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 First published February 20th 2007
Ad Swier Dutch artist and pike fanaticWhen I look at the wall above my fishing book shelf I see a large frame with three sea trout flies and a beautiful colored drawing of a school of sea trout in a night ocean. The drawing was one I cut from a calendar with pictures by Dutch Ad Swier. This calendar presented 12 of Ad's fantastic drawings, and for many years it delivered the staple of my fishing wall decoration. I first met Ad and his art in the Netherlands when tying at FlyFair. Ad was a part of the Örganizatiön (or how they spelled it...) behind the fair, and both himself and his beautiful drawings were present at the show. When I started rounding up artists for this series, Ad was on my absolutely top priority list, and he agreed on participating. As with the other artists, I asked Ad what started his career and what made him choose fish as a subject. “Since I'm a fly fisherman this may sound only logic.” he says “But I also do a lot of birds, cartoons, nudes etc. and when I started drawing I also did a lot of animals as well as fish.” When studying at the Academy of Arts Ad's first stone lithograph was a pike chasing a group of rudd, and motifs like that have been present in his art many times since. Ad uses various methods, but he explains: “Pencil is what I really love to do. But most of my work is in oils and watercolor.” Ad's style is light and very realistic, and most of his fish art depicts fish in their natural environment. One of the characteristics of the calendar that I have and of many of Ad's other fish pictures is that a part of the fish or some other detail may break the frame and protrude into the whitespace surrounding the image. Ad is a full time artist, but as he says: “I also do a lot of journalist work and photography”. His articles appear in books and magazines – end even here on GFF – and Ad has recently published a book on pike fishing under his own name.
“I sell originals as well as prints”, he tells us. “And I do a lot in commission. Meaning: a client wants for instance a leaping sailfish. We agree on size and price and technique. Then I make sketches he or she can see. When all is OK I start to paint. My clients can always come to visit and see how the work is progressing.” Ad lives and works in a small town called 's-Heerenbroek at the borders of the gorgeous river IJssel. See his contact information in the fact box below.
More fishy art:
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Submitted February 27th 2007
I love it. My favorite it the king fisher. The water is outstanding. Well done. -Derek