Amsterdam, de Gooyer

Amsterdam, de Gooyer. An old windmill, practocally in the middle of town. I was sitting on a nice terrace on the other side of the canal. in  the sun, sipping on some coffee.
Even though I lived in Amsterdam for a short while, I had never seen the mill up close.

Amsterdam, Nieuwmarkt

For the first time in a long time, I went out for a day to Amsterdam, to visit an exhibition about David Hockney and van Gogh.
I also took the opportunity to go out and sketch. It was beautiful spring weather.
I made this at the Nieuwmarkt, the Waag. In the middle ages goods used to be officially weighted here, and taxes to be paind. It's still a beautiful building.
In front is the daily market.

Floating thooughts

Floating thoughts.
One of those drawings that draw itself.

carnaval 2019

Carnaval last weekend. This is the float in the parade of Hoensbroek. One of the 100 groups/floats/bands and single participants (Eimzelgänger).

Madonna with child

The finished painting. Madonna wit child. Or rather, my daughter Rianne, with our grandson Willem.
Based on a picture. Acrylic and oil pastel 50x60cm
It was a difficult procedure, following Christianne Knops ideas. The different stages:

stage1: blocking in the areas. Here you can still recognize the forms of the original photograph.

  stage 2: bringing back the lines with oil pastel

stage 3: different colourfields, extending beyond the border. Each field should show a little of the previous one. Linework should behave freely around the colourfields, not restrict them. This was how last week ended.

Stage 4: today, just painting a totally different colour on top. This was very difficult to do, I had to give up on the parts I loved the most. Killing your darlings.

Stage 5: I enhanced the skintones, the strong arms needed to be emphasized.

Stage 6: Due to the arms, the clothes were too bleak. I added a contrast colour, carefully leaving traces of the old layers visible.

Stage 7: the dress needed contrast: I darkened the backgroud, redrawing the linework every time with different coloured oil pastels.



Stage 8 (final, see the first image): the dress was interesting of colour, but alltogether too flat. I added an extra layer of purple-grey.
I also adjusted the background.
Then the linework again, with orange white and black oil pastel.

The point is: when to stop. I worked over 4 hours on this, and could have gone on.
But I reached the point where I had the feeling that whatever I added would not make it better or more interesting.
I guess that is the learning point.

Mother

Too much other things to do than drawing. I am helping organizing the Urban Sketching symposium in Amsterdam, in july. I'm doing the workshop coordination, 36 in total.
That is a lot of work, checking if the proposed locations are okay or the instructors, and proposing better alternatives. Most instructors are unfamiliar with Amsterdam.

In our Art class we are preparing for an exhibition in May. And we have a new assignment: painting in gthe style of Christianne Knops. We did that before, some 3 or 4 years ago, always an interesting treatment of the subjects: the play of line and coloured fields.

These is the unfinished painting that I am working on. It's loosely based on a picture of my daughter with my grandson Willem.
But the posture was what iterested me.
I am trying to finish it next weekend.

Visitors at the library

I was at the library of Maastricht, looking for some good books to read.
I was able to make some sketches there of the visitors.
The above guy was sitting next to me and was listening to the vast CD collection. But he fell asleep while listening. He woke up half an hour later, I had finished this sketch by then.

The other man was readig the newspaper in the library cafe.

Maastricht Noorderbrug

The road to nowhere.
This is the old access to the Noorderbrug in Maastricht. Actually, they moved a complete concrete bridge over the river Maas, amybe half  mile long. on the east side it stayed where is was, it was hoisted and slowly turned. On te west side it now lands some 100 meter up north, improving the run of the roads and traffic flow enormously. But the old connection to the former location of the bridge is still there......

Shin-Koyh

The faint smell of cinnamon greeted us when we finally arrived at Shin-Koyh.
(a lunchtime doodle that went a bit too far...)

Toys for Angry Architects

Toys for Angry Architects. Pencil and watercolourpencil (Dürer and Inktense).

Julia in Kees van Dongen style

 

Live portrait session. Julia, our spanish model again.
We had to try out painting using Kees van Dongen style elements.
Kees van Dongen was a Dutch collegue of Henri Matisse and was part of the Fauvism movement, early last century.

The idea is to make a black background, and then paint coloured parts over it in a "woolly" fashion. The black should shimmer through the strokes.
By leaving the connection between the painted areas uncoloured, you create lines with a very different feel then if you had painted those lines.

Below you see a picture of Julia in front of the finished painting.

Anoher one from C-mine

Another location sketch of C-mine in Genk. The whole (former) coal mine is full of machines like these.

C-mine Genk.

I had some time left on Sunday, my wife was shopping. I went to a cultural centre in Genk Belgium, which is housed in a former coal mine. The generator hall is still intact, like it was when the mie was still in function. The large wheel served to roll the cables, who went up the tower, and down the elevator shafts.
Even though it was inside, it was pretty cold.

12 nudes

 

Some time ago I bought a Hahnemühle Kraft paper book.
I made some drawings with black ink and white marker in them.
Just exercises in shape and shadow. 

In total I wanted to do 12 nudes. I will not show all of them, here are 4 of the better ones.

Muscle Tension

Drawing in my Moleskine A4 sketchbook. Ink.

Isabel

Live portrait session, Isabel, the daughter of Annemiek. Acrylic, about 50x60cm.

Rainy night on the coast

Just a drawing, non-waterproof ink washed out with white gouache and watercolour.

Schoolbus

Urban sketch of a schoolbus, standing on a parking lot near my office.
I made this during lunchbreak, even though I had to stop halfway with the watercolour, because it started to drizzle. Finished it at home.
And then there was a nice surprise: Marian Langereis made a fantastic poem when she saw the drawing (in Dutch, I wouldn't dare translating it).

Kijk ze daar staan
de ijzeren jassen zwaar op de wielen
de motor stil
het ontroerend vervoer
zal zonder vragen
je van hier naar daar willen dragen
met uniform wil je weten
met wantsy aan vergeten
kijk ze nu staan
geduldig wachten
in kou en warme nachten
op jou en jou en jou
kijk ze staan
tot elk zijn kant op zal gaan

Chateau Neercanne

First, best wishes for the new year. may it be a happy, healthy and fruitful one.
Another go at the Chateau Neercanne building. I made this with gouache (not on location though).
Maybe I'll turn this into a painting once.

La tour d'Eben-Ezer

This tower stands just across the border from Maastricht, in Bassengen (Belgium). It stands on a hill and is a tower built from silex (I think in English it's called flint, some type of quarz stone). The tower was made by the esoteric philosopher Robert Garcet in the early 60s.
On top of the tower there are 4 large statues, which depict the 4 announcers of the Apocalypse, each looking into another direction.
A strange building. I had wanted to draw it a long time, but it was difficult to be reached.
I made 2 versions, but the other one was pretty grim.