Every day presents an exciting challenge for me,as I'm lucky to live in a beautiful environment which provides me with endless inspiration & new ideas.

I enjoy creating things and try my hand at almost everything,painting pictures,restoring antiques; from furniture and statues to documents and paintings.

Apart from that I try my hand at carpentry,plastering and house painting,etc.

If a challenge arises I like to tackle it...my last project is a mosaic seat,pics will follow on my stream in a few weeks.

A lot of my time is also divided between my huge garden and my animals,exchanging my care for them into unconditional love from them for me :-)

My biggest battle is with time as there are never enough hours in a day to complete the things I would like to do.

Photoshop is one of the best inventions of modern age for me,it's hard for me to go without it for too long.

I would have preferred to have been born 100 years ago,at the time when the Art Nouveau style was in vogue,the motor car had only just been invented and was a novelty intead of a pest.

There was a revival among artists and many great styles in art and design evolved.

But there was no Photoshop...

The styles I work in wildly vary from classic to abstract,sometimes with a romantic streak,sometimes focussed on unusual color combinations,like a liquorice allsorts selection I suppose...

Unfortunately I am sharing only very few of the images I create on Flickr,because of plagiarism and finding my creations on others' websites in the past...

I love silence...

But also like to listen to music while doing Photoshop,my fave artists are:

Schiller,ATB,Atman,Enigma,Kai tracid,Deep Forest,Sarah McLachlan,Enya and so on,mainy Chillout and Trance,no Heavy metal or rap.

And of course still like golden oldies like Pink Floyd,Led Zeppelin and Electric Light Orchestra.

I love books...

And am lucky to have built up my own library.The books were mainly bought cheaply at auctions and garage sales.There are many first editions and rare books among them.

The main categories are Art,Design and Photography.

In all there are about 2600 books in my collection.

I love collecting stuff...

The most valuable collection would have to be my banknotes from all over the world.

Mainly very old notes,no recent ones,some restored by me,it's an eclectic lot,not collected for the value,but for the quality of design and appearance.I love to open the albums and marvel at the fine engravings and graphics.

My fave section would be Russian paper money.

I love travelling...

But hate the car for the destruction it has brought and the noise and pollution it causes.

Have a look at 16th Century paintings of the coutryside by Dutch painters like Ruysdael of my native Noord Holland and have a look at the present state,and you see what I mean.

People seem to have a love affaire with their car,most can't imagine life without.

I have never had a car,have never been able to drive and do all my travels by bike,bus,ferry,plane or on foot.

My preference would have been to step on a train,but unfortunately most of the lines are closed here,and the government is spending the money on building more motorways.

My plans for the future are...

Making a fountain,I have started the basics already...

Ride my new electric bike over the hills (but I lost the keys to start the motor)

Plant some more native trees...

Get a better computer so I can run Photoshop CS4,I only have an office laptop which groans under the heavy burden of CS2...

Thank you for visiting and sharing.

Flickr has been a fantastic way of learning and participating,there are many talented and very generous people around and meeting them has been a true highlight :-)