Cadillac Fleetwood 1952

 

Went to a vintage car meeting in Heerlen (Cruise-in). I have drawn on these occasions before, always nice to see real old cars. This was a beautiful CadillacFleetwood 1952, a huge car, but beautifully restored. 

AI images (4). The wing.

 

Next installment of my AI game. I used the Nike of Samothrace drawing (with colours) to generate a prompt. As stated in the last post, it resulted in different images. I liked the interior one the best, but as you can see the statue was gone. I replaced it for a single wing (representing the Nike statue), and added some smoke. See above drawing, made with a pilot Parrellel pen with non-waterproof ink. 

Then I put it in the generator again, which led to horrible results. All very soft, girly like, fake watercolour images of pigeons flying in clouds of flowers, in pink, red, yellow and green. Yuck. 

So I had to tweak the prompts a bit  to get my wing and ruined buildings back again. And I grew tired of all the red, so I guided the generator towards grey and sepia. The result (through GPT-4o and GPT image) is shown below (bottom right). I will use that one to make a new drawing. It's time for the wing to leave the building.

AI images experiment (3)

 

As you can see I gave the ink drawing of the last AI experiment installment some shades. (done with a pentel Parrallel pen which has non-permanent red ink). Now I put this through the reversed prompting program, which translates the image into a text (which you can reuse again to generate new images). Interesting enough, different text machines deliver totally different images, of which the focus is different. Sometimes drawing style, sometimes colour, sometimes subject. The last one (Florence) even specified a red bird, which the picture didn't even show. Pictures all made by Stable Diffusion 3.0. It clearly shows how you need to work your prompting to get the results you want.

The images: top left: original drawing; right: Joycaption; second row left: GPT4o-mini; right: Florence.

1/2 marathon 2025

 

Ran a half marathon yesterday. In Heerlen, the Obvion run. Finished at 1 hour 58 minutes as number 304 out of 450 runners. The weather was perfect: 14 degrees, sunny and a little wind. 

I am rather proud of myself, not so bad for a 67 year old guy.

Terstraten (Nuth)

A sketch I made on a nice warm afternoon, in a small Hamlet called Terstraten, a few kilometers from my house. Already zome weeks ago, but had no time to post this earlier.

Vosges: Fraize market

 

During the painting week we made quick sketches on the market of Fraise. Forecast was rain, so we visited the place and took the sketches home to the B&B, as inspiration of the paintings we made there. In fact, it remained dry, so in the end we were able to paint in the garden. But on a lesser note: the paintings were horrible. I am not going to post those here.

Vosges Clefcy (2)

Two paintings I made in the painting week in France, based on the leaves and trees in the garden. The top one is a birch tree, made on board, tile mortar and acrylic paint, size 40x50. It looks better in reality. The second one is also acrylic on board 40x50, but with glued on paper to get some texture.
 

Vosges: Clefcy Ptit monde (1)

Last week I attended to a painting week in France, in the Vosges region. We did 5 days of painting with a lovely group, under the guidance of the gifted artist Annemiek Jongen. We stayed at a B&B in Clefcy called Ptit Monde, they were very hospitable and served great food.

 

Not all works were great. This is a view to a house in Plainfaing, paintedon location. It was supposed to be in the style of the Dutch impressionist Isaac Israels, I am not sure about that, but it was a great exercise.
 

Saumur, the castle (2)

 

Another view of the castle, this time overlooking the city and the Loire.

Saumur (France), the castle (1)

 

Just returned from a lovely holiday in France, in the Loire valley. We stayed at a holiday camp near Saumur, together with my son and our grandchildren Finn (6) and Zara (5). One of the days I went up to the castle, high above the town, and made a few sketches. One of those is this one, on tinted paper.

Robots on Mars

 

I made this painting on request of my grandson, Jake. He wanted something with planets and rockets. So I made this one, size 50x60cm. He was very happy with this.

 

AI images experiment (2)

I made above ink drawing (another step after the last AI image of the previous session, I added the Greek statue of Nike of Samothrace, it can be seen in the Louvre). I did reverse prompting of this image, and used that text to generate new images. I used different AI generation programs, even though the themes are similar, the outcome is very different.

From top left to top right: GPT image1, google imagen4, Stable Diffusion 3.0. Bottom: Classipeint XL, Flux dev, google imagen3.

 

AI images (1): the pool

 

An experiment with creative use of AI. 

I used an old drawing (La piscine des erreurs, from september 2016), applied reverse prompting and used the resulting texts (with some adaptations) to generate a few AI images. I used stable diffusion 3.0 through the Openart platform. Most of the results were not to my liking, I noticed that you will need some tweaking of the prompts to get nice results. Then I used one of the better images as inspiration to make a new drawing. See above, the one with the drapes. 

Then I converted the drawing through reverse prompting into an AI image again, see below. I will use that one to draw something new again. Interesting results. 

 

Amersfoort, USk-NL day (2)

 

Forgot to post this one. Not 100% content, but that's okay. My aunt lives in Amersfoort, she is 99 years old, will be 100 in November. She has a painting of this scene hanging in her apartment, dating from about 1940 or so. But even though that one is a winter scene, nothing much has changed since then.

Helle (Nuth)

 

Just returned from a trip with my bike. Went to Helle, a small hamlet near my town. I stood in the fileds, along a footpath (which is part of the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrim route to Compostella in Spain), to make this drawing. Forgot my watercolour, but I am okay with this.

