Painting

The last post of this year. I wanted to do some painting again, this was based on a sketch of the Chemelot terrain, in Geleen. I posted it last October: http://www.renefijten.blogspot.com/2011/10/chemelot.html. Acryl 50x40cm.
Schilderij van het Chemelot terrein, Geleen, gebaseerd op een schets van 19 oktober.

Ludwig Museum

In Köln (Cologne) Rianne and I visited the Ludwig Museum for the exhibition "Before the law", with post-war modern sculpture. Personally I did not see anything that touched me.
I  found the regular exhibition to be better, with fantastic works of Roy Lichtenstein, Picasso and Max Ernst. Much to learn from them.
Here a sketch of a sculpture of Reg Butler, "figure in space", which was at display in front of a window overlooking the railroadbridge crossing the river Rhein.
Rianne en ik bezochten de tentoonstelling "Before the law" in het Ludwig museum in Keulen. Een bronzen beeld van Reg Butler, voor een raam met uitzicht op de Rijn.

La Pavoni

Last friday my daughter Rianne and I went to Köln, (Cologne), for visiting modern art and cute specialised shops. We had some tea and a perfect double espresso in a café next to the Kolomba museum. They had a huge amount of expresso machines on display, among others this fantastic huge La Pavoni.
Een heerlijke espresso in caffé perfetto, in Keulen. Daar stond deze prachtige La Pavoni espressomachine.

First window

My first stained glass window pane.
Actually it was an exercise panel (of my own design), to get acquainted with all the different aspects of stained glass making.
Of course, just by looking at it I am reminded of all the places where I went wrong.
I tell you, making this was not easy at all, all these tiny little pieces which never seem to fit!
But in the end it was worth all the trouble. 
Mijn eerste glas-in-lood oefen paneel, 30x40cm. Als ik ernaar kijk zie ik alle plekken waar ik de fout in ging. Volgende keer moet het beter kunnen.

Paysage

Yesterday I finished my first stained glass window. I will show it here later, I have to clean it first before I can make a decent picture.
This is my design for the next piece, 60x60cm. A fantasy landscape.
Ontwerp voor een glas in lood raam, ik heb mijn eerste oefenraam nu af.

First snow

This is the winter weather I like: this morning we woke up with a thin fresh layer of snow and crispy fresh air under a pale blue early morning sky. So I took my running shoes for a nice 12km through the hills, woods and fields around where I live. All I could hear were the crows and the crispy sound of fresh snow under my feet.

I had forgotten about this sketch of our visit to the Aachen Weihnachtsmarkt two weeks ago. I only drew a few lines back then, it was drizzling all the time, so I finished it yesterday evening. Always beautiful, these German Christmas markets.

Ron

The last of our drawings of pastel on coloured paper. This was today's live model, Ron. The drawing actually resembled him. 50x60cm., took me an hour to make.

Presently I can only post these kind of works; it's a busy time of year, not only with work but also private. I wish I could go out and sketch something. Anything.
Maybe in a week or so, when the Christmas holiday sets in.

White drape

Art class, last saturday. We are still proceeding on the pastel on prepared paper, this time accompanied with black oil pastels (siberisch krijt). The white cloth was done with acrylic paint. The model was very good, she stood still holding up the drape for two hours!
I am not 100% satisfied, I think I worked too long on this one (almost 2 hours).
about 40x60

Gertie 50 jaar

Gertie, my wife, celebrates her 50st birthday today. As the Dutch saying goes: she saw Sarah today. I can only wish for many more beautiful years together.
Above the surprise present I made for her, a small 3D-composition (25x25) of pictures of her youth.
And at the left the party invitation I made for our friends and family, which will be held tonight.
Gertie heeft Sarah gezien vandaag: 50 jaar! Boven de surprise die ik voor haar heb gemaakt, gemaakt van gescande en bewerkte oude foto's. Links de uitnodiging voor het feestje vanavond.

Annlee

This is the surprise gift for my son, Mart. Two years ago I visited the Modern Tate in London with him, and he still talks about the "Annlee" art exhibition. Also known as: "No ghost, just a shell", referring to the fact that non-real or virtual figures seem to be alive, but are just alive in our minds.
Unfortunately the poster was not available anymore, so I painted this piece as an personal version of the Annlee theme.
50x70cm, acrylic on prepared carton, I also used Chinese advertisement leaflets that I brought from a trip to Shanghai.

