Halloween

Last week I went to see an expo about Panamarenko. He is a Belgian artist living in Antwerp and has an obsession with mechanisms made for flying and his art is all about instalations that look like they can fly, but in reality can't. I find a poetic tone in his art. Looking up at the birds and the bees, it has always been humanities dream to fly, and although we will likely never can truly like a bird. we have to believe we can, and to not give up on our dreams and keep trying to achieve the closest we can get. As in acception that you can't always get there perfectly lies also a great sense of liberation, I think. Looking at his works you can see there is a sense of joy in creating them. When the pursuit of our dreams is not joyfull, is it then truly the goal you should aim for? In videos showing interviews with him on the wall he sometimes bursted out in laughing about his own works (the noise they made and etc.) and that's something I find refreshing as many expo's and artists take themselves very serious.

Pics taken with a cellphone, not the best quality. There is of course many more things to see, but I am not going to show the whole expo

                      

These "birds" actually walked around and almost tumbled over when hitting the sides of the platform but somehow always found their balance, it was really funny to see

Halloween is near! I actually like that this event has gained popularity in most European countries the last years, sure it's commercial, but who doensn't like a good scare sometimes? This is also why I enjoy nightmares. Not while experiencing one, but when you're awake and the memory of the scary scenes is still fresh in the mind, it can be a exciting feeling, no? I once woke up from a hellish nightmare and after waking it felt so real I was afraid to even move for a minute, it was a little too intense for my liking. It resolved around me being tagged on facebook all the time to do dumb challenges and taking selfies from it. It was horrible.........

My drawing is also a bit Halloween themed:

Two weeks ago 5 teens went camping in the forest across the river next to our town. It's an ideal spot since only few people live there in cabins. The nights are so dark there you can see all the stars in the sky. One night a family living in such a cabin heard disturbing screams of pure terror not too far off in the distance. The husband went looking with a flashlight and a gun to come aid whoever persons where in such agony to make those frightning noises. When he came closer to the place he first thought he heard branches breaking but it was a more muffled sound, more like bones snapping. It chilled him to the bone and began to doubt if he should go there. Overcoming his fear he arrived at the scene and what he saw there petrified his whole body. A tent dripping in blood and five twisted bodies spread in front of it. Every limp seemed twisted and broken and all heads were missing. 

The next day a special investigation team set up camp near the spot and searched every inch of the area hoping to figure out wat happend there. Days passed and nothing was found or seen to give explanation to it all. At the last night before heading back to town, the team was woken by something rushing between the trees at unnatural speed. One person quickly turned on a giant spotlight to see what was circling their base but it ran so fast and the trees were so dense you couldn't clearly see anything other than a tall shape, until suddenly the thing stopped and ran right at them. It was a horrible being, long and thin, covered in dark hairs like an animal but walked like a man. The end of the hands excisted of small tenticals fastly slashing around like whips and the neck was stretched too long for any human to be possible. On top of it was the head of one of the missing girls, but covered in wrinkles like she had grown a hundred years older in just a few days. Most of the team members made it out of the forest on pure adrenaline and shock, but a few are still missing. Lately we hear more and more things running around in the forest at night............

   

What is love and what is pain? Why not ask an elderly person who has a lot of life experience. Satya Sai Maitreya Kali asked this to an old man, and if you'd like to know his answer then listen to this song.....

And now just shut up and enjoy.

                                               Satya Sai Maitreya Kali - Old Man

A sketch a day...

Recently I've started to read Bram Stokers Dracula (1897). During my travels through the provence of Transylvania in Romania the story of count Dracula started to gain my interest, not in the least by visiting the castle were this fictional monster supposed to have lived. It had been a long time since I read a true novel, mostly factional books about science was my literature the last years, and I'm really enjoying it. I can recommend it to anyone interested in a dark and frightning gothic romance story.

See, I was there:

Inside you also had a look at what these people wore in their time (and lots more), really nice

Some drawings/sketches

I should really try to fix our scanner because with taking pictures a lot of finer lines get lost

                      

You heard about Prince's "I would die for you", right? Come again? You're sick of it? Well then that's great news! Sinead O' Connor now covered the song together with Radio Riddler and made it into a chill tune you'll hear below.

And now just shut up and enjoy.

                                  Sinead O' Connor & Radio Riddler - I Would Die For You

Good Versus Bad

My dear Dropping Gems groupies,

I have the uncomfortable task to share with you two cases of news, one which is bad, and one which is good. To end this post on a bright note, I shall take the liberty to inform you on the sad news first. If this choosing is not in line with your personal whishes then I ask you to read the blog from the bottom side up, as to disturb your emotional state is not my intend. I only chose this way as it is the manner I'd prefer to have read it myself.

