Amsterdam, de Gooyer

Amsterdam, de Gooyer. An old windmill, practocally in the middle of town. I was sitting on a nice terrace on the other side of the canal. in  the sun, sipping on some coffee.
Even though I lived in Amsterdam for a short while, I had never seen the mill up close.

Amsterdam, Nieuwmarkt

For the first time in a long time, I went out for a day to Amsterdam, to visit an exhibition about David Hockney and van Gogh.
I also took the opportunity to go out and sketch. It was beautiful spring weather.
I made this at the Nieuwmarkt, the Waag. In the middle ages goods used to be officially weighted here, and taxes to be paind. It's still a beautiful building.
In front is the daily market.

Floating thooughts

Floating thoughts.
One of those drawings that draw itself.

carnaval 2019

Carnaval last weekend. This is the float in the parade of Hoensbroek. One of the 100 groups/floats/bands and single participants (Eimzelgänger).

Madonna with child

The finished painting. Madonna wit child. Or rather, my daughter Rianne, with our grandson Willem.
Based on a picture. Acrylic and oil pastel 50x60cm
It was a difficult procedure, following Christianne Knops ideas. The different stages:

stage1: blocking in the areas. Here you can still recognize the forms of the original photograph.

  stage 2: bringing back the lines with oil pastel

stage 3: different colourfields, extending beyond the border. Each field should show a little of the previous one. Linework should behave freely around the colourfields, not restrict them. This was how last week ended.

Stage 4: today, just painting a totally different colour on top. This was very difficult to do, I had to give up on the parts I loved the most. Killing your darlings.

Stage 5: I enhanced the skintones, the strong arms needed to be emphasized.

Stage 6: Due to the arms, the clothes were too bleak. I added a contrast colour, carefully leaving traces of the old layers visible.

Stage 7: the dress needed contrast: I darkened the backgroud, redrawing the linework every time with different coloured oil pastels.



Stage 8 (final, see the first image): the dress was interesting of colour, but alltogether too flat. I added an extra layer of purple-grey.
I also adjusted the background.
Then the linework again, with orange white and black oil pastel.

The point is: when to stop. I worked over 4 hours on this, and could have gone on.
But I reached the point where I had the feeling that whatever I added would not make it better or more interesting.
I guess that is the learning point.