Zelzate again (Belgium)

I was 15 minutes early for my appointment at a client in Ertvelde, the firm Oleon (they make bio based oils). Just along the canal at Zelzate there was this concrete remains of a passage from an abandoned factory to the waterfront on the right behind the fence.
Took me maybe 10 minutes to produce this. I was still exactly on time for my appointment.

Milan cemetery

I am not sure to post this.
It's a drawing I made (on location) on the Milan Cimitero Monumentale, but I am not satisfied with this one at all.
The first version was too warm, colourfull and unbalanced, so I added black ink. But to no avail. I decided to wash out all colour and much of the ink. The result was a greyish scene, not much value. Like through fog; quite fitting for the subject, but the drawing became unreadable.
So I added ink again. And white paint for highlights.

But still: somehow it does not work.
Any ideas what I did wrong?
How I can improve this drawing?
Please let me know!

Zelzate, Steel factory

I dew this scene before. Each time I visit the client in Ertvelde (Oleon), I drive along the canal. fascinated by the dark steelfactory across the canal. Especially when the weather is rainy and humid.
I tried my watercolourpencils again.

Expo Milan

Two sketches from the expo in Milan. There were long lines at the popular countries, so I only visited the less populated pavilions.
Above the very interesting african countries. I made this sketch at the Mauritania house. There was a group of women waiting to make henna tattoos. They saw me drawing, and offered me sweet mint tea. Very hospitable.
The other is of the Oman pavilion: a nice chance to draw something exotic without having to cross the world.

Portrait session

Life portrait drawing session, this morning.
Two stages of the same drawing.
Made with Charcoal and "siberisch krijt" (I don't even know how to translate that).

The art class has already been running for a few weeks, but I am not able to attend a lot due to all kind of travels abroad. So may trips, I that I can't even keep my long standing promise to myself, which is making at least one sketch on every trip.

Bellinzona, Switzerland

In Italy I bought two books of the work of the comics artist Sergio Toppi. Fantastic.
So now I am trying to draw black and white drawings again.
Here is one that I made of the view of our room in the hostel of Bellinzona.
The hostel is located next to impenetrable medieval walls, very beautiful, with a view over the Swiss Ticino Mountains.
An incredible setting and view when you wake up in the morning.

I tried some of Toppi's hatching techniques.

Stahl, Waalwijk

I made the above watercolour for the opening ceremonies of a new plant for the firm Stahl. They make the highly specialized materials that look like leather and are used in car dashboards. Imagine what they have to endure!
The lab is very well designed (not by me, but by a colleague, Sjoerd Gort).
The painting was presented to the client a few weeks ago.
I only forgot to make a picture of the final result, this is the nearly finished version.

Milan, Expo 2015

Just returned from a trip to Milan tonight. My second visit to Italy in two weeks, and the third in three months. Time to recapitulate and do something with all the sketches that I made.
I visited the Milan Expo (worldexhibition) with a group of architects last friday.
The Expo was very impressing, but also very crowded. There were waiting lines of several hours before most of the pavillions. I saw one line, wrapping around the Japan exhibition, which according the sign should take 5 hours......

Did not make many sketches, it took all my time to visit the terrain with over 150 exhibitions.
 This is a drawing of the Italian Pavillion, a beautiful building resembling a starcruiser from Star Wars.
I made this sketch while it was raining outside, it was pretty crowded inside.

Florence: waiting for the Uffizi

Waiting in line for the Uffizi Museum in Florence, for two hours. Enough time to make this sketch.
It was worth it.

Switzerland, Guernico

I could not post the last few days, I travelled with a group of students to Italy, Tuscany.
I had to teach dawinng and architecture there. But the Wifi was terrible, hardly any connection.
I had enough time to draw though, here is a sketch of the first day: a view from aa bridge in Guernico, in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland.