Las Vegas shooting

Sometimes an image becomes haunting.
This drawing is based on a picture that was featured in the newspapers regarding the Las Vegas shooting on Oct 1st. Three festival visitors trying to escape from the gunfire.
It tells more than pictures of corpses or guns.
I did these kinds of drawings before in 2013, a monthly series called Timeline. Trying out what makes an image work. I might redo it. It has a good learning curve.
This one was made in about 20 minutes.

Olive tree

Olive tree, drawn with Chinese ink and blue-grey acrylic ink. I used self cut bamboo sticks. Based on a drawing of Susan Rudat of some years ago.

Elsloo

Quick lunchtime sketch, made in the village where our office is presently.
It's the backside of a row of old houses, looking over the local graveyard.
The stripes are alternating strands of "Mergel" (Local  yellow sandstone) and red brickwork, it's how they use to build in these parts. 
Took me about 25 minutes to make.

Mission foods Russia

Some years ago I designed a Tortilla plant for Russia, 80km south of Moscow.

It was finally opened last week, and my original artist impression was handed over to the client as  present for the opening during the reception.

Even though I could not be present it is a nice idea that some of my ideas were realized somewhere on the other side of the world.

The towers of Daedalae-12

The living towers of Daedalae-12. An imaginary city on a foreign planet.
More like a doodle leading its own way.
It's always interesting to see where the inspiration came from, at least afterwards.
Anselm Kiefer, Dubuffet, Mieville, Monument Valley.

Goslar, Münzstrasse

Business trip to Goslar, Germany.
We had a nice hotel in the centre of the town, so just before breakfast I was able to go out and make this sketch. Sketchbook A4.
Took me a little more than half an hour.
It's a passage on the Münzstrasse.
On the other side of the street there was a kindergarten, I was nice seeing parents bring their kids all the time that I was sketching.

No right turn: chapter 6

As you may remember, we are still working on that collaborative comic: "No right turn".
We got as far as chapter 6. It's a story about a detective (Sharkeye), the Cops, a little Chinaman called "Chen" and a Russian Mobster called Boris. And they are all running after a golden box and its key.
Contribution in this chapter: Jane Perreira (South Africa), Eric Brandsma (Netherlands), Wes Douglas (Chicago), Roger Klaassen (Netherlands) and Nik Ira (New York).
The story is by me.
On Issuu the story so far (50 pages already!)  https://issuu.com/norightturn/docs/no_right_turn_20170425

Amputation

A little more tha a week ago Mila, our young black cat, came home with an injured paw.
A severe wound up to the bone. It was already infected, and the Vet gave her a week of antibiotics.
It didn't work, the infection spread, so he was forced to amputate the toe of her back foot.
She is recovering slowly, even though she is as naughty as ever.

Boris talks

The comic No left turn is proceeding slowly. we arrived at chapter 7, the final one (except for a short epilogue).
I made the first panel of the chapter, where the intricate lines woven in the story are bound together.
In movies this is the time where the villain explains to his victims what is going on, and why he did what he did.
In reality a serious villain would shoot the victim and talk later.....
In contrast to a movie that is a difficult task for a comic: you have large amount of texts, so you need a strong image to bind them together.
I started with setting the text on the page, then found that the page had to be black, and figured I only wanted to show Boris.
And yes, Frank Miller was a huge inspiration for this one.

Culemborg a/d Lek

Time for experiments again. I made the below sketch very quickly, grey fountain pen and pentel bruspen, washed out. 10 minutes max, just for composition reasons.
Then I took a self sharpened bamboo stick with pure chinese ink, and made the drawing in my large watercolour sketchbook. It did not go smoothly, either the ink blotted, or it was too light grey. To much distance between deep black and grey tones. Something to figure out.
Then I added the negative space with a wash of sepia acrylic ink.
I am pleased with the result, but there is stil room for improvement.

