Jeroen van Neijhof

Every now and then on Twitter I contacted by someone who stops me in my tracks. Jeroen van Neijhof followed me mid week and I clicked on his images and found them difficult to believe to be perfectly honest.

Jeroen works in a mixture of formats - with paper (which he cuts and folds and paints into incredibly life like forms) - check out the owl I have taken as an example. He also works with airbrushing in a more traditional 'painters' style of drawing and painting, but with incredible detail and life like accuracy.

I have chosen to show his animals particularly because I have never seen fur recreated in the same outstanding vivid quality.

Jeroen also delivers the most intense eyes - I can't imagine how anyone could capture an eye with the same glassy organic quality. I felt like it was time to just admit defeat on the question of realism when I saw these eyes. I can't even feel jealous becaus they seem so impossibly good.
 

Here is another wonderful quality of this artist. I have found him to be enormously supportive and communicative. It's like it's not really enough for him to be possessed of this joyous talent - he wants everyone else to open themselves up to the possibility that, if you challenge yourself, you might be able to do this too.

When I asked him particularly about his rendering of fur and hair he was very quick to respond with pointers and resources to help me understand what he was doing.

Simply looking through his timeline of images you can easily find instruction (as these images show) on what he does. It's like seeing an amazing magician who then shows you the illusion afterwards.

Jeroen van Neijhof is clearly the real thing. He has dedicated himself to his art and his friendly unpretentious approach is enormously endearing. It's an unusual combination.

He is not a fence sitter either and he is quite outspoken on his twitter feed on the subject of the Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin, money for old rope school of pretentiousness. I think this is wonderful - you don't have to agree with his opinion to simply understand that to know where you stand is a value in itself.

You can visit Jeroen's website here and I was shocked by how affordable his work is to commission.