Votivkirche

A drawing of the Votivkirche. Our hotel was next to it, we had a nice view from our window to the backside of this neo-gothic church.
I managed to spend half an hour after breakfast to make this drawing, just before we left for the city centre of Vienna for a visit to the Prater and the Hundertwasserhouse.
If you look closely to the picture of me in action (posted a few days ago), you can see this drawing on the other page of the Prater view drawing.

Schloss Schönbrunn

When you are with a group of friends (6), you don't get the time to make nice drawings. You have to steal a moment here and another there.
In this case, we made the tour in the castle Schönbrunn, just outside Vienna. We visited the rooms and exhibitions, and made a nice long walk though the park in the warm sun. We ended on a beautiful terrace with some nice cold icecoffee and a beer, in full view of the castle.

But drawing that facade would have been totally uninteresting, at least from where we sat.
So I decided to draw the icecoffee.
After all, it's less important what you draw, as long as it represents the memories of the place.

Vienna, Wenen

Vienna! (Wenen; Wien) We just returned from a visit to the city: me, my wife and some good friends.
We had very good weather, at least until Saturday, when it started raining.
It was the first time I visited the city, I always thought it was a bit old fashioned, boring and uncool. Well, was I wrong! I loved it there.
Visited the center, the Hofburg, Schloss Schönbbrunn, the Prater, Hundertwasserhaus and so on.
Here is the impression of the city centre, as seen from the old and famous Ferris wheel in the Prater (a large park). I drew and painted this during the trip, which lasts about 10 minutes.

Music!

I discovered that I forgot to post this sketch of the sketchcrawl a few weeks ago. This was a brass band called "Miserabel", they played all through our crawl.
But they definitely did NOT sound "Miserabel"!

I have a lot of respect for the guys playing the Sousaphone; that thing must be so heavy! And you never get to play the solo.

A chianina calf

This Chianina calf was just a few days old. They are born with very long legs, longer than what you would expect from a cow. They look more like Bambi than to a regular calf.
Anyway, the farmers wife put her hand in the calfs mouth, and he was desperately sucking it all the time as I made this drawing. He probably thought there was milk.
I had to make this sketch really quick, just within a few minutes, afraid that the scene would change.

Chianina

Today we visited a cattle farm in Sibbe (near Valkenburg). The parents of Tamara, a friend of ours, own a Chianina farm. The Chianina are a rare breed of Italian cattle, originally from around Florence, and they own the only Dutch farm where these cows and bulls are bred.
I am not a cow aficionado, but these are very beautiful animals. White, sturdy and huge: bulls can easily reach up to 2 meters, and weigh 1600kg (the weight of a small Landrover). They are the largest race of cattle worldwide. But most beautiful are the calves: the first few months they are brown and stand on very tall legs. With these legs and their large eyes they almost resemble to Bambi!

King Willem Alexander

Yesterday our Queen Beatrix resigned, and was followed up by our new King Willem Alexander. The first man to take the throne after some 120 years.
The installation was in Amsterdam, but there were festivities all over the country. We went to Eindhoven, where the festivities were dedicated to the youth: spread all over the city centre I counted at least 9 podia, with deejays playing Hiphop, Dance and House music. Also a few live bands.
These two (not so young) Dutchmen were sitting on a low wall enjoying a glass of beer in the Spring sun on the central market place, watching the official ceremonies on the big overhead screens. While enduring the heavy beats and deep basses of the music.

Below a sketch of the freemarket near the PSV stadium. Even if it was pretty crowded, it was not as lively as the one in Utrecht that we visited in recent years.    

More Sketchcrawl

I tried a different technique, on larger format, of the people enjoying the music of the band "Miserabel".

Sketchcrawl sketches 2

A guy selling marmelade and self made juices, made during the sketchcrawl.

Sketchcrawl sketches 1

A Sketchcrawl sketch: Kelsey, Jacqueline and Pim in action.

Sketchcrawl 39

Gisteren hadden we een geslaagde sketchcrawl! We stonden in Heerlen bij het raadhuis, tijdens de kunstmarkt, als onderdeel van de Jaarmarkt. Het was ondanks de straffe wind toch wel goed weer: fris, maar wel met een fraai zonnetje.
Ook was er veel live muziek, dat dan ook een gewillig onderwerp voor veel tekeningen vormde.
We waren met 18 crawlers van 3 nationaliteiten; vooral het enthousiasme van de groep was erg geslaagd.
Bovenste rij vlnr: Nico, Pam, Glenis, Arthur, Ruud, Robert, Margriet, Agnes, Annette, Alma.
Onderste rij: Maria, Pim, René, Jos, Ankie, Tineke, Kelsey. Op de foto ontbreekt alleen Jacqueline.

