Poussain

On tuesday it was raining a little. We had to paint a farm, luckily there was a large cowshed, where we could work under. The excercise was to achieve depth by positioning volumes and perspectives. Should be a piece of cake for me, but I never liked the result of this painting (acryl 40x50). I made a quick "standard" sketch in my moleskine just for fun, which I like better.
Dinsdag, regendag. Gelukkig vonden we een groot afdak, waar we konden schilderen. Het schilderij bevalt me eigenlijk niet, de "normale" moleskine schets die ik tussendoor maakte vind ik veel beter.

Châtin

This is the painting that I made on Monday. In the morning I made the sketches as shown in the earlier post "morvan landscape", in the afternoon this painting, standing in the fields in the nice warm sun. Objective was to achieve depth in the painting with only colours: warm colours in front, cool colours in the back. I also tried out working with palette knives. I was pretty pleased with the result. Acrylic 40x50cm.
Dit schilderij is gemaakt naar aanleiding van de schetsen van maandag (zie "morvan landscape"); we moesten diepte suggereren door middel van koele en warme kleuren.

Champs de la Croix

Just returned from a painting week in France. We stayed in a chambre d'hotes in Châtin, in the Morvan, the southern part of the Bourgogne.
We had a terrific time, also thanks to Rita, the proprietary of the guesthouse. Not only the accommodation was perfect, also the food she prepared. Every day was a feast of Burgundian tastes and food. And wine. In a perfect landscape. Above a sketch of our dinner table in the garden.
Net terug van een schildervakantie in de Morvan, in het zuidelijk deel van Bourgondië. We hadden een fantastische tijd, mooi weer, prachtige landschappen en perfecte verzorging door Rita, de eigenaresse van het chambre d'hôte "Champs de la Croix". Ze gaf de term "bourgondisch leven" een heel nieuwe betekenis. Op de foto hieronder onze groep: vlnr Iet, ikzelf, Annemarie, Annemiek (cursusleidster), Pam en Frans.

Morvan landscape

Landscapes near Chatin, Morvan.

Morvan, roses

Presently I am somewhere in the middle of France, attending an painting week. I am part of a small group of amateur painters, who have a go at landscape and plein air painting, under the strict guidance of Annemiek Jongen. We are staying in a chambre d'hotes in Chatin, in the Morvan, living the french life. Good food, good wine, and the tranquillity of the french "paysages".
Today, our first day, we stayed at our house, painting flowers in the garden. The exercise was to play with colour and textures, but to avoid depth. Acryl painting 40x50cm.

Final sketches

 

Our last morning in Bali, while waiting for our flight back home, we hung around the swimming pool. I made above sketch of the boats next to the hotel, and an impression of our hotel.
After a 20 hour flight, and stopovers in Jakarta and Dubai, we landed on Schiphol the next day.
I can only say that we had a fantastic trip, not only for Indonesia and its inhabitants, also for our fine travel companions we had during our trip.

Sawa

It was about the last of our days in Indonesia, and I got a little tired of the style of drawing I had been doing so far in my travelbook. So I tried something else, something wet-in-wet, inspired by a scene I saw somewhere on the road in Bali.

Rural Bali

During our trip around Bali we visited a typical rural family house. It's a complex of small bamboo thatched buildings within an enclosed garden. And there is a small temple for each family member, even for the deceased.
We drank Luwak coffee, the most expensive type of coffee existing. It's made of coffee beans, that were eaten by civet cats, pooped out, and collected. It tasted very soft for coffee.

Bali temples

On Saturday, after a well deserved resting day, we hired a taxi to make a tour through the southern parts of Bali.  Bali is very different to Java: colourful temples at every corner, and food or souvenir stalls at every meter.
I should remark that it was Ramadan during our trip through Java, so restaurants and foodstalls were closed over there. But in Bali everyone seemed to sell something.

On Bali religion is everywhere, each house has as many temples as inhabitants. And on every doorstep little bamboo baskets can be found with some flowers, cookies and other small tokens for the gods (see sketch).
We visited a few temples, the most beautiful was that of Mengwi. It even had a special temple for cats.....
We also went to visit the famous sunset at the island temple of Tanah lot, but that was a dissapointment.

Bali

Here a sketch of the parts of Bali we  visited in the four days we stayed on the island.
Well, the first day we just did nothing. Sitting in the shade on the beach, reading books, eating, drinking and swimming. And getting red skin.
The only little sketch I made was of the orange coloured starfish you could see in the shallow sea when the tide was out; just in front of our Ashley-Benoa resort/hotel.