Without further lenghten the undiclosure on the matter, I present you the first piece of information which led me to disbelief and shock upon first encountering it in a local newspaper during the passing of sunday morning. To give you a clear view on the article, take a look at the following scan.

Rosalieke has crossed to the other side.

Truly dreadfull indeed. My, and surely your condolences too, goes to all people who've known and loved her. The brutality of said murder is an unwholesome act of evil that shall not pass unjustified. Therefor my call to whoever may provide a tip regarding this case to contact the number stated in the news article. Unsurprisingly, DG fans who read the same newspaper as I already started to search for clues and sent me a possible step into the right direction we need to be looking. Please look at the comment below, posted on this very blog on the date of july the 2nd.

A familiar way of expression, is it not?

For a clearer view of how this post came about I recommend to read the whole comment section from this part: Calling For The Beast

Many more things could be said on this, was it not I refuse to do so for such disturbing subjects is not what DG should be about, nor was it created for. Which naturally leads me to the second piece of information I promised to deliver. It has a link to the former one, only now with a happier side. I trust you already know of the drawing competion by which a prize of no less than €50 is attached and if that is not the case, enlighten yourself here: Double Down. The neverending stream of drawings sent to my email adress was nothing short of overwhelming and for a moment I feared I would not find the time to view them all as such an endeavour would need several days for completion. Not that it would be needed as I had stated before the winner would be chosen at random by an innocent hand to give old, young,  talented or amateur, an equal chance. That innocent hand would be Ylian, a boy of five years old who hangs around our house from time to time, dressed as a pirate. Trust me when I say he as no bias against any of you. A feeling of unfavour would not be right, if that is what you may feel.

 I shall not stretch the tension any longer, the winner of the second DG contest is........................

 Jordy from London!! (boy on the left)

And for those curious to what his entrance looks like, here's the boy's drawing

Winning a DG competition should be more than just a mention on the blog, a small interview that provides a small glimps of who DG fans are, should be the least I could do, and every once in a while, I'll do just that. Therefor I made the time to set up a conversation through chat. How it went, you can read below.

DG: Hello there Jordy! Thumbs up for winning the competion! Tell us a bit about yourself.

Jordy: No I'm not telling anything about myself. I don't even know you, you could be a perv.....PEDOALARM!

DG: Uh, ok, I guess that makes sense in this day and age. Could you tell us at least why you like reading Dropping Gems?

Jordy: Pff I don't even read your thing, I only googled "free money" and got on this dumb site. This blog is for kids.

DG: .....Uhh.....right.....so, your drawing is intriguing I think, what's the idea behind it?

Jordy: Girls follow the money, you don't know that? Are you gay? LOL When I have this money, I'm going to let the chicks come at me and I have to do nothing.

DG:.....When a girl want you just because of money, don't you think that...

Jordy: GAYALERT!!! LOL Who cares...YOLO

DG: Hey there now, you should watch your language you here me little boy? How old are y....

Jordy: When do I get my money anyway?

DG:..........It should take no more than a couple of days....

Jordy: Good then I don't have to talk to you anymore and be on your shit ass blog looooool bye

DG: What? You better pray I don't come to London you little asswhipe or I'll smack your f....

Jordy: is offline 

DG: .................

While it can not be denied this ending came somewhat unexpected, a bad one I refuse to name it. How could it be, when all it shows is the diversity in DG readers? Only two fans made themselves visible so far, both residenting at the opposites of the age scale. A further sign DG is an agetranscending phenomenon. Little do you realise you are part of it too, at this exact moment.   

Some feelgood music would be very appropriate right now and Illuminate form Orbital is just the thing needed. Orbital is a Brittish duo who make electronic and ambient music while working with other artist for when vocals are needed. For this song, they hired David Gray. 

And now just shut up and enjoy.

                                                    Orbital - Illuminate ft. David Gray

Mist Obscura 2

By now, you should know that atmospherics that create an isolated, eerie mood is something that is up my alley. The sense of tension in the air when a thunderstorm is about to release it's energy, or fog wraps the environment in a gray and white haze, those thing I love. It's no surprise then when I recently woke up and saw a blanket of mist outside the window, that I jumped into my clothes and on my bike to make some  pictures. I knew that not too far from where I live there's a small house in the forest that would hopefully be nice to make some pictures of under this condition.

 It did look fairly special

                  

 

                                   

 

You're actually not supposed to come there since the area is private. I like it that way because I knew no other people would be around. So I came a little closer.

I would have liked go inside, one window missed it's glass but I don't know if you can see it, the opening was barricaded by a heavy wooden closet. Listening carefully, very faint it seemed that there was something slithering around in the darkness. Was this barricade set up to keep people from breaking in, or to hold someone, or something inside?

The cloth on the bench was all torn....

