Magdeburg Hundertwasser (2)

I noticed that I hadn't posted this drawing yet. It's the other side of the Hundertwasser building, the backside.

I had half an hour left to make the pendrawing before my train would leave.
I totally disliked the actual colours of the building, so I determined to keep it in slightly coloured greytones.
I think it works far better than the other drawing, of a few posts back.

This was also the first time I reused my Lamy Joy with a calligraphy nib (1.5), it had been lying in my desk for years.
Back then it didn't work for me, but now I really liked working with it. So I used it to make the Rotterdam drawing (Piekstraat) as well. Which I even like better!
Funny how you sometimes rediscover materials after time.

Rotterdam, Piekstraat

I was in Rotterdam, yesterday, for the final presentation of a 4 day training in Projectmanagement.
We finished quite early, so I had time to make this sketch at the harbour.
But is was cold, an icy wind was blowing in my back.
It's an old industrial crane, at the river Maas. The other side of the river is where the city center is.

No right Turn: Chapter 7 the escape

I am hosting a collaborative Comic, with the much appreciated help of now about 25 artists.

I determine the story and scene, but the artists decide how and in which style to draw.
We have 57 pages already, but we are drawing to the final stages.
Chapter 7 "The escape" is now finished. I will show the new drawings in a few days.

This chapter has contributions of:
Rene Fijten
Jerry Wease
Jim Scheel
Rene Fijten
Laura F. Sfiat
Jorge Royan (deceased, this panel was inserted to honour him)

Magdeburg, Hundertwasser

Business trip to Magdeburg. There is a Hunderwasserhaus there. In the meantime I visited some of them: in Vienna and Houthem. I am no fan, but his ideas are at least very interesting.
This one is the largest of the Hundertwasser buildings, including shops, apartments, a hotel, restaurants, parking garages and even a theatre. A regular cityblock.
This sketch was made in the evening. The colours are not correct, it was dark by then. The next day reality showed the colour of the building to be light pink. :(

Urban sketching Maastricht

Urban sketching meeting today, in Maastricht. It was very cold (4 degrees C), but luckily no wind.
And we were sitting a bit sheltered on a covered terrace.
I made this impression of one of the facades of the Market, with a row of old houses.
It took a lot of time to make this, the water would only dry very slowly. But that offered a chance to warm yourself on a hot cup of coffee.

Morgan 3 wheeler

A drawing with the same technique. Indian ink, and gouache.
I love that machine, I saw one on the street once: they are tiny and very cramped.

The Raven

Indian Ink, white and black gouache.
Inspired and based on a painting by Lindsey Kustusch (San Francisco).
I found the image on internet, it was really hard to find the original painter.
She makes a lot of inspiring work.

Hotel lobby Rotterdam

Travels to Rotterdam. A sketch made in the restaurant of my hotel, while waiting for the dinner to arrive. I did the figure first. Then, after dinner, when the guy was gone, I added the chandelier and painting frame.

Grandfather/mother again!

We had to keep it quiet for some time, but I can now post it: our daughter is expecting her second child, in early summer.
It's our second grandchild. We love it.

Tourists are early this year

Yesterday morning, being early for the appointment for renewal of my driving license, I had time to make this little sketch. Actually, it's a bit humouristic statue on the Geleenstraat in Heerlen.
At least he stood still long enough to make this.

Flat earth exploration

It was one of those days that I just had to draw something.
This is the Scientific Exporation Ship "Mondo Plano". Equipped to have a peek across the end of the world, back in the days when everyone thought the earth was flat.
I had a discussion on FB about the dangers of sea exploration, and how Columbus set out proving the world was round. So the thought crossed my mind: how would the vessel have looked if the Vatican would have wanted to prove their point?

Sinterklaas 2017

First of all: best wishes for the new year. May all dreams come thru, and may you live in the best of health.
Now, I had planned to do a lot of sketching and painting this holiday, but I just needed some switching off time. Fixing things in our house, running, binge watching Netflix series, reading Dan Brown, visiting Weihnachtsmarkten, family to attend. A full schedule as you can see.
Instead of sketches I show here a few surprise gifts that I made for my family. For Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas). Dutch children get presents, adults get surprise gifts. Somehow in our family the tradition grew that I make all of them.
Above the fused glass object I made for our daughter in law, Lisa. She is (still) a dedicated Pokemon addict, looking for "Shiny Pokemons".