Ferry to Bali

Early morning the next day we left Java by ferry, and crossed over to Bali. Above a sketch of the ferry we took, drawn while it was still unloading from an earlier trip. The other sketches are of boats we passed, while being seated at the upper deck. Crossing took about an hour. After that we still had 5 hours in the bus before we reached our final hotel in Benoa. What a difference between Java and Bali! More next time.

Plantage, day 10

On day 9, our last day on Java, we visited a large plantation. We made a guided tour around the plantation and learned everything about cacao, cinnamon, coffee, vanilla, nutmeg, pepper and numerous other spices. Very Interesting. The woman who owned the place also ran an orphanage; the children performed some dances for us. When it got down to a polonaise, I retreated myself to make the above sketches. In the evening we stayed at a fine resort, and enjoyed the swimming pool.

Mount Bromo

For me this was the highlight of our trip: the visit to the (still working and steaming) Bromo volcano. We started out from our hotel in the middle  of the night, at 1.00 AM, driving for hours in busses and landcruisers to a observatory on a mountaintop. There we watched  the sun rising, at about 5.00 AM. And as the sun hit the mountaintops we saw an awesome scene, which I tried to capture on below sketch.
Bromo is the little steaming crater in this 10x10km sea of volcanic sand, an ancient volcano crater in itself.
After this we drove with the jeeps towards the crater, and climbed to its rim, a difficult trip through thick layers of volcanic ashes. I was able to make a quick sketch of the waiting jeeps on the bottom of the plain.
We finally made it back at the hotel in Batu about noon, a long but rewarding trip. Time for a bath, some sleep, and a dive in the swimming pool.

Busride,day 8

Day 8: we made a long busjourney from Yogyakarta to Batu, 400 km or so. Not much to tell, except the delicious mocca cake we had buring our coffee break.
I made sketches of a vegetable market we visited on the way, and of workmen waiting to repair broken down scooters or selling bottles of gasoline.
The sketches are wobbly, these were made or finished during the shaking busride.

Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta, day 7. No rest after the busy program of the day before. Early morning we visited a batik-painting workshop and were brought with rickshaws to the sultans palace, where we found a plastic teasieve on display. Then to a silver jewellery factory, and a leather workshop (see above sketch of the craftsmen). In the afternoon we visited the ancient Hindu temples of Prambanan, fantastic temples, although large parts were still in ruins due to recent earthquakes.
After the temples we did the best part of the day, a 10km cycling tour through the rural parts surrounding Prambanan. I love that kind of thing, cycling through villages and fields.
And in the evening we enjoyed a nice juicy hamburger, some change after a week of rice.

Rural Java

 After Borodudur we made a tour in horse carriages through the rural surroundings (still our 6th day).
We visited some farmhouses, saw how local families lived, how their houses were built, how they prepared meals and what they grew on the fields.
All in all very interesting, and I enjoyed the open and friendly people.
I was able to make above sketches on location, sometimes you get just enough time. The below sketch of the ricefields was made during the traintrip, and was a compilation of what I saw through the window.

Borobudur

On the same day (6th) as our visit to the Dieng plateau, we also visited the famous Buddhist temple of Borobudur. Actually it's a small hill converted into a huge temple, with a long winding path circling around its base. And on top/roof of the building you see a lot of these bells (stupas). In each a Buddha is seated (hardly visible); fortunately one of the bells missed its top, see sketch. I managed to make the ink sketch on location, before the guide and our group proceeded to the next sight. Bezoek aan de Boeddistische tempel van Borobudur.

Dieng plateau, day 6

 

This day was one of the busiest days of our trip. Early morning at 6 we left for a trip to the Dieng plateau, about 2000m above sealevel. There we visited a multicoloured lake (due to volcanic activity and minerals), and an active geiser. And a beautifully detailed old hindu temple, over 1200 years old (see sketch). This region has a lot of potato and tobacco agriculture, which is manually transported over the steep fields.

 

Bandung station, day 5

The above sketch is the view from the Ashton hotel in Bandung, we had a room there on one of the higher floors.
Early morning we set out for a trainride towards Kroya. A sketch of our train just before we were leaving, and the dinner in the train (nasi goreng with salad and eggs). It was a beautiful trip through beautiful landscapes.
Schetsen van de treinreis tussen Bandung en Kroya.

Bandung, day 4

 This day we spend in Bandung, an old colonial city, with very beatiful old colonial houses, although not all in good shape. Early morning we visited the still steaming and sulphur smelling volcano Tangkuban Perahu, where I was able to make this sketch. I used my grey ink fountain pens and waterbrush.
Later that morning we visited a teafactory and bathed in hot water springs.
And finished the afternoon by visiting a music school, where a traditional puppetshow (wajang) was shown, and children showed us traditional dances. At the end of the show we all made music together, with traditional Angklung (bamboo) instruments. 

We finished the day with dinner in Bandung, eating the best sateh of our trip.