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.

Poussain

On tuesday it was raining a little. We had to paint a farm, luckily there was a large cowshed, where we could work under. The excercise was to achieve depth by positioning volumes and perspectives. Should be a piece of cake for me, but I never liked the result of this painting (acryl 40x50). I made a quick "standard" sketch in my moleskine just for fun, which I like better.
Dinsdag, regendag. Gelukkig vonden we een groot afdak, waar we konden schilderen. Het schilderij bevalt me eigenlijk niet, de "normale" moleskine schets die ik tussendoor maakte vind ik veel beter.

Châtin

This is the painting that I made on Monday. In the morning I made the sketches as shown in the earlier post "morvan landscape", in the afternoon this painting, standing in the fields in the nice warm sun. Objective was to achieve depth in the painting with only colours: warm colours in front, cool colours in the back. I also tried out working with palette knives. I was pretty pleased with the result. Acrylic 40x50cm.
Dit schilderij is gemaakt naar aanleiding van de schetsen van maandag (zie "morvan landscape"); we moesten diepte suggereren door middel van koele en warme kleuren.

Champs de la Croix

Just returned from a painting week in France. We stayed in a chambre d'hotes in Châtin, in the Morvan, the southern part of the Bourgogne.
We had a terrific time, also thanks to Rita, the proprietary of the guesthouse. Not only the accommodation was perfect, also the food she prepared. Every day was a feast of Burgundian tastes and food. And wine. In a perfect landscape. Above a sketch of our dinner table in the garden.
Net terug van een schildervakantie in de Morvan, in het zuidelijk deel van Bourgondië. We hadden een fantastische tijd, mooi weer, prachtige landschappen en perfecte verzorging door Rita, de eigenaresse van het chambre d'hôte "Champs de la Croix". Ze gaf de term "bourgondisch leven" een heel nieuwe betekenis. Op de foto hieronder onze groep: vlnr Iet, ikzelf, Annemarie, Annemiek (cursusleidster), Pam en Frans.

Morvan landscape

Landscapes near Chatin, Morvan.

Morvan, roses

Presently I am somewhere in the middle of France, attending an painting week. I am part of a small group of amateur painters, who have a go at landscape and plein air painting, under the strict guidance of Annemiek Jongen. We are staying in a chambre d'hotes in Chatin, in the Morvan, living the french life. Good food, good wine, and the tranquillity of the french "paysages".
Today, our first day, we stayed at our house, painting flowers in the garden. The exercise was to play with colour and textures, but to avoid depth. Acryl painting 40x50cm.

Final sketches

 

Our last morning in Bali, while waiting for our flight back home, we hung around the swimming pool. I made above sketch of the boats next to the hotel, and an impression of our hotel.
After a 20 hour flight, and stopovers in Jakarta and Dubai, we landed on Schiphol the next day.
I can only say that we had a fantastic trip, not only for Indonesia and its inhabitants, also for our fine travel companions we had during our trip.

Sawa

It was about the last of our days in Indonesia, and I got a little tired of the style of drawing I had been doing so far in my travelbook. So I tried something else, something wet-in-wet, inspired by a scene I saw somewhere on the road in Bali.

Rural Bali

During our trip around Bali we visited a typical rural family house. It's a complex of small bamboo thatched buildings within an enclosed garden. And there is a small temple for each family member, even for the deceased.
We drank Luwak coffee, the most expensive type of coffee existing. It's made of coffee beans, that were eaten by civet cats, pooped out, and collected. It tasted very soft for coffee.

Bali temples

On Saturday, after a well deserved resting day, we hired a taxi to make a tour through the southern parts of Bali.  Bali is very different to Java: colourful temples at every corner, and food or souvenir stalls at every meter.
I should remark that it was Ramadan during our trip through Java, so restaurants and foodstalls were closed over there. But in Bali everyone seemed to sell something.

On Bali religion is everywhere, each house has as many temples as inhabitants. And on every doorstep little bamboo baskets can be found with some flowers, cookies and other small tokens for the gods (see sketch).
We visited a few temples, the most beautiful was that of Mengwi. It even had a special temple for cats.....
We also went to visit the famous sunset at the island temple of Tanah lot, but that was a dissapointment.

Bali

Here a sketch of the parts of Bali we  visited in the four days we stayed on the island.
Well, the first day we just did nothing. Sitting in the shade on the beach, reading books, eating, drinking and swimming. And getting red skin.
The only little sketch I made was of the orange coloured starfish you could see in the shallow sea when the tide was out; just in front of our Ashley-Benoa resort/hotel.

Ferry to Bali

Early morning the next day we left Java by ferry, and crossed over to Bali. Above a sketch of the ferry we took, drawn while it was still unloading from an earlier trip. The other sketches are of boats we passed, while being seated at the upper deck. Crossing took about an hour. After that we still had 5 hours in the bus before we reached our final hotel in Benoa. What a difference between Java and Bali! More next time.

Plantage, day 10

On day 9, our last day on Java, we visited a large plantation. We made a guided tour around the plantation and learned everything about cacao, cinnamon, coffee, vanilla, nutmeg, pepper and numerous other spices. Very Interesting. The woman who owned the place also ran an orphanage; the children performed some dances for us. When it got down to a polonaise, I retreated myself to make the above sketches. In the evening we stayed at a fine resort, and enjoyed the swimming pool.