Jeanette turns 50

The partner of my brother, Jeanette, is turning 50 today. It will be celebrated in a funny dinnershow this evening. Theme: "in search of Caesar". The actors will serve dinner in exuberant clothes while singing childern songs and rock music. Looking forward to it.
I made this surprise present for her: a stained glass figure, about 30cm wide/high. Just a pity that there was no sun today to let in shine brightly through the glass.

Eemland

Another lunchtime sketch, in the harbour of Maastricht. This is the Eemland, a ship carrying sand.

On the Riverfront

Lunchtime today: sitting in the mild sun on the steps leading towards the river on the "Wyck" side.
This is the view to the other side of the river: on the left: the house on the "jewstreet", the gothic St. John, the Roman St. Servaas basilica and the waterfront houses.
It was a real pleasure doing this again.

More glass: Chameleon

I a working on a lot of different things at the same time now: one of them is the Chameleon.
I finished the statue last week; I just have to get a hardstone sockle to position it on. And enhance the cherrywood colour by oiling it.
Sometimes the sideworks costs more time and effort then the statue itself.

The Royals are finished

At last I found the time to finish my stained glass object "the Royals".
I fixed it to a cherrywood sockle. Yes, it came out of the tree on whose trunk it now stands.
It was the first stand alone leaded glass object I ever made, and I really loved doing it.
The object was inspired by the song "we'll never be Royals" sung by Lorde. Every time I see this object the music plops up in my mind.And in case you wonder: no, the Spanish Royal abdication has nothing to do with this. Pure coincidence.

More Escombres

On location sketches of Escombres (France). A view from the hills over the roofs of village, they are studies for the two paintings that I made that afternoon. The first one I showed in an earlier post, the other waits for finishing.

The above drawing should have been a "rene" type of Urban sketch: grey Noodlers ink lines and shades of watercolour.
But it went wrong, in the end the painting looked like s***.

So I decided to use it for experimenting.
I added layers of gouache, wetting them, drying it with a hair-dryer, torturing the paint with bristle brushes and old credit cards. This is the result: a bit 60s advertisement look.

Ford B 1933

I love to draw hot rods. This beauty stood at the "cruise-in" in Brunssum, last thursday.
It's a Ford B from 1933, the most popular model to turn into hotrods. They were used so much for conversion into hot-rods that I was told that a "normal" restored Ford B 2-seater is extremely rare.

Chevrolet Corvette

The Bugatti hit some button inside of me, I suddenly felt the urge to draw some more vintage cars. So I visited a weekly vintage car meeting "Cruise-in" in Brunssum, where the owners of some beautiful old cars meet. Most of them are american, from the 60s and 70s, but there are some other beauties as well.
This is a Chevrolet Corvette from 1960, and the proud owner told and showed me all about this car.
I love that sweeping, almost female curve of the car's rear end.
They made real cars back then.

Bugatti T35c

And here is the cherry on the cake of my painting weekend. Heading home on Saturday afternoon we passed through the village of Carignan (still in France, just south of the Belgian border).
There was a vintage car rally called "Grand Prix Rétro d'Yvois", with beautiful pre-WW2 cars.
Parked on the market square I noticed a fantastic Alvis, a few ancient Austins, a genuine threewheel Morgan. And a dream come through: I was able to sketch this 1927 Bugatti T35c on location, in real life! The machine looked beautiful, shining fiercely blue in the late afternoon sun.
I am considering another hobby....

Euilly et Lombut

Second day: we went to a little village called "Euilly et Lombut". We were supposed to paint the village farms using massive blocks of colours. Building houses with paint.

I choose a red painted corrugated steel shed and a sandstone farmhouse as subject.
The top painting was the try-out sketch for the bottom painting.

Actually, I think the top sketch is better than the painting itself, I just haven't figured out why. I'll have to think about it.

Acrylic 50x60cm.

Kolenkit

I saw an old derelict and abandoned house in Tétaigne, France. On the groundfloor I noticed two old rusty "coal scuttles" (are they called like that?). Funny thing was, they were still filled to the rim with coal.
Kindof reminded me of my youth, before we had gas-fired central heating. I still have memories of my father, who would get the coal from the coal storage in the back yard, to feed the hearth using these "kolenkits".

More Tétaigne

I was not satisfied with the earlier painting, so I started another one, same location, but just turned my head to the right. I will admit there was an ugly white caravan on the right hand side of the tree, but who cares if the painting works better without it. An afternoon well spent.

Tétaigne

At ascencion day we left in the early morning, after an 2 1/2 hour drive we were in France.
That afternoon, after a delicious lunch, we statred painting in the neighbourhood. I found a nice spot across the road with a view over the stream "La Chiers".
I don't consider this painting to be huge success, the aim was to exercise the use of spots or small strokes to compose a scene.
Acrylic on paper 50x70cm.

Escombres

I just returned from a long painting weeking in the North of France, where we stayed in a little village called Tétaigne, just south of the Belgian border.
We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast run by our former neighbours, who moved to France three years ago. A great place.
This is a painting I made on the last day, one of two. We sketched the view over Escombres for some time in the morning, and in the afternoon prepared the painting by sticking pieces of coloured paper or other stuff on the canvas. The trick was to catch the feeling of the place (the roofs and ochre walls), but let the coloured paper interact with what you were painting.
Acrylic on carton, about 40x50cm.