Montmedy and Tetaigne

I had a nice weekend in the North of France, last weekend. To celebrate out 28th wedding anniversary. Even though the weather wasn't all that good, we had a terrific time.
We stayed in Tetaigne, a tiny village near Sedan. Our former neighbours have a Bed & Breakfast & Dinner there, Lovely place to stay and dine. We exchanged many good stories of the old days.
On saturday we made a trip through the surroundings. Montmedy is an old military town, with a fortified citadel. The weather was good enough for a coffee on the terrace on the market square, so I had chance to draw this scene.

 This is a view of Tetaigne from our lodgings. More or less all of the village. :)

Jake's song

I sometimes make music.
My Grandson, Jake, now 15 months old, was brabbeling away, and I used that soundbite to compose this song. Made with MusicMaker and Beatbox, I played most instruments myself.

Germaïn again

The same model, Germaïn again. (I made a mistake with his name, not Jamin but Germaïn).
This time I took a simple sheet of plywood, and tried to paint subtle, trying to keep the wood character into the painting. Even though the resemblance is ot striking, I think it looks vivid. For a life portrait session I guess that accounts for something.
Acrylic on plywood, 50x60cm.

Hulsberg

The church of Hulsberg.
I made the sketch while waiting for the Easter mass to begin. As Gertie sings in the choir, they have to warm up their voices half an hour before the start. I walked around the church and made this fast little sketch.
Just added the background colour at home.

Germaïn

This is Germaïn, a very good model, which we had the pleasure to paint last Saturday during live portrait painting class. It was supposed to be a two mornings session, but somehow the painting worked out so vivid, that I decided to leave it at this. I had something totally different in mind with the red background, but somehow the red appearing in parts of the face, together with the gesso-white of the fibreboard just worked out fine. Acrylic paint on wood, about 40x60cm.

Here are the earlier stages of the painting, and a picture of Germaïn (I posted this picture without his permission, I don't know how to reach him, if there is any problem I will remove it).

I show it here to show which choices I deliberately made.

(editorial note: I made a mistake with Germaïn's name, it's corrected now).

Klimt again

Pretty busy lately, it's often like that in this time of year.
One of the things I did the last few months is (re)working this painting.
I was not content so far. I changed a few things, like trees and skin. It's done now.
If you want to see last years version, see this link.
http://renefijten.blogspot.nl/2016/06/girl-reading-klimt.html

Elsloo, view from my office

View from my office window. I was just in time to make this. The last few days the trees in front of my window start getting leaves, and this view will be obscured until autumn. Not a great loss.

Gertie in Delft.

Just another sketch that I made last weekend. It's Gertie (my wife) enjoying the sun on the "Beestenmarkt" in Delft. Even though I usually refrain from drawing family, I could not resist. And I must say, the resemblance is okay. Even though she usually does not look so serious. :)

Rotterdam Markthal

We had a lovely (short) weekend in Holland. First went to visit Delft (where I did my Masters in Architecture). Then a short ride to Katwijk aan zee, where we had dinner in a restaurant on the beach with a glorious sun sinking into the sea. In the evening we went to a fantastic musical "Soldier of Orange". Based on a autobiography of a guy who fought in the resiatance in WW2, and was personal adjudant of Queen Wilhelmina.
But the major feature of the musical is that the whole theatre moves and slowly turns, while the 8 stages are fixed and grouped in a 360 degrees circle. And it features real WW2 motorcycles, cars and a genuine original Dakota airplane. Fantastic.
On saturday we went to Rotterdam, where we had coffee in the Markthal, where I made this sketch.
I had forgotten my brushes: I made this with watercolour pencil, and a little water in a sponge.

Haarlem: het Spaarne

View over the Spaarne, the stream running through Haarlem.
if you want to see more sketches around this bridge, check this site of Roger Klaassen:
https://urbansketchers-netherlands.blogspot.nl/2017/03/hartje-haarlem.html.

A few pictures of the group, made by Marc Liefferinge.
Above Roger Klaassen en me, below the total group.

 

Dutch Windmills

The National Haarlem sketchcrawl. Actually, this is the second time I ever painted/drew a Dutch windmill. I am not looking for traditional or nostalgic scenes, but this was a beauty. De Adriaan, along the canal "de Spaarne".
 
I stood there with Roger Klaasen, who drew almost the same scene but is a totally different style, see here at the side. He is far better with linework than me.

And then, while waiting for the watercolour to dry, I sometimes do experiments. Like with this little sketch: made in indian ink, drawn with bamboo sticks, in maybe 5 minutes.

Haarlem: St Bavo

Haarlem, yesterday. We had another national sketchcrawl in Haarlem. in total 70 sketchers met in the city, spread out and made numerous drawings.
I joined Roger Klaasen, together we found some beautiful spots to draw.
Even though there was a cold wind, it was sunny and nice.
The drawing above is the main Cathedral of Haarlem, the St Bavo. We were sitting on a terrace while drawing this.

Weilerswist (Germany)

On the road in Germany, returning from Frankfurt. I had dinner at the McDonalds in Weilerswist, below Cologne. This guy was enjoying a coffee and some chocolate cake: some McDonalds have a real coffee counter with good coffee nowadays. Starbucks made these chains improve.

Gaspard

Small portrait of Gaspard, a live portrait model.
The painting is only 25x30cm, in acrylic. Took me 1 hour and a quarter to make.

Election day

It's election day in the Netherlands. We'll choose our parliament today.
And it was beautiful weather: spring has arrived, soft temperatures and nice smells in the air.
During my lunchbreak walk I passed along the polling station in Elsloo, where some senior citizens were chatting with all the time on their hands. I had to return to office. Tsja.

Glass horse

After the mixed results of the last glass vases, I returned o familiar ground.
A horse head, sheet glass with mixed emaille colours, and small stripes of glass on top.

Yesterday I finished the base glass, added the colours, and made the horse's manes.
Here is an image of the design, the statue will be about 30 cm high.

Bad Camberg

Had to drive to Frankfurt yesterday, for a business meeting. I took a coffee break after a few hours driving. This business man was sitting on the next table, totally off the world with his Iphone.
Modern day communication. In the 10 minutes that I made this impression he did not even move his hand or shifted in his position.

Pate de verre vases

I made these two vases in "pate de verre" technique.
It's an ancient technique in which small glass particles are glued into a mold, and then heated.
It's very hard to make. I started with this technique in May last year or something like that.
This is the 4th trial of the blue bowl, and the 2nd version of the brown one.
And even though the brown one looks good on the picture, it has a deep cut in the bottom.
Keep in mind that each version cost at least 3 weeks (monday evenings in atelier) to make.
We found that the oven is probably not balanced enough for this type of heating.
I don't know if I will ever do this again.

La Cienega blvd, L.A.

Oilpainting, based on a picture that I took some years ago in Los Angeles.
I already reworked the picture into an urban sketch, which eventually lead to a comic in which sketchers all over the world participated. The sketch is shown below.

I tried to learn from the fantastic work of the L.A. based artist William Wray, who does similar treatment of Urban scenes.
I tried his themes before, without much success, but this is the first time that I am really content with the result.

Gonna do more like this. 

Jake

Jake, our grandson is now 13 months old.
Even though they say never sketch a family member, I could not resist.
Made this while he was eating some bread, that's the only time they sit still enough.