Contrasting colours

Art class today: we had to paint our live model with contrasting colours (those on the opposite sides of the colour wheel, like blue-orange or yellow-purple). In my case cadmium red and phtalo green.
Using these colours results in enhancing each other, red becomes even more red when placed next to green.
Secondly: when mixing opposite colours you get the most beautiful greys and blacks.

Here I show three stages of the painting: the charcoal drawing, the high contrast basic painting, and finally the adding of red-green greys. I was suprised by the result: here it looks like the model got a heavy sunburn, but in reality the painting looks more harmonic than on these pictures.

Glassworks

My stained glass window in progress: I cut out all the pieces. Now I have to mount them into the lead profiles.
Size 600x600mm
Glas in lood raam naar eigen ontwerp: status update. Het glas heb ik nu eindelijk op maat gemaakt, nu nog in het lood zetten.

Chinatown

Last of the sketches of my trip to Singapore a week ago. Above the buddhist temple in the middle of Chinatown (Buddha's tooth is supposed to lie there), I was nearly run over while sitting at the roadcurb drawing this. The other sketch I made while waiting for our orders, on Smith Street in Chinatown. I'll have to go to Singapore again on short term, so more sketches to be expected. Suggestions for subjects?
De laatste paar schetsen uit Singapore van mijn zakentrip, een week geleden.

Hiromi Kawakami

In the plane I read a Japanese novel by Hiromi Kawakami: "de tas van de leraar". A lovestory of a woman and her (retired) high school teacher. I am not into romantic novels, but I love the way Japanese novels are written: so full of quiet observations of life and nature. Fantastic. Drew/painted this in the plane, some of the lines are quite wobbly. Gelezen: een Japans boek van Hiromi Kawakami: "de tas van de leraar". Fantastisch boek.

Foodcourt

Singapore has foodcourts in most shopping malls, mostly located on the subterranean bottom levels. All around you will find stalls serving all kinds of mostly asian and indian food. Each stall has it's speciality: Korean, Thai, Indian, hot pot, soup, Malaysian etc. And a limited number of dishes; all prepared in full view, within a few minutes while you waiting at the counter. I had delicious pad thai in this foodcourt in the Marina Sands building.

Japanese food

Dinner in Singapore in a Japanese buffet restaurant. Delicious.

Gallardo

Singapore is a strange city: in Chinatown you can find (relative) poverty, and only 3 metrostops away you find yourself on a parking lot in front of a shopping mall featuring 8 Lamborghini's. Yes. Eight!
Among minor stuff like BMW 7 series, Mercedes S-class and Maserati quattraporte.
I drew this white Gallardo while my collegues were patiently waiting for me; I had no choice but to paint it at home. Getekend: één van de acht (!) Lamborghini Gallardo's op een parkeerplaats ergens in Singapore.

Orchard road

Due to the jetlag I woke up too early (there is 7 hours time difference with Singapore). So I made an early morning walk, and painted this old house, just across the street from my hotel.
Vroege morgen wandeling door Singapore; een tekening van een licht verwaarloosd huis midden in dichte begroeiing, gelegen aan de overzijde van het hotel.

Singapore Dragon

This morning I returned - after a 14 hour flight - from Singapore. Although on business, in the evenings me and my colleagues took the opportunity to catch the spirit of the town. Singapore was preparing for the Chinese new year (22 or 23 January). They put up this huge dragon on the roadcrossing at the entrance of Chinatown. All brightly lit in the evening (I may post that picture later). And all of Chinatown was filled with stalls selling golden and red paper lanterns and wishing cards. All these colours and lights. Bezoek aan Chinatown, deze draak stond bij de entree van Chinatown, voor de viering van het Chinese nieuwe jaar.

Singapore

A quick impression of Singapore, where I am at this moment.