Linkin Park in Arnhem

 

I went to the Linkin Park concert in Arnhem, last Thursday. Together with my son, Mart. A great concert and a valuable father-son moment.

Amersfoort, USk-NL day

 

We organized another National Urban Sketching day in Amersfoort. There were about 300 sketchers in town. Even gthough it was quite hot (>31 degrees Celcius), we had a great day. But it is a beautiful old Dutch town. With canals, tiny streets, ancient gabeled houses, and these kind of old fortifications. I tried watercolour pencils (W&N) on toned paper, with some parts in white gouache.

Agnes, portrait in oils

 

Last live portrait session before the holiday. Agnes, oil paint on board, 40x50 cm. Took me about 2 hours to make. IT was a long time since I used this technique: no drawing, add painted directly and washed it out. I used water based oil paint by Talens-Cobra.

Stein: remains of the castle

 

2 pages from my sketchbook: made this morning: the ruins of the former castle of Stein. I was in the neighbourhood for some bicycle maintenance; I took the opportunity to go and sketch the castle.

Nash Airflyte 1951

I was cycling through Heerlen, when I happened to spot this beautiful, freshly restored Nash from 1951. It stood on a parking lot, luckily I happened to have my sketchgear with me.
 

Little monsters

 

2 fantasy monsters, just scribbling away.

Coney Island

Started a new painting, after a picture I took on Coney Island, NY, in 2019. In the sketch you can see the Ferris wheel between the buildings. Size 60x50, oilpainting. this is the basics: the underpainting. Just to show how I block in the large elements in toned areas. The real work begins now.

USk Maastricht: Faliezusters

 

Another one from the Maastricht Urban Sketching meeting. Het Faliezustersklooster. Made rather quick, maybe half an hour.

USk Maastrcht: de Helpoort

I organized an Urban sketching meeting in Maastricht. We were about 12 sketchers, it was nice weather and we had a great day. Above the group. Below my take on the Helpoort (gate to Hell), the oldest city gate in the Netherlands. Acrylic gouache on toned paper.

Raketenstation (Missile station)

 

2 pages from my sketchbook: drawing architecture at the "Raketenstation" in Hombroich (Germany). According to the rumours the NATO used to store cruise missiles here during the last years of the cold war. But since then the terrain with all its bulidings was converted into an artist area and museum park, with musuems buildt by renowned architects. Above: the Langen Foundation building by Tandao Ando. Below: the "Musikhaus" by Raimund Abraham. 

Actually, the museum was closed, but I managed to visit the terrain anyway.

Zeche Zollverein (2)

 

After te rain stopped, I went to this view, to paint the long rows of former coke ovens. I made a sketch years ago on the same location ( https://renefijten.blogspot.com/2017/05/zeche-zollverein.html ), tried it with gouache this time. A very complicated painting, I quite underestimated it. In the end I ran out of time, had to do some touchups at home.

Zeche Zollverein

 

Painting made in an old, abandoned cokes producing plant in Germany, Zeche Zollverein. It was raining outside, So I deceided to paint a detail in the interior.

Wil, portrait

 

Live portrait session, Wil. Acrylic on paper, 50x70cm.

Enschede (2)

 

Drawing of the side of the Jacobuskerk (Jacob church). It was a secluded little square, quite popular to draw.

Enschede: café Moeke

 

I just had a great weekend. Not only did I visit my good friend Igor (which I hadn't seen since my study days, 35 years ago) and his lovely partner Wilma, but the Urban Sketching Netherlands organized a Saturday of sketching in Enschede. This is café Moeke, where all 220 participants assembled before we went into town to paint and sketch.

Jelle Portrait

 

Straight from the easel at a live portrait session. Jelle, the son of Annemiek, my art/painting teacher. I am rather pleased with the result. Hard to tell, but all strokes have a dedicated special mixed nuance of colour. And I maintained some of the background structure in the face itself. 

Acrylic on prepared Kraft paper, 60x70cm. About 2 hours work

Amsterdam Westerkerk

 

Visited Amsterdam yesterday. To the Anselm Kiefer exhibition "Sag mir wo die blumen sind" in the Van Gogh and Amsterdam Stedelijk museum. Made this sketch of the Westerkerk on a bench along the Prinsengracht.

Hasselt (2)

 I saw this little Maria prayer station on a side street in Hasselt.

Hasselt, Belgium

Hasselt, a town in Belgium, this morning. I had to go there for a hip-operation of our cat, Yoda.

Weustenrade

 

I made a trip on my bike this afternoon; came across this old farmhouse in Weustenrade (just a few km from my house).

Den Bosch: Magnolia

 

I didn't feel like drawing the St. Jan monastry itself, but decided to go for the beautiful Magnolia trees, which were just about to blossom.

Den Bosch: St Janscentrum

 

Last saturday there was a coördination meeting with the local Urban Sketching groups, in Den Bosch. After exchanging views and brainstorming on new ideas, we all went out into the cloister garden to draw. The magnolia trees were almost popping out in beautiful blossom.

Eindhoven HTC 5

 

Far too cold to draw/paint outside. This was done from the main hall on the 4th floor of the HTC5, one of the offices and laboratories of the Eindhoven High Tech Campus. I was there for my last and final presentation of one of the most complicated architectural designs I even made, a semi-conductor plant.

London: Leicester square

 

Drinking coffee on a terrace. Next to us was this elderly gentleman, with a rather out-of-London accent. He was so occupied talking to his wife and friends, I managed to draw him on location without him noticing. I am proud to say, the drawing resembles.