Mouzon, France

I just returned from a great weekend in France again. Not Strasbourg (there are still drawings from that trip to be scanned) but Tétaigne, near Sedan and the Belgian border.
I had a plein-air painting weekend again with a group of dedicated painters, under the charming guidance of Annemiek Jongen. I will show the results in due time, but here is an appetizer.
This painting was made as a study for a larger painting. I added two rather random blobs of watercolour, and after drying tried to fit in the view over the city. A bit like Tia Boon Sim or Parka Sung. Not 100% satisfied,I have to do this more.
Anyway: a picture of the group: Tina, Jolanda, Jose, Annemiek, Gertie, Pam, Nienke en ikzelf.
Not on the picture: the perfect hosts of the Logies in Tétaigne: Han en André Linssen.

Garage JoJo Strasbourg

Another Garage that we made drawings in. This time Service JoJo, a restoration atelier specialised in restoring Citroen 2CV, aka "eend" (duck) as we call them in the Netherlands.

Here you see the sketchers clogged around a car to sketch it.

Carosserie HH Services

Cars, cars, cars. A feast of drawing cars in that vintage car repair shop: Carosserie HH Services.
I don't even know all models: MG PA 1935, Citroen Traction Avant 1948, Georges Irat around 1950, Morgan 2 seater about 1945. The Mercedes Gullwing is on another page.
Still more to come.

First meter of Strasbourg

Here is the first meter of my drawings that I made in Strasbourg. There are 2 meters more to follow.

Merc Gullwing

Two images of the USK weekend in France, Strasbourg. Below another scene of the old houses in the centre of town, in this case next to the Cathedral. Quite German looking. Which should be no surprise as Germany is 2 km away across the river.
We also went to a vintage car restauration workshop, which had some beautiful cars in repair. Like this old Mercedes 300SL, the famous gullwing. The name comes from its flapping doors, hinged to the roof. But these doors were not yet mounted in this car. A beauty.

Harlingen, Friesland

Before I continue with the Strasbourg series, I will show you the drawings I made yesterday.
I had a business trip up north, to Harlingen, to visit a salt production plant. Harlingen is a very old Dutch town located directly on the sea.
It is as Dutch as you can get: canals, gabled houses, ship locks, sailing-boats, fishtrailers and so on.
Here are two sketches: above the old sail ship "de Marieje", dating from 1898. It just returned from a trip and was mooring.
The other is a gabled house on the Noorderhaven. There were a lot of these, hard to choose which to draw.

Strasbourg, France

I was in Strasbourg, France last weekend.
There was the national French Urban sketching weekend, organized by Lolo Wagner and his team (very well organized by the way!).
Over three days I met hundreds of other enthousiast sketchers, and made three meters of drawings in Leporello style (harmonica folded sketchbook).

This is the first drawing, of the cathedral.
I will post the other drawings in the coming days.

Fair in Heerlen

I was half an hour early for an appointment in Heerlen this morning. Enough time for a quick sketch of the fair in Heerlen. I painted it this evening, outside under the veranda.
The attractions were still closed, it was 8.00 AM. Funny, to see all these bright and yelling colours impatiently waiting for an an audience.

Città Imperiale

Invented cityscape. For those familiar with architectural styles: it's like Piranesi meets Sant'Elia. Not that I chose those two styles on purpose. I just had an idea and started drawing, and it evolved into this.
I had read a book on the italian interbellum architects Terragni and Libera recently, so apparently that futurist/rationalist/Mussolini building style stuck in my mind. Just drawing for fun.

Chevrolet Bel Air 1957

 I went to the Cruise-in, an American Vintage Car meeting in Brunssum.

There are always beautiful cars to sketch there. Like this shining red Chevrolet Bel Air dating back to 1957. The proud owner imported it from Virginia in 1987, and fully restored the car.
He even showed me the original Virginia number plates.
Here is a picture of the sketch, the car, and the owner.

Victam

There are days that I am totally uninspired. I want to draw, but I just can't put my mind to it. I walk around with my sketchbook, but nothing seems to be interesting enough to draw.
Not that I am doing nothing, I recently made these sketches for a Tebodin presentation on Animal food Factories and their future developments. It will be presented during the Victam congress, in Cologne next week. I made the drawings (two on a A4) with a black pentel paintbrush, scanned them and coloured them with Gimp.
I'll have to do something to get out of this uninspiredness.