Nico Leenstra is a pastel artist from Groningen, the Netherlands. With his portraits, he aims to capture our inner worlds and experiences, while using birds to help convey the story.
"Originally trained as a psychologist, I am ever fascinated by people's inner affairs, and in my paintings those are still the worlds I want to explore. And I simply love birds. Birds represent so many things. Character. Freedom. Companionship. Feelings of home. Strength and vulnerability. The return of summer. I learned that to some people, birds hold an even deeper personal meaning, and since then I started seeing them as the avatars of our inner worlds. Visually, birds and people work along elegantly, and I guess that, along with creating the imagery that I really like, I want to share this vision of how connected we truly are."
Depending on size, a portrait can take 30-80 hours. His ideas spring from all sorts of sources, such as songs, books, photographs, experiences, family life and friends.
"As an idea forms in my mind, I search for more solid reference material that matches this vision. A bird, a face, a landscape, leaves. I jumble them together and start experimenting with different compositions. No fancy software, no polishing. Just me getting some anchor points and a plan for the drawing process. I then transfer those anchor points onto paper using my scale divider, and start drawing free-hand from there. This gives me both structure and tons of ways to make my own subjects and decisions as I go."
The results are realistic paintings with a dreamy quality, for people loving those soft natural colors from outdoors and looking for an introspective, softly-spoken statement piece.