Saumur, the castle (2)

 

Another view of the castle, this time overlooking the city and the Loire.

Saumur (France), the castle (1)

 

Just returned from a lovely holiday in France, in the Loire valley. We stayed at a holiday camp near Saumur, together with my son and our grandchildren Finn (6) and Zara (5). One of the days I went up to the castle, high above the town, and made a few sketches. One of those is this one, on tinted paper.

Robots on Mars

 

I made this painting on request of my grandson, Jake. He wanted something with planets and rockets. So I made this one, size 50x60cm. He was very happy with this.

 

AI images experiment (2)

I made above ink drawing (another step after the last AI image of the previous session, I added the Greek statue of Nike of Samothrace, it can be seen in the Louvre). I did reverse prompting of this image, and used that text to generate new images. I used different AI generation programs, even though the themes are similar, the outcome is very different.

From top left to top right: GPT image1, google imagen4, Stable Diffusion 3.0. Bottom: Classipeint XL, Flux dev, google imagen3.

 

AI images experiment (1)

 

An experiment with creative use of AI. 

I used an old drawing (La piscine des erreurs, from september 2016), applied reverse prompting and used the resulting texts (with some adaptations) to generate a few AI images. I used stable diffusion 3.0 through the Openart platform. Most of the results were not to my liking, I noticed that you will need some tweaking of the prompts to get nice results. Then I used one of the better images as inspiration to make a new drawing. See above, the one with the drapes. 

Then I converted the drawing through reverse prompting into an AI image again, see below. I will use that one to draw something new again. Interesting results. 

 

Amersfoort, USk-NL day (2)

 

Forgot to post this one. Not 100% content, but that's okay. My aunt lives in Amersfoort, she is 99 years old, will be 100 in November. She has a painting of this scene hanging in her apartment, dating from about 1940 or so. But even though that one is a winter scene, nothing much has changed since then.

Helle (Nuth)

 

Just returned from a trip with my bike. Went to Helle, a small hamlet near my town. I stood in the fileds, along a footpath (which is part of the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrim route to Compostella in Spain), to make this drawing. Forgot my watercolour, but I am okay with this.

Linkin Park in Arnhem

 

I went to the Linkin Park concert in Arnhem, last Thursday. Together with my son, Mart. A great concert and a valuable father-son moment.

Amersfoort, USk-NL day

 

We organized another National Urban Sketching day in Amersfoort. There were about 300 sketchers in town. Even gthough it was quite hot (>31 degrees Celcius), we had a great day. But it is a beautiful old Dutch town. With canals, tiny streets, ancient gabeled houses, and these kind of old fortifications. I tried watercolour pencils (W&N) on toned paper, with some parts in white gouache.

Agnes, portrait in oils

 

Last live portrait session before the holiday. Agnes, oil paint on board, 40x50 cm. Took me about 2 hours to make. IT was a long time since I used this technique: no drawing, add painted directly and washed it out. I used water based oil paint by Talens-Cobra.

Stein: remains of the castle

 

2 pages from my sketchbook: made this morning: the ruins of the former castle of Stein. I was in the neighbourhood for some bicycle maintenance; I took the opportunity to go and sketch the castle.

Nash Airflyte 1951

I was cycling through Heerlen, when I happened to spot this beautiful, freshly restored Nash from 1951. It stood on a parking lot, luckily I happened to have my sketchgear with me.
 

Little monsters

 

2 fantasy monsters, just scribbling away.

Coney Island

Started a new painting, after a picture I took on Coney Island, NY, in 2019. In the sketch you can see the Ferris wheel between the buildings. Size 60x50, oilpainting. this is the basics: the underpainting. Just to show how I block in the large elements in toned areas. The real work begins now.

USk Maastricht: Faliezusters

 

Another one from the Maastricht Urban Sketching meeting. Het Faliezustersklooster. Made rather quick, maybe half an hour.

USk Maastrcht: de Helpoort

I organized an Urban sketching meeting in Maastricht. We were about 12 sketchers, it was nice weather and we had a great day. Above the group. Below my take on the Helpoort (gate to Hell), the oldest city gate in the Netherlands. Acrylic gouache on toned paper.

Raketenstation (Missile station)

 

2 pages from my sketchbook: drawing architecture at the "Raketenstation" in Hombroich (Germany). According to the rumours the NATO used to store cruise missiles here during the last years of the cold war. But since then the terrain with all its bulidings was converted into an artist area and museum park, with musuems buildt by renowned architects. Above: the Langen Foundation building by Tandao Ando. Below: the "Musikhaus" by Raimund Abraham. 

Actually, the museum was closed, but I managed to visit the terrain anyway.

Zeche Zollverein (2)

 

After te rain stopped, I went to this view, to paint the long rows of former coke ovens. I made a sketch years ago on the same location ( https://renefijten.blogspot.com/2017/05/zeche-zollverein.html ), tried it with gouache this time. A very complicated painting, I quite underestimated it. In the end I ran out of time, had to do some touchups at home.

Zeche Zollverein

 

Painting made in an old, abandoned cokes producing plant in Germany, Zeche Zollverein. It was raining outside, So I deceided to paint a detail in the interior.

Wil, portrait

 

Live portrait session, Wil. Acrylic on paper, 50x70cm.