One of my treasured childhood memories is when my dad, my mum and I went ice skating on "de Breek". We lived in a little town called Landsmeer, with a nature reserve called Het Twiske across the road and another nature reserve called Het Ilperveld behind our house. As you probably know we have a lot of water in the Netherlands. Actually our house was surrounded by water.
Anyway..... ice skating..... that was what I was planning to write about, so here I go.
My best friend Belinda was living just a few minutes from my house, on the other side of the road, next to de Breek a very large water area in Het Twiske. In the summer we loved to swim there but in the winter when we were lucky and it was freezing really hard, you were able to skate on de Breek! Now personally I've never been a good ice skater, but that doesn't mean I didn't love to go on skating trips with my mum and dad. I loved everything about winter and I still do!!!! Ome Bert (translates to Uncle Bert) was Belinda's father and not actually my uncle, but I called her father and mother my uncle and aunt. And Ome Bert was the "chef" from the ice rink on de Breek. I clearly remember him driving in his car over the same water that we used to swim in in the summer! He used this car to clean the ice from snow and keep it open for the kids and everybody else to skate on. That car on the ice with my Ome Bert in it, made a really big impression on me, I thought it was really heroic, because how could you be sure you wouldn't drive into a "wak" (that's how we call a hole in the ice).
While I was painting this painting, this memory popped up in my head, just like the famous "koek and zopie" and "ilperveldtocht", both inextricably linked with the ice skating in Landsmeer and our neighbour town Den Ilp.
So, to me this painting is special, it's framed and staying in my home.
Is it the best watercolorpainting that ever was made? Probably not, but hey, I just started painting in watercolor for about three weeks ago....
To me, the painting is just as it should be, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Greetings Katinka
