Getting a present

It was my big birthday recently and I got lots of nice presents.

When your friends are artists you can be sure that some of the presents are going to be paintings.

It was very exciting opening these neatly wrapped, flat looking presents



These three beautiful prints are from my friend Piet Grobler. They are from his book “Carnival of the Animals”.

I love the elephant.

Then I looked at the mules and I love them too!

And the tortoises. I love them all!

This painting is from my old friend Jakub Stretti. It’s a sketch from France.

It’s rather special to me, since I used to travel and paint with Jakub when we were teenagers and we also studied together at the Academy of Fine Art  in Prague.

This pastel is done by Petr Faltus.  Another friend I studied with and who I’ve known since my teenage years.



And then I got this print from my friends Martina and Alan.

It’s an original print by Jiri Šalamoun. Martina and Alan are not artists, but they know what I like.  Šalamoun is one of my favourite artists and illustrators.

I’m struggling with enough wall space, but all these pictures are now framed and ready to be hung.

Oh yes, two more pictures I wanted to show.



This little mouse is from Edith, my eight year old neice. Very nice.

And this masterpiece is from Vincent who is thirteen years old and who teaches me from time to time how to fish.

It’s me fishing in the picture. A rather good drawing, but what else you would expect from somebody called Vincent?