                     

 

At the other side of the house, many pieces of chopped branches laid on the ground. Whoever lived there was preparing for the cold months up ahead.

Just when I returend to my bike an deep an gargling shout came from the direction of the house, more like a loud moan of something dying, but too unnaturally sounding for it to be human...

I almost dropped my camera, but jumped on my bike and got the hell out of there. I won't be comming there again anytime soon....

Out in the forest isn't the only place where I witnessed things out of the ordinary. I was experimenting with my camera in the bathroom for shooting dark scenes, and when I looked back at some of the photos I took, I saw a foot in the doorway, vanishing in thin air starting from the ankle. Do you see it too or am I loosing my mind?

For now, let's relax with some music. Zbigniew Preisner, a Polish composer, recorded an album in a chapel located inside of a saltmine, more than 100 metres underground. The Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland is said to have the best acoustic in the whole of Europe. Here's one piece of the recordings, Lava.

And now just shut up and enjoy.

                                                      Zbigniew Preisner - Lava

In The Spotlight

Did you know? In some Romanian villages it's forbidden to blow trumpets.

Since I ALWAYS carry around a trumpet (you never know when they come in handy), you can understand my dissapointement.
The pic was taken on a recent roadtrip to Transylvania, but more on that soon.

Something else now, I ended up second place in the video contest in Rotterdam. In case you don't remember, I talked about it here. Me and nine other nominees were selected as the finalists and the ceremony was held inside museum Booijmans. I arrived ten minutes before the show officially was supposed to start and hardly anybody was there. Besides me there were only two other people present looking just as insecure as me, "This IS the right place, right?" A girl who worked there luckily told me that the ceremony was delayed a bit because the video maker course (to which I was invited to but declined because I wanted to check out Rotterdam instead) was running overtime. The other part of the audience was just checking out the museum in the meantime so I did too, it was free after all. After about half an hour the whole happening was ready to start and we were asked to take a seat in a sort of theater room. In the end, about three hundred people were present (a guess).
When the room was filled some woman began talking about the strong response to the competition and the variety in amateur and professional participants and some more bla bla bla. Then the lights dimmed and the ten nominated shorts were shown back to back. When that was over, the jury was presented and they started talking about what video had earned third place without telling who it was. When the name and video was revealed I was a bit suprised because I found it to be amoung the worst of the 10 nominees, but ok, he was the only other Belgian amoung the finalists so I kinda rooted for him too......

After a few minutes, the jury began discussing the second spot. They talked about a video that showed the creation process in a cristal clear way and where the joy of making the movie, for the film maker as well as the "actors", could be seen. While listening to their comments I started thinking "Could they be talking about.......me??"
Then the words followed: "And the second place goes to ... (my name) and Uit Een Droom!" I had to come on stage to shake the jury's hand, recieved a bouquet of flowers and a package with an Ipad. There was a bit embarrassment going down (for me) when the women presenting the show gave me a hand as well and I thought I was supposed to give her three kisses so I moved my head forward towards her face and she just looked at me like "Uhm, what are you doing?!". She then spoke through the microphone "Ooh, you want a kiss from me huh?" all I could say was "uuhh......yes?" and then finally the whole three kisses thing took place......facepalm....

They showed some clips of my movie while I was on stage and asked me some questions about why I chose the subject and such. I was a bit nervous so I tried to make a joke to ease myself and said that I also wanted to thank my father for falling asleep and to start snorring spontaneously in front of the camera. I'm so glad the audience laughed because a dead silence would have sunk me under the stage floor out of shame. When the winner was announced it was picture time and a few photographers started a flash attack, clickclickclickclickclickckclick......I'm not sure where they all are supposed to end up but one of them was kind enough to email his to me.

That's me on the right

When the show was over a reception took place, you know, free wine and snacks and such. Everyone was standing in the usual circles and I was kinda sad I couldn't share the moment since I was there alone. After a while I found some nice persons to talk to though so it was alright. And the vegan bitterballen were quite good. A couple of people came to congratulate me and then the thing was over. 

I have zero interest in gadgets like Ipads, so I gifted it to my mother, love ya mom! She now gets lessons from one of her friends how to use the thing properly.

And there you have it, my five minutes of fame!

On the creation side it has been a bit calm lately and don't really have much to show. Of course, I was on a vacation so that's part of it, but we'll see, when it come it comes.

And don't forget!!! The drawing contest regarding the 50th youtube subscriber (€50 prize) is still running!!! All you have to do is make a drawing about anything regarding Dropping Gems and send it to yannickv@hotmail.be to make a chance! I already recieved a massive amount of drawings so far from all over the world  (especially from Ravensburger employees somehow, thanks guys!) but it's not too late since the competition runs till the 30th of september!!

