Cats and birds

Two different basic designs for my wife's next stained glass window.

We have a long ceiling window in our lowered living room, looking out to the garden. Some decoration would be nice.
My wife choose the top one, which I worked out. I'll show the results in due time.

Blob

I was in Eindhoven this week, for work. During lunchbreak I made a walk to the center of town, and made this drawing on the market looking toward the old factory buildings of Philips on the Emmasingel, .
I was told the big blue building is called "the blob". That figures.
I made the drawing on location, but I had forgotten to bring the paint. Did that at home.

Timeline February

February 15th: I choose another news image.
(remember: I'll do this every 15th of each month this year. The series will be called Timeline and I hope that next December it will tell something of the past year).

February 15th: the world press photo awards were made public.
This one was amazing, won the 2nd prize in "on spot news".
The photographer Fabio Bucciarelli made this picture in Aleppo, Syria.
It tells about a fighter ready to kill, but also very jumpy and afraid of being killed.

Kasteel Hoensbroek

Acceptable weather this afternoon at last!
I passed our town's medieval castle (kasteel Hoensbroek) and thought, hey, it's about time to make an outdoor sketch again.
I have more or less lived across the street from this castle for 10 years, but only rarely drew it. Often you don't see the beauty from everyday presence around you any more.
A lesson in looking around.

This is the entrance gate to the first courtyard, with the smallest tower of the main building in the back. There are three courtyards in total, all separated by outbuildings, gates, bridges and deep moats.

Optocht Hoensbroek 2013

Carnaval is over for this year. Unfortunately I could not make any sketches during the outdoor activities and parades; it was far too cold. Your hands are frozen before you start, while looking at the parades.
This was the only sketch that I even tried, and I had to stop after a few pencil lines.
It's a float in the Hoensbroek parade; it features the youth prince of (I think) the soccer club in Passart (a part of Hoensbroek).
I noticed I drew the backside of the paper maché pencil-figure in an earlier sketch, made in the "optochthal", see a few weeks back,
http://www.renefijten.blogspot.nl/2013/01/noebele.html.

't is nieks en 't weurd nieks

Carnaval in our regions.
We went to a few parades on thursday (Kowrenne), saturday (Hoensbroek, the childrens parade), sunday (Maastricht) and today (Hoensbroek).
It was freezing cold this weekend, even a little snow and an icy wind.

I made this oil painting for my neighbours, who play in a zaate herremenie: 't is nieks en 't weurd nieks. (it's not good and it never will be). The music has to be loud and cheerful, not necessarily pleasing for the ears.

The painting was based on the location sketch of february 22nd last year: tisnieks.

Oil on canvas, 60x70cm.

Pam

Portrait of Pam.
Pam does the same art class as I do, on Saturday morning in Landgraaf, only this time she served as live portrait model.
The excersise was about making you feel every stroke of the brush. We had to work on all parts simultanuously, applying a specific colour whereever it was needed, and then move on to the next colour.
Acrylic on grey carton, 50x60cm, took me about an hour to make.

Diomira

Diomira.

Leaving there and proceeding for three days towards the east, you reach Diomira, a city with sixty silver domes, bronze statues of all the gods, streets paved with lead, a crystal theatre, a golden cock that crows each morning on a tower. All these beauties will already be familiar to the visitor, who has seen them also in other cities. But the special quality of this city for the man who arrives thereon a September evening, when the days are growing shorter and the multicolored lamps are lighted all at once at the doors of the food stalls and from a terrace a woman’s voice cries ooh!, is that he feels envy towards those who now believe they have once before lived an evening identical to this and who think they were happy, that time.

(from Italo Calvino, "the invisible cities").

This drawing was made with ink, scanned in and then totally digitally painted using GIMP (open source Photoshop).

This way of digital painting was a first time for me, and it took a while to know how to handle the program and brushes. Still a long way to go.

Stolberg castle

Not really good one this sketch, view towards the castle of Stolberg, as seen from a parking lot in front of one of the many churches. This is what you get when you are too pressed to finish the drawing, it was getting dark quickly.
I will have to go back and redo this one.
Beautiful view by the way.

Dragon logo

It's a pity that quite often I can't show drawings and stuff of the projects I am working on. That's because I do first versions and feasibility designs, and in those early stages the designs fall within secrecy arrangements.

I just heard that last years project, a chemical plant for Singapore, will be erected somewhere in China.
The project will go under the name "dragon", and the company asked me to design the project logo.

This logo will be used for all drawings, paperwork, and specs. Also on T-shirts and building signs.

Marsha in progress

Working hard on my next stained glass window. It's about Marsha, our cat, sleeping in the sun.