Breuker aovend

I made this image of the "Breuker Leedjeskonkoer" for the local Carnaval newspaper. It shows a music group "Julie en de de Muppe" who sing funny dialect songs. Not so much resemblance here, the drawing was only loosely based on some blurry photographs, this image was more meant to catch the spirit of the evening.
Breuker Leedjeskonkoer, een tekening voor de carnavalskrant "der Uul". Getekend de groep "Julie en de Muppe", zonder veel op gelijkenis te letten, de tekening was meer bedoeld om de sfeer te schetsen.

Maastricht winterland

Last week we went shopping in Maastricht. It was very crowded in town, especially on the Vrijthof (the central square). The icerink was full of skaters.
Dagje shoppen in Maastricht, het was verschrikkelijk druk.

Painting

The last post of this year. I wanted to do some painting again, this was based on a sketch of the Chemelot terrain, in Geleen. I posted it last October: http://www.renefijten.blogspot.com/2011/10/chemelot.html. Acryl 50x40cm.
Schilderij van het Chemelot terrein, Geleen, gebaseerd op een schets van 19 oktober.

Ludwig Museum

In Köln (Cologne) Rianne and I visited the Ludwig Museum for the exhibition "Before the law", with post-war modern sculpture. Personally I did not see anything that touched me.
I  found the regular exhibition to be better, with fantastic works of Roy Lichtenstein, Picasso and Max Ernst. Much to learn from them.
Here a sketch of a sculpture of Reg Butler, "figure in space", which was at display in front of a window overlooking the railroadbridge crossing the river Rhein.
Rianne en ik bezochten de tentoonstelling "Before the law" in het Ludwig museum in Keulen. Een bronzen beeld van Reg Butler, voor een raam met uitzicht op de Rijn.

La Pavoni

Last friday my daughter Rianne and I went to Köln, (Cologne), for visiting modern art and cute specialised shops. We had some tea and a perfect double espresso in a café next to the Kolomba museum. They had a huge amount of expresso machines on display, among others this fantastic huge La Pavoni.
Een heerlijke espresso in caffé perfetto, in Keulen. Daar stond deze prachtige La Pavoni espressomachine.

First window

My first stained glass window pane.
Actually it was an exercise panel (of my own design), to get acquainted with all the different aspects of stained glass making.
Of course, just by looking at it I am reminded of all the places where I went wrong.
I tell you, making this was not easy at all, all these tiny little pieces which never seem to fit!
But in the end it was worth all the trouble. 
Mijn eerste glas-in-lood oefen paneel, 30x40cm. Als ik ernaar kijk zie ik alle plekken waar ik de fout in ging. Volgende keer moet het beter kunnen.

Paysage

Yesterday I finished my first stained glass window. I will show it here later, I have to clean it first before I can make a decent picture.
This is my design for the next piece, 60x60cm. A fantasy landscape.
Ontwerp voor een glas in lood raam, ik heb mijn eerste oefenraam nu af.

First snow

This is the winter weather I like: this morning we woke up with a thin fresh layer of snow and crispy fresh air under a pale blue early morning sky. So I took my running shoes for a nice 12km through the hills, woods and fields around where I live. All I could hear were the crows and the crispy sound of fresh snow under my feet.

I had forgotten about this sketch of our visit to the Aachen Weihnachtsmarkt two weeks ago. I only drew a few lines back then, it was drizzling all the time, so I finished it yesterday evening. Always beautiful, these German Christmas markets.

Ron

The last of our drawings of pastel on coloured paper. This was today's live model, Ron. The drawing actually resembled him. 50x60cm., took me an hour to make.

Presently I can only post these kind of works; it's a busy time of year, not only with work but also private. I wish I could go out and sketch something. Anything.
Maybe in a week or so, when the Christmas holiday sets in.

White drape

Art class, last saturday. We are still proceeding on the pastel on prepared paper, this time accompanied with black oil pastels (siberisch krijt). The white cloth was done with acrylic paint. The model was very good, she stood still holding up the drape for two hours!
I am not 100% satisfied, I think I worked too long on this one (almost 2 hours).
about 40x60