MG TF drawing for John

 

A surprise gift for a collegue who left our company a month ago. As a hobby he restores old MG cars. Among others this MG-TF 1957, which was originally owned by his father. 

Unfortunately I forgot to make a decent scan of the painting, the photograph is a bit discoloured.

Faces in watercolour and ink

 

An excercise in faces, at a live painting session. Two of about twelve that I made in about 2 hours. First a few strokes of wax. Then a few watercolour strokes. And after drying a minimum of lively ink lines, trying to catch the features without overdoing. Surprising enough, both images resemble Paul and Willebrord.

Porthgain Harbour

 

Portgain harbour Wales. Watercolour, based on a picture I found on the Internet by Cathy Cooper.

I have been to Wales, but never to this place. Seems quite lovely.

Bloody angle, NYC

 

Experimenting with watercolours. Based on an interesting technique I saw with the artist Tim Saternow. Contrary to the usual way of working where you start with light tones and you work your way to more darker colours, this one is the other way around. You start with the black parts, and work your way to the lighter tones. Based on a picture I took some years ago in New York: Doyers street, aka the bloody angle.

Merijan Bijlsma

 

Terrible news this morning. Merijan Bijlsma died last wednesday after three years struggling against the horrible disease ALS. In that time she always kept a smile, a laugh and good humour. She will be missed. We wish her family and husband Bert our sincere condolances.

A year ago she asked me to paint her portrait in watercolour, for her obituary. Quite a chilling request I can say. I based the painting on a great photograph made by our neighbour, Marij Ruyters-Teeuwen.

Abandoned in the snow

There is a lot of snow here, since Friday.  I wasn't able to go out, but a friend made a picture of an abandoned house somewhere in Belgium. I liked the picture, and redrew it.

Varanassi: Dolphin rooftop cafe

 

Watercolour of a view from the Dolphin rooftop cafe in Varanassi (India). Overlooking the Ganges, as seen during our visit in 2010. I made an Urban Sketch and some pictures back then, which formed the basis of this painting. You can check the old post at the following link: renefijten.blogspot.com/2010/09/varanasi

Corravillers

 

Watercolour of a workshop in an abandoned factory in Corravillers, France. I made a picture of it last summer, tried it out as painting. Schmincke paint on Millford paper. This is the second one, the first was horrible. Still not 100% satisfied. But when are we ever :).

Zakynthos, Olive tree

 

Zakynthos, a 2000 year old olive tree, in a village called Exo Chora. Well, loosely based on a picture that we made on holiday a few years ago, in 2018. Actually, I had already sketched it back then, see my post https://renefijten.blogspot.com/2018/10/exo-chora.html. The chair and table were actually there.

Duke Confucius sketch

 I have a new fountainpen: a Duke Confucius 551. Great pen. The pen makes everything between very thick and very thin lines. A quick sketch after a picture.

Bingelrade

 

Saw this yesterday during my running excercise, a country road between Merkelbeek and Bingelrade. Painted it today.

Vaesrade

 

Cycled to Vaesrade this afternoon, to paint the colours of autumn. Even though the sun was nice for november, it was not warm enough for the watercolour to dry properly. Especially after 4 pm, when the sun started to set. The paper buckled, colours kept running, and some nuances didn't come out as expected.

 

Rocks and trees

 

Watercolour based on a picture I found on the Internet, from an artist who regularly posts images to train watercolour skills. hoffmannwatercolors.blogspot.com/2022/10/using-edges-to-create-illusion-of-space

You can find the original image in the link. Also an interesting site. Size 23x30cm, on Fabriano Artistico paper and a limited range of Schmincke colours.

Another Miggelenberg

 

Another one from our weekend. Now the other side of the cottage. I made this sitting outside.

Miggelenberg, Hoenderloo

 

We had a lovely weekend, renting a cottage in the Veluwe. We took our grandson, Jake, with us. He is almost 7, and we had a great time. I also managed to do some watercolour painting. This is the view from  our cottage into the autumn coloured forest. Made from behind the window.

Spinalonga, Greece

 

Watercolour painting of a tree. I made the reference picture on the Spinalonga island, last summer during our visit to Crete, in Greece.

Schmincke watercolour on Fabriano paper (about A4).

I want to develop my watercolour skills further.

Learning from Nick Runge

 

Trying to master watercolour. I found a watercolour by Nick Runge of an old man, and I tried to see how his colours and highlights work. I was rather happy with the result, even though I see a lot of possible improvement. 

But I am not even coming close to the original artwork. Still a lot to learn.

Aldous Huxley

 

Trying to improve my watercolour portrait skills. This was inspired by a watercolor portrait made by Fabian Bartz. I made a copy, to see how to make the colours work. 

Actually, "Brave new world" is one of my favourite novels.

Hellevoetsluis

 

Another try on watercolour. Same theme, thunderclouds. But now transposed on the view from the Harbour of Hellevoetsluis (translates as: the lock at the feet of the devil). Not made on location, but based on a picture I made some years ago.

After the rain

Trying out watercolours. After an example by Dan Marshall. On Fabriano paper.