My son, Mart recieved a leather bound book "the Big Book of Noses" in which I collected 60 drawings of different noses (not shown here).

For my son in law, Bob, I made this little "urban object", referring to the difficult concrete floor we had to make last summer.
And it contains a real little cast concrete floorpart.


For my daughter I made a real "Proefschrift" (in Dutch a Doctoral Thesis is called "proefschrift". The word proef means both "test" and "taste") So I made a "Tasting book".
With all kind of spices and special tasting stuff.

Glass postdoc object

I made this glass object for a few collegues of Rianne, the two girls who helped her during the presentation and organisation of the Doctoral presentation.
The themes that show in her thesis are also represented in this glass object (about 25x25 cm large).
That was an easy one for me, as I also made the bookcover itself.
The flowing colours represent the mass of biological data, the form represents a 3 dimensional grid that is the means to visualise and organize the data.

Sharkeye enters the pawnshop

Picking up the collaborative Comic Noir: "No right turn". The last few months I had little time to host it, but I decided to pick it up again. This is a panel where Sharkeye, the private investigator, enters the pawn shop where the femme fatale (Desirée) is held captive. The bad guys (Big Bad Boris and the Ninja Girl) just escaped through the tunnel to the harbour. With the Golden box and the diamond....

Maastricht Grote gracht

A quick sketch of a little house, squeezed in between two higher buildings on the Grote gracht in Maastricht.
Took me about 10 minutes to make.
Last of the drawings of the Urban Sketching meeting on saturday 16th.

Workshop "living lines"

During the Urban Sketching day in Maastricht, I gave a workshop "Living Lines". How to train yourself in making confident linework.

These are the handouts.
I first did some warming up exercises.
Then I had the group experiment in making different types of lines.
My point was, that most sketchers are too busy staring at the subject, that they forget the means that they use.
Good line work, as with good colourwork, will enhance what you are trying to tell.

I had barely time to prepare for the meeting, I sat at a restaurant in a hotel in Rotterdam, and figured out that I had to make some examples.
So I took the subject in front of me: an ugly little Christmas decoration on the table.
I did different techniques:
1: Open linework, cross or break lines.
2: Colour and line independent.
3: Watertight ink: thick/thin lines
4: Non-waterproof ink: allow the water to bleed  the ink.
5: Chinese ink and bamboo pen: the line textured: from black to grey.

Urban Sketchers meeting in Maastricht

Yesterday we (well, mainly Ruud Otten) organized a USK meeting in Maastricht.
70 persons attended. I gave a workshop about making "Living lines". The theme was to make sketchers aware of how they use/draw lines when sketching. By using line properties like strength, thickness, dynamics, crossing, or breaking etc, you can improve your drawing, en enhance the story you want to tell. I had a very good group to work with.
The disadvantage is that you don't get to draw a lot. I could barely finish this little house of a lock, next to the river. And then it started drizzling. I left it that way, sometimes you have to embrace chance.

The group.

Rotterdam Maashaven

Made this drawing yesterday morning, looking out over one of the harbours of Rotterdam, the Maashaven.
This was the view from my Hotel room, in the very early morning.

Rianne Fijten, PhD

My daughter Rianne presented and defended her thesis yesterday.
As a result she had her Doctorship, PhD. We are both very proud parents.
The thesis was "Translational Research on Exhaled Volatile Organic compounds, from Bedside to Bench". A thesis about data analysing methods to determine the chance of having a particular diseas by checking exhaled breath.

I am proud to say she asked me to design and make the front of the thesis for her.
I will come back on that process later.

We had a terrific day yesterday.

Monotype

 Monotype is a technique where you put ink (preferably bookprinters ink) on a glass plate.
Then slide a piece of paper on top, and you make a quick sketch on the back.
It's always a surprise what comes out of this.
These are four of the about 20 that I made in about 2 hours.