Yesterday we had our 4th Limburg Sketchcrawl, this time in Heerlen. There was an art fair, with a lot of music and artists selling their work. We were lucky enough to have good weather, fresh but sunny (let's briefly forget about the wind, it's still the Netherlands). The group was quite large, 18 people of 3 nationalities, but the enthusiasm of the participants was heart-warming.
As always, I'll post the results the coming few days, on http://sketchcrawllimburg.blogspot.nl/

Timeline April: Martin Richard

Timeline (every 15th of the month I choose an image to draw) was easy this time: the Boston Marathon attack. Enough horrible pictures of the explosions aftermath, but none as impressive as this one.
This is the 8th year old boy Martin Richard, who got killed in the bomb explosion. His sister lost a leg, his mother suffered from brain damage. And he lost his life, only because he went looking for his father to finish the marathon.
May we all live by the words of the drawing that he put on Facebook: no more hurting people.

More Chemelot

Another lunchtime sketch today, somewhere on the chemical plant "Chemelot" (a.k.a. DSM-Geleen). Actually it was just five minutes walk, but it took some walking around to find an interesting spot.
Nowadays I am trying to be more carefull about choosing the right angle/composition, and what to draw and (occasionally) what to leave out.
I deliberately stopped a little early, in order not to lose myself into those little details that sometimes spoil a drawing. Did the last enhancements at home, just by memory, to try and catch what my eye remembered seeing.
I will still stick to reality, but I more and more feel that trying to capture the "spirit" of the subject is more important than correctly fitting in all the details.

Sketchcrawl april 20th

I am organizing another sketchcrawl next sarurday (I know, the real one was last saturday, but I was busy). This time: art market, Heerlen, 13.00 hours, assemble at the cityhall, entrance Geleenstraat. Want to join?

St. Odiliënberg

Another sketch returning from Roermond. A nice view across the fields to the Dutch village St. Odiliënberg. The church is the Basilica of the Saints Plechemus, Wiro and Otger. I must admit I never heard of them, but they founded this church in around AD 765. There is not much left of the original Roman basilica, most was "restored" in the 19th century, destroyed in the 2nd World War and rebuilt in the 50's.

Herkenrather Kapelle

Weather has been horrible for outside drawing lately; snow, frost and freezing wind. But since a few days the weather has improved!
So yesterday, returning from a visit to a client in Roermond, I passed this little chapel in the middle of some bare fields. It was located just across the border in Germany, and there it stood: quiet and alone, guarded by two huge solemn trees.
Time to stop the car and draw!

A large hat

 

Another life portrait session. This is Anne; she wore a very large flaboyant hat, and had a nice delicate face. Goal was to paint without linework or preliminary study; just go for it, using large brushes with dynamic strokes.

I am the most content about the second try, below the first painting. Both took about one hour to make, acrylic paint on paper 50x60cm.

Ton van der Velden

Ton van der Velden, one of the directors of Tebodin (the engineering company I work for), went into retirement last week. I was honoured to be asked to make this farewell present: a drawing of the Chemelot ACN plant in Geleen.
The last 15 years Ton was responsible for the international growth of our company in Eastern Europe, the middle east and south east Asia, but in the 90's he was director of Tebodin Maastricht. During that time this was one of the projects he worked on.
I handed the drawing over to Ton last thursday evening in our main office in The Hague; we had a good party afterwards. I really hope this drawing will be a token of our gratitude for everything he did for Tebodin.

Some of you may recall an earlier version of this drawing, made 3 months ago. Unfortunately that drawing was made in a sketchbook, so I couldn't tear it out. As the subject was so fitting for Ton's present, I remade the drawing (again on location) on decent paper 2 weeks ago.
The drawings was fitted in a nice frame 45x55cm, but I forgot to make a picture of that.

Carceri d'invenzione

Always loved Piranesi's work (1720-1778); I like his drawings even more than his etchings. Especially the "Carceri d'invenzione" series.
So I was thrilled to be able to visit the Piranesi exhibition in London (in the sir John Soane museum). As far as I am concerned, the highlight of the exhibition was a fantastic drawing of an architectural fantasy, consisting only of red chalk lines and brown ink. It inspired me to make this fantasy in the same style. My own carceri d'invenzione.

Timeline March

March 15, 2013. Another drawing in the Timeline series (I pick a newspicture every 15th of the month, I hope in december all these images together will tell something of 2013).
This is a young woman in Sofia protesting against the Bulgarian government after a man called  Dimitrov burnt himself as protest against corruption and unemployment. Original photo by Valentina Petrova.