Surprise voor Mart, een poster voor een tentoonstelling in het Modern Tate over een Manga figuur "Annlee".

Surpise!

These are the suprise presents that I prepared for my family this year.
I showed the present for my wife in the previous post. The mirror was for Bob, he broke the right hand mirror of their new (old) car, I made a stained glass one for him.
The chicken clock was for Brenda, she visited the Rihanna concert, but had to wait for hours before Rihanna entered the stage.
The bachelor degree certificate was for Rianne, her cat Noortje needed a lot of attention this year.
I will post the painting I made for Mart separately.

Sint and Smurf

Sinterklaas, december 5th, time for giving presents and making little suprises. Here is the one I made for my wife Gertie. I wrote a rhyme with it, describing how Sinterklaas hired smurfs to help him (he ran out of Pieten), and they filled our house with smurfs. This makes fun of the fact that since a few weeks our children flew out, they live on their own now.
Sinterklaassurprise voor Gertie. Ons huis vol smurfen, ter vervanging van de kids, die tegenwoordig op kamers wonen.

Prepared paper and pastel

I was not able to buy coloured paper for the art class, no time to go to the art shop. So I took some leftover aquarel paper, let it dry in a wooden frame (to avoid wobbly paper) and pre-coloured it with acrylic in ochre, red  and burnt sienna.
During art class I made this life portrait with dry pastel and black oil pastel. I kind of like the effect of the underground. It took me an hour to make the portrait; 40x60cm.
Portret, droge pastel en siberisch krijt op geprepareed papier.

Shipbreaking

 

Still trying out my flex pen. This time a drawing inspired by a photograph of Edward Burtynsky of a shipbreaker yard in Bangladesh. The flexpen should be used before adding the colour, it loses it's subtlety when drawing on painted parts. Tekening gebaseerd op een foto van Burtynsky van een scheepssloperij in Bangladesh. Probeersels van mijn nieuwe flexpen.

Dumpster

Lunchbreak yesterday. I wanted to try out my new flex pen, but I had no opportunity to sketch later that day. So I looked out of the office (it's on the first floor) and just drew what I saw, a dumpster on the parking lot next tothe office. The pen feels very fine. Uitzicht vanuit ons kantoor, op de vuilcontainer op de parkeerplaats. Testen van mijn nieuwe flex pen.

Noodlers flex pen

Yeah. My long awaited Noodlers flex pen arrived. Took some effort and many weeks waiting before this one arrived from Goulet pens, California. Cost more on shipping and taxes than the pen itself ($ 14). It's a fountain pen with a very flexible nib, so you can draw lively lines with different thickness, just by pushing hard. My first trials are very satisfying; I used Bullet Black waterproof ink in the test above. Mijn nieuwe Noodlers flex vulpen arriveerde per post uit Californië. Hierboven de eerste probeersels, met watervaste vulpeninkt (Noodlers bullet black)

Pastels

I am very busy at the moment, no time to sketch. Trying to meet heavy deadlines at work, painting class, stained steel class, sports (running), family and household, and preparing little surprise presents for my family (Sinterklaas-St Nicholas  is coming up in two weeks). Obviously I can't show those self-made surprises here yet. So can only post what I did yesterday morning during art-class: a live model drawing, pastel on brown packaging paper, 50x70cm. Took me an hour to make.
Modelklas, gisterenmorgen, getekend met pastel op bruin pakpapier. Moeilijk vanwege het felle tegenlicht.

Room with a view

 

Last friday Rob Carey had this beautiful sketch on his blog, the view from his classroom window. 

http://kunst-by-rob.blogspot.com/2011/11/across-way.html

By sheer accident I also drew the view from my office window that same day. Spot the 10 differences. And try to tell who is the lucky guy. Afgelopen vrijdag tekende ik het uitzicht vanuit mijn kantoorplek. Toevallig deed Rob Carey hetzelfde vanuit zijn klaslokaal (zie link). Zoek de 10 verschillen.

Art class Yvonne

 

Art class, live portrait drawings, pastels on grey carton. Not my favourite material, but I think it turned out OK. Each took me about an hour to make, dimensions 50x70cm. Portretschilderen/tekenen, naar levend model, dit keer Yvonne. Pastel op grijs karton, niet mijn favoriet materiaal, maar wel leerzaam. Ook niet ontevreden eigenlijk.

