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.

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.

 

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.

Enschede (2)

 

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

On the border

 

A saw this scene along the former "international road", on the border between Germany and the Netherlands, just a few km from my house. The "international road" was a Dutch two lane road running over German terrain, about 5 km long, connecting 2 remote Dutch villages. Back in the day it was forbidden to stop, and impossible to get off, as all crossing roads (even cartroads) would go through tunnels or bridges. As it fell under Dutch jurisdiction (German plice had no authority), but Dutch police had nowhere to park their vehicles, you could drive there whatever speed you wanted. You would not receive a speed ticket. Of course, the road was also famous for it's mortal front collision accidents. Anyway, the terrain was returned to Germany after the Schengen Treaty, as border control was not necessary anymore.

Retired now (2)

 

As a suprise my department organized a Masterclass Urban sketching. My direct collegues assembled for a visit to a local church in Ulestraten (it was too cold to draw outside), where they asked me to give an unexpected Master Class. THe resulats of my about 15 collegeus was far better than I expected. I manage to squeeze maybe 3 minutes in between to make this quick sketch of the altar.

Someone in Roermond

 

We visited Roermond, sat on a terrace, I saw a man staring toeards the horizon, made a quick picture and drew him at home. Pentel unktbrushes, both watertight and washed out.

Hillensberg (Dtsl)

 

It was very cold today, with a strong chilling wind, but I needed to get out and make a drawing somewhere. Sometimes I cross the border to do some shopping (som articles are cheaper, better or local specialties) and fill my tank with cheaper gasoline. By doing so, I usually cross a small village on a steep hill called Hillensberg (Germany). It had a small 13 or 14th century church I had never noticed before. A nice opportunity to make this sketch.

Klaus Kinski

Portrait of Klaus Kinski, an actor. At least, I tried to draw him.
 

New Jersey

 

Based on a picture I took from a cab driving us from Manhattan to the New Jersey airport in 2019. A study in tonal quality. Ink ad watercolour.

Coupe de Ville

 

For my birthday I recieved a handmade fully glass inkpen. I finally got around trying it out. I made this drawing with it. It is a totally different feeling to draw with it, a bit funny; it took some time to get used to the way the ink flows. And I don't think I used the correct type of ink (Acrylic ink).

The subject was an image in a dream I had some months ago, at september 11th. About a burning billboard with an abandoned Coupe de Ville, somewhere in a desolate landscape. No idea what it means.

Nosferatu

 

Portrait, based on a picture of de upcoming Nosferatu movie. Willem Dafoe. Ink and watercolour.

Shipyard

 

Just a quick scribble sketch, nothing serious or realistic. Based on a picture of the Staten Island ship graveyard.

Cow in Leuse (F)

No time (and weather) to go out to sketch. Based on apicture I made this summer of a large cow in Leuse, France. Ink and watercolour pencil.

Faces

Some random quick sketches of faces, after pictures I found on the internet. Made during lunchbreaks Normally I go for a short walk with collegues during lunchbreak, but when it rains we stay in, and i take my sketchbook out.
 

Chenonceau

 

Castle of Chenonceau , at the Loire, France. It was raining all day, I had to make a very quick sketch, protecting parts of the drawing with sheets of paper against the loose raindrops. Painted it at the camping site.

Candé sur Beuvron

Just returned from a great holiday in France, in the Loire are. With our children and grandchildren. We had a great time, and excellent weather (except for one dreary and rainy day). This is a sketch of the village, there had been floodinge recently, and large treetrunks were still blocking the passage under the bridge.

Egypt, Esna temple

 

Had litte time to scan the Egypt draaings, and post them. Here is another one, of te beautiful and colourfull Esba temple. This was sketched on location (you can still see the pencil lines), drawn later that day on the boat. Unfortunately the red ink ran out, I finished this one at home.

Supergrandpa

My grandson Jake wrote a little story for school. I promised him I would illustrate it if it was really cool. So he came up with a story where 3 ninja's were threatening him and his brother in front of the local library (where I take them regularly). But suddenly I was some kind of a cool superhero, who disarmed the ninja's with a few well directed laser beams. 

Well, I could not have made that story up :). Here is the illustration.