holding a stall at this market. It is a well attended market at a wonderful location in the charming town Kalamunda in the Perth Hills. There is a variety of local artists and entrepreneurs displaying their arts and crafts. Plus, there will be some food stalls. It's an awesome way to spend the morning with the family at this market. See you there!

Have a look at their website:

https://kalamundaartisanmarket.com.au

Website movingcolour.com.au

Beginning of September 2024 I have been able to finally launch my website for my art gallery: Moving Colours. I'm rather happy with the result of my very first attempt at this type of IT-work. It's a portfolio style webpage of one single page. To see all there is, one has to scroll down the page.

However, last weekend, my domain provider VentraIP has made it possible to have individual webpages. Awesome! I started straight away, and had the site up and running on Saturday afternoon (21 Dec. '24).

Now I'm working on this Info, News & History page.

In the coming weeks, you will see more about the various aspects of my work at Moving Colours:

1.       designing a Certificates of Authenticity,

2.      using a system of security seals,

3.      my new poster printer,

4.      my very first market stall, and

5.      my future market stalls.

Enjoy reading, and don’t forget to contact me with any of your questions.

Attached you see a screenshot of the new home page.

11 November 2024

Poster Prints

It filially happened; I bought a poster printer! After a long search with a lot of video’s, reviews and research, I went for the Epson SureColor T3160N. It has been a long-time desire to make large and high-quality posters of my dad’s work. I believe this is just the right printer for it. This Epson printer uses 24-inch paper rolls and can print up to A1 paper size prints. The 4x (black, cyan, magenta and yellow) Epson Ultrachrome ™ XD2 inks are all pigmented and they are scratch and moisture resistant. My choice for the paper is the Epson Premium Semigloss (170). This paper is rather versatile and excellent suitable for photography and fine-art. Just to be clear, this printer doesn’t produce fine-art reproductions. These prints are however very suitable for long lasting posters, and the colours are absolutely brilliant. I honestly didn’t think they would be this good.

The following print sizes will be my standard sizes, but contact me for other options:

• A4, A3, A2 and A1;

• 400x500mm, 500x700mm and 700x900mm;

• 11x14 inch, 16x20 inch and 24x36 inch.

These sizes are fairly standard, and you can get standard frames for them at most warehouses. Well, at least here in Western Australia.

At the market you can buy these posters framed, but I don’t recommend them to be shipped over the mail.

Bedfordale Bush Market

This was my very first time I presented my dad’s artwork to the public. Yes, I showed family and friends Henri’s work; but this time, it was presented to the general public. For this day, everything had to be finished, the business cards, the brochure, the stall had to be built, the paintings had to be made presentable, framed and fully ready for sale including Certificates of Authenticity and Security Tags™. It was quite the experience, and people responded well. They loved my dad’s work. But I do think, a market might not be the best place to promote these original oil paintings. Still, most responses were rather positive, and that was encouraging. And, I sold some fine art prints. All in all, the whole experience was, even though tiering, definitely worth it. As such, I will be scouting at other markets. I’ll keep you posted.

Logo design

While waiting on the results of my reproductions, I thought it to be a good idea to approach a graphics designer specialised in logos. I found a great local artist Cynthia Moneypenny, from Moneypenny Designs. I really like her style. It’s smart and stylish, and for me the most important aspect was, she was the only designer that used an element of moving. Obviously not every design is like that, but looking through her portfolio, she has designs where colours move. That caught my attention. Moreover, she uses a little colourful flying hummingbird on her website of which she says, I quote from her website: “the bird's unique adaptations and vibrant colors can inspire businesses to stand out from their competitors.”

Using Cynthia to design my logo was easy, very pleasant and really affordable. She had some surveys for me enquiring me about the business and my aspirations for the future. She also asked for some photos of my dad’s paintings to get a feel of his style and colours.

She gave me 4 design options. I was immediately drawn to this rather abstract design. Which is in a way rather odd, because this design doesn’t really reflect and impressionist style with its straight lines and edgy fonts. Still, I totally love it, and I don’t regret that I have chosen this one. Moreover, the colours match the colours in my father’s work. And, last but not least, this design moves, it really does!

Once I’m a bit further ahead in my business, I will definitely ask her to do also my branding. I’m already looking forwards to that day.

Please see the adjacent logo. What do you think? Did I make the right choice? Just a note: the logo is square. This doesn't quite show up on the website. But you can see the small version of it at the top of each webpage.

Reproductions?

After my dad’s passing, I was looking through my dad’s paintings, and the question rose: “are my dad’s oil paintings suitable for reproductions?” I needed to find a suitable painting for a trial run. I found the painting my dad gave the title “Full-on-Summer” rather suitable. It is painted in his typical impressionist character, with vibrant colours, with some stark contrasts and it has some difficult colour combinations. A reproduction should be able to express that same type character with the colour vibrancy and contrast.

Now I had to be able to get a digital reproduction. In my church I found a very talented and multi-awarded photographer. He made the photos, and I was incredibly excited. However, this talented man was true to his artistic heart and tweaked the digital images. The images were awesome; however, they were not usable for producing colour matching reproductions of the original paintings.