 

Night of the Proms

Yesterday evening my wife, a friend and I went to Antwerp, to the yearly Night of the Proms. A combination of classical and popmusic. This year -among others- featuring the diva's (4 soprano's) Angie Stone (real old fashioned soul), Mike Hucknall (leadsinger of Simply Red) and the highlight of the evening: Seal. He knew how to play the public.
Gisteravond Night of the Proms in Antwerpen. Met dit jaar: de Diva's Angie Stone, Mike Hucknall en vooral... Seal. Geweldig.

Stained glass

My wife and I started another hobby: making stained glass windows. That's what you get when the kids leave the house: time to start to do those things you never got around to do.
Here you see the first results. It's painstaking work: you can't see the 12 hours of work that went into this piece so far, don't you? But very rewarding. I will keep you posted on the results.
Een nieuwe hobby voor Gertie en mij: glas in lood ramen maken. We zijn net de cursus bij Belmondo in Nieuwstad begonnen.

Colourfull autumn

Even though the weather is fantastic, and all the trees are dressed in all these beautiful bright colours, I have to spend my time working in an office located on a chemical plant. No time to go out and sketch. So I am left with lunchbreaks, drawing this view of industrial installations as seen from the parking lot of  "drie kruiken".
Mooi weer en prachtige herfstbomen, maar niet voor mij. Dit is mijn dagelijks uitzicht. Helaas.

Reactor vessel

Attempt to make a painting of one of the installations of the chemical plant next tomy present office. Acryl 30x30. Hmmmm. Not pleased yet.
Chemelot: poging tot een schilderij van een van de chemische fabrieken op het terrein naast ons kantoor.

Vianden, Luxemburg

Gertie and I had a nice long weekend in Vianden, Luxemburg. The weather was perfect for autumn, sunny and crispy fresh air. We made long walks, visited the castle, and toured through the surroundings. And had good food, like the cheese fondue I sketched below. The drawing of the castle was made while enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee in the local café du pont.
Lang weekeinde in Vianden, Luxemburg. Prachtig herfstweer, zonnig en lekker fris; perfect geschikt voor mooie wandelingen door de bosrijke omgeving. En niet te vergeten, goed eten.

Hands

Last weeks art class (yes, it started again). Two hours of drawing hands, just hands. Live drawing, looks easy but it wasn't. Oefening van het tekenen van handen, tijdens de masterclass potret en model schilderen.

Chemelot

Nowadays my desk is at a chemical plant, Chemelot-DSM in Geleen (Netherlands). When I look up from my laptop I see stacks, pipebridges, pumps, flares and vessels. This reactor is next to the office, but I have no idea what they produce here. I just see the orange neonlights reflecting in the vapour clouds coming from the cooling towers.
I brushed over my non-waterproof fountainpen drawing to get the grainy and gritty feel.
Mijn werkplek op het Chemelot terrein kijkt uit over de chemische fabrieken van DSM. Geen idee wat in deze plant wordt geproduceerd, hij staat naast ons kantoor. Gemaakt met niet-watervaste vulpeninkt en waterverf.

Java farmhouse

Experimenting with other tools. A bit like Sanjeev Joshi's style of painting/drawing, but not nearly as good as his. Wet-in-wet watercolour and sepia coloured paintbrushes. Based on a picture of an abandoned shed in Java, made during our biketour around Prambanan (Yogyakarta). Experimenten met nat-in-nat aquarel en paintbrush. Schuur in Java, vlakbij Yogyakarta.

Little India

After visiting the bright lights of the Marina, we went for the total contrast of Little India, just two metrostops away. All streets were decorated because of some kind of Indian festivity: Deepavali. The streets were still crowded (11 pm), and there were brightly coloured stalls selling all kind of Indian kitsch. This is a corner in Douglas street; evening lit grocery stores. We had some delicious Indian dinner shortly after.

Marina bay

Wednesday evening we took the metro to Raffles place and had this fantastic view over the Marina. What you see is the Marina bay casino, with a huge swimming pool on top. On the left a modern art museum.
Drawn on location, but painted at home, it was difficult to get the night feel right.

