Art Olympic Style! I had a blast traveling to beautiful Arnhen, the Netherlands, to paint up an Olympic style 3D balance beam at the World Street Painting Festival this summer! Joining many of my peers and good friends from the streetpainting community for the third edition of this fun festival, a good time was had by all.
My gracious hosts Mike and Marieke partnered me with the terrific Museum Arnhem to create a multi-surface image in their art garden. What a pleasure and boy did I feel pampered! The staff at the museum took very good care of me and the local scenery was something straight out of a Dutch master painting. Despite rain off and on, the environment was superb! With all the artists scattered around the city, the festival created a guide map for visitors to use as a walking tour to see all the wonderful works.
Olympic Theme
This year’s festival theme was ‘The Olympics’ and anything goes! I created this piece called ‘Balance’ which not only showcased an Olympic gymnast in action, but allowed for viewers to try out their own balance on the 3d balance beam. The beam was a little extra wide so there was plenty of room to have groups of people balancing all at once. Needless to say the festival was a huge success this year as everyone made fantastic art works! The 3dStreetpaintings were created using local paint vendor Amsterdam Paints, who sponsored the festival with paint supplies this year, which is a really nice way to support streetpainting in Holland.
My favorite indulgence in Arnhem was eating the fresh out of the oven ‘stroopwafels’, courtesy of local artist David. Also really glad I had a lovely few days in Utrecht with friends Leon, Marije, Remko, Ruben and Adry after the event, with another day touring the museums of Amsterdam. Can’t wait to return again soon! I love the Netherlands!