Boats in the rain

After the founding of theUSK-nl association we all went to town to sketch. Culemborg is a nice old Dutch town.
But the weather was horrible, torrential rain. So we found a restaurant with a huge covered veranda, and a fantastic view over the river "Lek" and a harbour for pleasure boats.
I made this while sipping on a good Triple Affligem (Belgian Beer). And good company. :)

Stichting Urban Sketchers Netherlands

Yesterday the Association "Stichting Urban Sketchers Netherlands" was officially founded. After 5 years of ever expanding activities, we needed a legal base. It is difficult to organize activities with over 70 persons without contacting municipalities as a formal entity. The same for sponsors, donations etc.
Even more, we as a group would like to organize a symposium in the Netherlands or Belgium somewhere in the coming years, so we need a legal base to do that.
The board consist of 5 persons: Ruud Otten as chairman, myself as secretary, Roger Klaassen Financial, and Wiltfried Pathuis and Gail Anne Howard as other boardmembers.
In good USK fashion I made this sketch during the "reading ceremony", where the notary goes through the regulations and explains them.

Alfa Romeo Montreal

We had a birthday dinner in Geleen, but I was half an hour early. There was an Alfa Romeo cardealer (Coumans Geleen) across the parking lot, with this beautiful 1971 Montreal in the shopwindow.
One of the most beautiful cars ever made.
I even chatted with the dealer himself, always nice to talk to enthusiastic owners.
I only had my 20x13cm sketchbook at hand, I had to draw across the spine.

Maastricht view from the bridge

I am a bit slow with drawing and posting lately. To many other things in my hands.
No, it's not yet autumn here; this is just a commission for a painting, based on an older Urban sketch (2010).
Now made in the quiet seclusion of my house, with nice music in the background.
I really enjoyed drawing home again, very different from drawing on the streets.
A friend asked me to make a painting, as a present for the retirement of his colleague.

Harbour Georgioupolis

I made quite a few A5 drawings, the ones that I already posted.
I only took time to make one larger image, this one of a fishing boat in the little harbour of Georgioupolis, Greece.

Crete: Knossos and harbour

Two scenes from Crete: the little harbour, which was only 50 meters from the apperment. They brought in fresh fish every morning (if you would rise early enough).
We also made some trip across the island, to Rethymnon (but my sketch there was not worth showing) and to Knossos. These old excavations were very worth visiting, and I had the chance to make this little sketch of the partly restored palace, dating back to 2000 BC.

Georgiopoulis: Stelios

Each morning we would make the little walk into town and have breakfast at a Greek cafe: Stelios.
We would sit and have bacon and eggs or a crete omelette (with courgette and feta cheese), and some strong greek coffee without sugar. The below sketch is the view from our table down the street.

Sketchcrawl Maastricht (2)

This is another drawing that I made during the sketchcrawl. The baroque pulpit of the St. Jans church in Maastricht, halfway the hall. The St. Jan is a  protestant church, Catholic ones like the adjacent  St. Servaas preach from the choir/altar.
The other drawings are less interesting or unfinished, so they will not be posted.

Sketchcrawl Maastricht

I am a bit slow with posting presently.
So in between the Greece drawings, I'll post the results of the sketchcrawl of yesterday, in Maastricht.
The weather was horrible, continuous rain, so we drew inside. First the St. Jan, a protestant church. Second the Cellebroederskapel, the chapel of a former monastery. A chapel so hidden, I didn't even knew it existed.
The above drawing is of the structure of that chapel, dating back to about 1535.
The other sketches will follow.

Crete: Georgioupolis

Just returned from our anual holiday trip. This time to Greece, Crete to be more specific.
We had a terrific time in a small fishing village called Georgioupolis. large enough to have enough tourist stuff like beaches, car rentals and restaurants, but not so much tat you feel that you're not in Greece anymore.
This is a scene as seen from the beach, a little white chapel on a cliff in the water. We were chatting with some locals while making this.
More to come.