Jurong Island

On Wednesday we visited the building site for the new chemical plant I am designing. It is located on Jurong Island, an artificial island of about 30km2, just off the coast of Singapore city. The island is dedicated to heavy industry like ports, oil tanker parks and chemical plants.
There is heavy security before you can enter the island, sometimes taking more than an hour for making passes and security checks. For some reason you are not allowed to bring cameras to the island, so I had to fall back on pre-digital era tools like pen and ink. A quick sketch of the Lanxess building site.

Orchard road

I just returned from a quick visit to Singapore, for a building project I am working on. Me and my colleague Danny flew 12 hours on Monday to arrive in Singapore at 5 a.m. on Tuesday. We went to all kind of meetings untill 6 pm., and took dinner in a Japanese restaurant near our hotel on Orchard road. Which is the shopping heart of Singapore. I have never seen so many multi-story shopping malls so close to each other in my life. Next morning (still bothered by jet lag) I went out before breakfast to make this sketch of the Ion shopping mall. Painted it in the plane back home.
Afgelopen week een kort bezoek aan Singapore voor een nieuwbouw project.
Schets van een van de ontelbaar vele shopping malls op Orchard road, het shopping centrum van Singapore.

Singapore

I am in Singapore right now. Sketches will follow.

Renault Alpine

My present desk is at a chemical plant, so no nice lunchtime walks to the Maastricht citycenter. When I get bored during lunchbreak I sketch something like this. One of the most beautiful cars in the 70s car rally championships: the Renault Alpine. Schets van een Renault Alpine.

Bachelor degree

Yesterday Rianne, my daughter, received her Bachelor degree  in Biomedical science, speciality Molecular Lifesciences, from the University of Maastricht.
I am sure that I pronounced the name of her speciality wrong, but what the hell do I know of microbiology.... (I tried reading her thesis but gave up after the first page).
I am sure about one thing though. I am very proud of her.
Gisteren ontving Rianne haar Bachelor diploma aan de universiteit, in Biomedische wetenschappen (of hoe dat tegenwoordig mag heten). Ik ben een trotse vader.

Pierre Perthuis

 Last of the images from the painting week in the Morvan. Above a sketch of the double bridge at Pierre Perthuis (not some french guy: the village is called that way). Didn't like the location sketch at first, so I added some spattered leaves to it. Also two pictures of our group in action. Well.... eeehhh.... action ?!
Nog wat beelden van de schildervakantie in de Morvan: de dubbele brug bij het dorpje "Pierre Perthuis". Ik vond de oorspronkelijke tekening een beetje saai, voegde daarom maar wat spetter-bladeren toe. Verder wat foto's van ons groepje in actie (nou ja, actie...)

Blue door

The last day we stayed at the guesthouse, a lot of things to paint there. I made this painting of an obsolete blue doorpanel standing against a wall.Took me about 3 hours to paint. Acryl 50x70cm.
De laatste dag schilderden we  rondom het huis. Ik maakte een schilderij van enkele deurpanelen en een hollandse melkbus. Hiernaast de resultaten van de andere medecursisten.

Vézelay

Wednesday we had a day off, we went for a trip to Vézelay, an old and beautiful town set on a steep hill. It has one of the finest Roman cathedrals of France. Of course I could not leave my drawing gear alone: sketches of a house next to the cathedral, and one of the capitals showing the temptations of St Anthony.
Woensdag, vrije dag. Tijd voor een trip naar Vézelay, voor een bezoek aan de prachtige romaanse kathedraal.
Een schets van een huis naast de kerk, en van een van de romaanse kapitelen, voorstellend de verzoekingen van St. Anthonius.

Landscape

Thursday we painted landscape again; goal was to achieve depth by gradually changing the colours in to subdued greys towards the distance. After the disappointing painting of Tuesday, I was relieved that this one worked out.
Now watch this: I made a picture of the painting together with the landscape. As I checked it on the camera, much to my surprise all lines of the painted woods continued into the real landscape! Look at it!
Not by intention; I wasn't even painting this particular view, pure coincidence!
Acryl, 50x60cm.
Landschap, doel was vergrijzing van de kleuren richting horizon. Let op de foto: alle geschilderde bossaches lopen door in de echte wereld, en dat was puur toeval. Ik schilderde niet eens dit stukje van het uitzicht.