There's a good chance you haven't heard of Pastor TL Barret and there's no shame in that cause I don't think he's that well known. He was a Pastor and activist in Chicago and made top notch gospel records with choirs from the ghetto. The piece "Blessed Quietness" is pure instrumental though, but it's a pure jazz gem (no pun intended) if you ask me.

And now just shut up and enjoy.

                                               Pastor T.L. Barret - Blessed Quietness

Ass & Bass

I went clubbing the other night. Knowing you guys, to be clear, it wasn't anything involving baby seals but everything involving a discotheque. Years have passed since I set foot in such a place so I was a bit out of the loop regarding dresscodes. Big tip: they don't like crocks.
Once inside with the right kind of footwear, the fun began. Just doing your thing and enjoy yourself and of course, checking people out. Some people were a bit very energetic and pumped. When some girls started twerking (not aimed at me....) I bursted out laughing. There's nothing wrong with twerking, it's sexy, but this act was hilarious to me. The whole "LOOK AT MY ASS! LOOK AT MEEE! HAVE YOU SEEN MY ASS GOING UP AND DOWN??". In an attempt to mingle with the crowd I got whipped in the face several times by long hair flailing around. But no pain, no gain right? All in all, it was a fun night.
There was this one song they played a few times that night and granted, it gets the crowd going. You'll get the link below, don't worry.

Ghost in the house!

Light and dark

Doodling time at work again....

At home it developed into this:

Oh and regarding the 50 youtube subscribers, you can earn 50 euro!! All you have to do is send a drawing about Dropping Gems (this blog you know) to the following email adress: yannickv@hotmail.be

To give everyone, young and old, a fair chance an innocent hand will pick the winner. Naturally, the winning drawing will be posted in a future blogpost, maybe with a bit of information about yourself. 

But now let's draw to a close, Revolution by R3hab and co is a pure partyblaster and don't deny it. Ladies and gentlemen, start your twerking!

And now just shut up and enjoy.

                                    R3hab & NERVO & Ummet Ozcan - Revolution

Double Down

Small update: Aaaaaaaaw yeaaaaaaaaahhhhh! The youtube channel hit 50 subscribers.

Granted, this doesn't mean a whole lot cause this blog and the YT channel are seperate things in general. Still, with some videos clocking in a few thousand views, even up to 20.000, it is bound that some fools will be tricked into clicking on...uh, I mean, some people looking for valuable literature, will click on the bloglink.
What this means is that every day an internet traffic jam comes my way on a scale they only experienced in Bangkok until now. Why the last 25 subs came so much faster than the first 25, no idea, but handing out flyers while swinging a huge bell on the streets of Turnhout must have done the trick.

I'm planning to create a form of contest like last time, but I've not decided yet what it'll be exactly. You'll hear about it in the near future.

You know, I like to listen to movie soundtracks from time to time and whenever something of Georgy Sviridov comes by, I get the feeling they don't make soundtracks like he did anymore. Just the same with Ennio Morricone. These gentlemen composed pieces of soundtrack where you can hear right away you're in for something special. What you'll hear now is what our Russian friend created for "Snowstorm", a film originating from his birth country.

And now just shut up and enjoy.

                                               Georgy Sviridov - Spring and Autumn

A plain sight

What luck. Doctor Steve Brule has always been my mentor, a guiding light, and now I have learned he's into space too, just like me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogSLdqzOvcI

At work, there are moments when I have some time to spare. If I have a piece of paper at hand I'll try to doodle a bit and take the works home for further "development" if something seems fit for a better rendition

The second one looked like it could belong in my series of fantastical creatures so let's try to make it a full drawing now.

Cool, I wanted to make it look a bit Savana like with the grass turned yellow and orange by drought. 

This is pretty much how I had it in mind so far. The colouring of the creature itself started to worry me a bit though. I didn't want to use yellow and red on it or it would blend too much into the background, brownish would be too dull and green tints didn't look right in my head. I opted for blue then (again, like the other ones).

I'm still not sure if it fits really well, though I don't think it's really bad either. But I'd say camouflage is not it's strong point....

Great Multus Bicodulum:

Lives on the the plains of Estraldar. Eats mostly leaves and grass, but will occasionally feed on small mice and bunny-like animals. Uses it's tail to snatch prey out of their holes and strangle them, but is also used to impress females where it moves in wave patterns. Can live up to 85 years old and grow 2,5 meter high. Legend says that during a full moon, the tail end emits fluorecent colours that can hypnothise even man, causing a full erase of the entire memory. To date, there has not been evidence of such behaviour.

Pearl Jams Eddie Vedder has a voice you recognise immediatly, like all good singers should have. He made the soundtrack for the great movie Into The Wild a few years ago. Here's one of my favorites from the ost, Long Nights.

And now just shut up and enjoy.

                                                Eddie Vedder - Long Nights