Simple Minds

The Simple Minds played live in the Palladium, Köln (Cologne) yesterday evening. A fantastic performance!
We were standing close to the platform, to be able to totally undergo the music. And make a few pictures, like this one.

Crossing Breitner

Just wanted to paint/draw something today.
A simple watercolour, based on a picture I saw on Flickr, by Maarten Oortwijn called "crossing the street Breitner style".
Just having fun with colours.

Moscow Metro

Above painting was made during artclass, as exercise in Christianne Knops style. It was based on a picture I made last week the Moscow Metro system, circle line. Mind you, it was cold, very cold that evening. Minus 23. These Russians with their massive clothes were a nice inspiration for the painting. Acrylic, charcoal and pastel, 70x100cm.

Vnukovo

The train from Moscow centre to airport Vnukovo stood still for a few minutes. Just long enough to sketch this little dacha or chapel down below the railway bank.

365: a picture every day

A new year, a new project.
I had the bright idea (with a little help from Pascal) to post ONE picture every day for a year.
I probably will not be able to maintain that for a year, but here is a start anyway.
These are the results of the first two weeks.

The adress:
http://rene-365.tumblr.com/

And as a bonus, my daughter Rianne is doing  the same!
Her adress: http://riannefijten.tumblr.com/

Kremlin

Moscow: it was far to cold to draw outside, minus 23 Celsius is enough to have your hands hurt like they stick needles into them. But a little later we had dinner at Sbarro (a buffet pizza restaurant), with this view of the Kremlin wall. It's the part at the monument for the unknown soldier. It was dark and the buildings artificially lit when I made this, but I drew it as if by daylight. I wanted the red Kremlin wall to stick out.

Asperger

This afternoon Ricardo Frederiks (19) presented his novel at the Heerlen artcenter "Schunck".
The book tells the story of a boy with the Asperger syndrome (a type of autism).
It's not strictly an autobiography, but leans hard on his own experiences with that disorder.

Some time ago he asked me to make the cover for the book: the drawing of the glass jar with him in it, and swaying buildings as background.
It was a tough assignment because he had strict ideas about how the drawing should look like. And when I figured some of those ideas wouldn't work for a bookcover, I had a hard time convincing him otherwise; it was like my ideas just didn't arrive. Indeed, very Asperger.

During the presentation Ricardo and a few other poets recited a few poems. They were very good. All in all a very impressive presentation!

Moscow: minus 23

Business trip to Moscow. Freezing cold at the Kremlin: minus 23 Celcius.

Ikea flower department

We had a great time with all the sketchers together.
This is one of the drawings that I made: the flower department.
I had sketched the dooropening and flowers in pencil, when a woman came along to study a vase. She did not stand still for long of course, but the few seconds were enough to get the gesture right (in pencil). Then another woman came around, with a similar coat, another hairdo and a scarf. I still missed something, but a third woman had a bag like this, and that finished the drawing. The rest was just filling the colours.

Sketchcrawl at Ikea (7th)

We had another great Sketchcrawl again, the 7th. Like last year at Ikea again; at least it's warm and dry there.  Even though it was very crowded today, there was a lot to sketch.
In total we were with 18 sketchers this time. It's always great to sketch together and learn from each others drawings.

Jo-pie revisited

I was not happy with the earlier version, and I received some usefull ideas on what was wrong. So this afternoon during lunchbreak I went back and made a new version of the same curiosa shop in the Lantaarnstraat.
I think this one is already somewhat better.

't Winkelke Jo-Pie, Maastricht

A sidestreet in the Maastricht centre, the Lantaarnstraat. There is a small shop selling all kind of antique and old stuff, called 't Winkelke Jo-Pie (I think).
Even in the midst of winter he has a lot of brocante on display on the outside. Always a joy to see. Time for a quick sketch during lunchbreak.

I was reluctant to post the sketch because I feel there is something wrong with this drawing. It doesn't work. But I just can't figure out what.

So anyone an idea?

Mark

Portrait class with live model. 50x60cm, acryl. Took me about an hour to make.

Sketchcrawl 25 januari

Koekoewawa

Carnaval season will start in a few weeks, and there are preparations going on everywhere.
I made this drawing as illustration for our local carnaval newspaper, d'r UUL (the owl, according tradition a symbol for carnaval).

This small statue is called the "Koekoewawa", and is referring to an old local song (in dialect): "Doe bes eine KOEKOEWAWA, zuug 'm doa 'ns sjtoan!" (freely translated as: you are a silly man, look at you standing there).
It's always the first float of the carnaval parade as long as I can remember, even back when I was a little child.
This scene is loosely based on a picture I made last year during the parade.

Julia

Live model class. This time our model was Julia, it's always a pleasure to paint her because she can sit through difficult poses for a long time.
The exercise was to glue coloured paper at random on a 50x60cm sheet. Then apply transparent layers of acrylic paint over it, finding back the model, but without losing the background. Below you see the early stages. This one took about 45 minutes to make.
The procedure looks quite effortless, but the second that I made was horrible. I consider myself rather lucky with this one.

First: sticking the coloured paper.
Second: finding the contours with pastel and defining them with grey brown acrylic.
Third: blocking in the shadowed parts and light spots.
Fourth and final (top painting): adding details and painting the in between hues of colour.

More Stolberg

 

I still had a pencil and ink drawing left in my A4 Moleskine sketchbook. I made the sketch during my visit to Stolberg in December, but could not finish it because the dusk set in. I painted it yesterday. Originally I had planned to paint it in more detail, but I kind of liked the intermediate result so I left it this way.

This is the opposite view from the other Stolberg sketch (see a few posts back).

Glassworks

Working hard on my stained glass window again. Finished laying all the pieces in lead, next week soldering and fixing it in putty. I wonder how it will look like when the sun shines through it!

No right turn: The jewel

The final pane for Chapter 3 of our comic "No right turn". The secret revealed: an ancient jewel, which is broken. Leaves the quesion: where is the missing part, and what is the meaning of the jewel.

Starting 2014 with Wes Douglas

First: best wishes for the new year! May it be a creative one!
How about this surprise when opening my facebook account this morning: Wes Douglas (from Illinois,USA) made this fantastic portrait of me. I had no idea. How cool is this.
And so well made.
You already guessed that's a reference to the comic we are all working on: "no right turn".
I think that hat looks really cool, I'll have to buy one.
Thanks Wes!