My search went on, and I found a printing store that also was specialised in fine art reproductions. They made digital scans, cleaned up the digital file and made sure it was totally colour matched. Moreover, they also produced the actual high-quality fine art prints, canvas prints and were able to frame the reproductions. A technical component: the digital files had to be large enough for prints larger than the original; and the print needed to be still without any pixilation. And boy they did deliver! The results are stunning! I asked them to make an enlargement of 125% of the original, and a smaller print with a border and frame. I believe the colours to be near perfect. Very happy, and I believe I should continue on this path.

Please see for yourself in the photo next to this text. This is a comparison of the original oil painting (right) with two reproductions. (Sorry for the photo quality, I used my phone. In the near future, I make sure to use a proper camera.)

My father’s passing & final removalist pickup

After my return in Western Australia, my dad has been working hard to get all his paintings sorted. He made sure he was happy with their final finishes and made arrangements with the removalist to pick up another load. In the first week of September 2021, I received another message from the removalist that they had by now received a total of 6 truckloads of paintings; all stored in their climatised warehouse. I got in contact with them to get a clearer picture of how much they actually did pickup over the years & months. Turned out they had so far 19.5 cubic meter of paintings in storage! And there was still more to come! Wow, my dad sure has been busy!

Sadly, two weeks later my dad passed away. The last load of paintings, including his easel, was transported to the warehouse, where it still is, up until today. All securely wrapped and packed, ready for transport to Western Australia.

See the adjacent photo where one of the removalists is taking the measurements of my dads work in storage.

In June 2021 I asked a friend of mine, photographer Lonneke Stulen, to take several portrait photos of my father, Henri Vlezenbeek, the Artist.. Adjacent is one of them.

Moving Colours is born

With my dad working on getting his paintings sorted. I though it would be time to get the business formalised. In May 2021 I registered the business, and I’m now the proud owner of my art gallery Moving Colours.

See adjacent a part copy of the business registration.

Planning to ship the rest of the paintings

Beginning of March 2020 (just before Covid hit), I went to visit the Netherlands my dad in Amsterdam with my youngest daughter Alyssa. We had a wonderful time catching up with family and friends, which we hadn’t seen for many years. My dad, being an organised man, expressed his desire to start planning for his inevitable death because of his leukemia. Still having the expectancy of several more years, he wanted to make his life easier by creating some more space in his small 1-bedroom ground floor apartment and atelier. He wanted to organise a removalist to start packing up his whole inventory of oil paintings, including all the shelving. We invited the removalist Top Movers and they estimated my dad would have about 5 to 7 cubic meters of paintings, and quoted accordingly. Both my dad and I thought this to be rather doable.

See some of my dad’s storage in his atelier in Amsterdam, in the adjacent photo.

No concrete plans yet & an idea born

During these years, nothing was done with my dad’s 80 oil paintings. Our lives went on, and life was happening. Working at various jobs, getting a Certificate IV in Small Business Management, and I became an Australian citizen in November 2019. Holding now a dual citizenship along with my Dutch nationality. But in the background, there always was an uneasy feeling that something had to be done with those paintings that were locked in those 2 crates. Where possible, we did hang up some paintings in our home, a rental.

During those years, every now and then, we showed family and friends my dad’s painting. Interestingly, their response seems always very positive. People just loved the bright colours. That was very different compared to the Dutch. I think it has something to do with the different light in the two countries. In Holland the light seems less intense, maybe somewhat dull, and people didn’t quite take well too the colourful paintings of my dad. This is very different here in Western Australia. Here the light is mostly very bright, and as such all colours are much fuller and brighter, sometimes even harsh. Australians seem more familiar with these colourful themes that my dad painted. As such, their response was mostly rather positive.

These positive responses gave me some hope, that selling my dad’s painting could be a successful idea. To start on this possible endeavour, I invited my two pastors over to show them Henri’s oil paintings and they could choose an oil painting each. This would be my tithing.

The photo next to this text shows how the 2x cases are stored behind a lounge in our study.

Arrival of my dad’s 80 oil paintings

On the 7th December 2016 I picked up at a Fremantle (Western Australia) customs warehouse, 2 crates with 80 oil paintings made by my dad, Henri Vlezenbeek. These 2 crates were the spoils of a long process that started with an initial quote in December 2015 for 270 paintings. That was way too expensive, and we settled for the 2 crates only.

Along the way, my dad wasn’t happy with the additional costs for fumigating the wooden crates. He thought it was robbery and customs just wanting to make money. I had to explain to him, the rather sensitive Australian flora and fauna. Fruit flies, fungus and insects can decimate the native balance of life, and used the examples of lost harvests over east in Queensland. I have witnessed myself here in WA, the effects of the dieback fungal disease. I also mentioned the issues Australia has with imported animals like the rabbits, goats, camels and the cane toad. That seemed to convince him that the fumigation isn’t a futile matter.