Sketches

Wednesday 31 December 2014

Maastricht 2014

The last post of 2014. A scene made in the rain (actually more like drizzle). I glued paper towels in my moleskine book, and watched the water flow, the raindrops added to the strange effect. Made during lunchbreak.

Thursday 25 December 2014

More Liège : 8 and 11


More drawings from Liège. The bottom one is the view over the river, from the 18th floor of the city administration building. The top drawing I made during a live concert in the St. Balthelemy church. Gerard Michel and the emulation invited us for a baroque concert, but our USK-group would make drawings during the concert of course. I restricted myself with just a general view, as I did not have all my drawings tools with me. The music was great. 

Chemicals

More experimenting with glued on paper, in this case I used "tracing paper" with acrylic binder (here that paper is called calque.
Impression of the ACN chemical plant in Geleen. They were burning fumes during maintenance works in the plant. The scene is a bit different from reality, the watercolour does not let itself steer in the same way as on normal paper.

Tuesday 23 December 2014

Liège from above


Another few images from the Liège drawing days with USK.
This time we were on top of a high rise in the centre of town, in the city administrative building, 18th floor.
Actually, the top floors had been deserted for years, we had a special allowance from the mayor himself to use these floors.
It was also the location of the interview with Gerard Michèl and Lapin, for Belgian television, in which I was shown drawing as well.
Obviously I was not interviewed, my French is not that good.

Sunday 21 December 2014

Volterra: a wrinkled terrace

Experimenting with urban sketching and wrinkled paper. It's funny, the watercolour will let itself steer very stubbornly on the glued on calque paper. So you have to concentrate on the major forms and values. A good exercise, how to tell a story with limited information.

Thursday 18 December 2014

Liège nr 19

Abandoned steelfactory in Ougrée, drawn in September with the USK group in Liège.

The group hard at work. David, Antoine, Inma, Miguel, and further away: Fabien, Simonetta, Gerard and Luis.

Tuesday 16 December 2014

Capice


Now for something completely different.
Here is a composition I once composed, maybe 10 years ago.
Made the song up myself, played all instruments with help of electronic synthesisers and found samples.
The voices you'll hear are from the GTA game, one of the very first versions.

Sunday 14 December 2014

More art class portraits


Two more portraits with glued on paper, this time calque drawing paper. It's semi-transparant paper that architects use to design their buildings on. Maybe better: they used to draw on that, it's hard to get nowadays. Anyway: I had forgotten to take coloured flimsy paper, but by accent had this paper with me.
After some experimenting I found that the paper only wrinkles in one direction, which I used by tearing it in stripes and gluing it in slightly changing angles.
Then a few lines with inktense pencil. And sparse watercolour, simply let it flow.
Fantastic technique. Try it!

Saturday 13 December 2014

Art class portraits

Art class. Kitchen paper tissue glued onto regular paper, with acrylic binder.
Then painting with watercolour. As the binder is absorbed randomly by the kitchen tissue, the watercolour will flow with unexpected results. At some parts it would not dry at all, and I had to wait some time to evaporate. With a little help of an old hair-dryer. Well, I don't need it any more.

Wednesday 10 December 2014

Liège 3rd


The 3rd drawing of the Laporello that I made in Liege.
And a picture of the camera tripod that I use as drawing board, in this case rather high up on a wall.
As a nice detail: Lapin was standing next to me drawing the view into the other direction. And that was actually the second time, two years ago we both did the same view on an earlier USK meeting.

Monday 8 December 2014

More surprises


Here are all the presents I produced.
The birdhouse is for my daughter, to celebrate the new house: the street they now live in is called "koeweide" (cow's meadow).
And the exchange of the presents, with a nice meal of home-made lasagne of my own special and secret recipe.

Sunday 7 December 2014

Sinterklaas 2014

Like each year with Sinterklaas I made a few presents.
Sinterklaas is a Dutch tradition of giving presents to children at December 5th, the anniversary of St. Nicholas. When the kids get older this is often replaced by exchanging surprise presents. In our house the tradition grew that I make all the presents.
Here are 2 out of 4: the present for my son Mart. He recently bought a motorscooter and a bowl with black fish. The other is the present for my wife, Gertie. She has some health issues with her hands, called the "Carpaal tunnel syndrome". Also known as "sleeping hands".

Thursday 4 December 2014

Liège overlooking the city.

You may remember that back in September I spend 4 beautiful days sketching in the streets of Liège, on invitation of Gerard Michel and the Emulation. The result was a 5 meter long strip with 26 drawings. This is one of the first drawing, a view over the city. One of my fellow sketchers Fabien was sitting on a wall overlooking the city.

Tuesday 2 December 2014

Last of the Volterra sketches

The last few of the Volterra sketches. One of the porches into the city, located on a higher level, with view over the Toscany hills. And a sketch of one of the students while mastering aperture levels of their cameras.