New Year's jump

This is the first painting of a new series that I’m very excited about: I will create 12 paintings about Eindhoven, one for each month of the year, and then collect them in a calendar for 2022! I’m looking forward to this project very much but I’m also a little bit stressed out about it.

So for the first painting, I chose the Eindhoven historical village. Ever since I discovered this spot by the lake, I have wanted to paint it. It is on my morning running route, there’s few people there, and I always stop for a minute to admire the lake. There are always two geese around the lake. It is such a peaceful moment for me, and I wanted to re-create this feeling.

But you know that my paintings always have a little twist, so I needed to find one.

Then my bestie Piotr told me about the Dutch New Year’s Jump tradition. People welcome the new year by jumping into ice cold water! So I decided to combine the peaceful Dutch winter scenery with this funny tradition. Can you spot where the swimmer jumped into the lake?

Something a bit old, but the ideas are still new