Amstenrade in Corona days

The Castle of Amstenrade, just a few 100 meters from our house.
It's Tuesday now, I made the drawing last Sunday. Two days that feel like ages, all due to the deepening crisis of the Corona contaminations. The numbers of victims and the deathtoll is rising quickly.
Schools are closed, streets far too quiet, me working at home. Everyone tries to avoid personal contact. We are even avoiding visiting my mother; as her age is in the second half of 80. Afraid to pass something on, which we don't even know we have. Tough dilemmas, but she is okay with it. There are good alternative ways to communicate these days.
And in the meantime, after weeks of continuous rain, the weather gets better. Trees blossom, flowers start to colour our garden, birds are suspiciously eying our cats, squirrels make the branches dance.
It seems out of tune with our own feelings. Strange days.

Oirsbeek

Oirsbeek, a village just 3 km from where I live. It was nice weather, and I just had to get out and draw on a quiet place.
All the news is all about the Corona virus, the death, the lockdowns of schools, restaurants and other institutions. I had contact with possible virus victim early last week, and I confined myself to working at home. Luckily I have no health problems, but I know some people with high fevers (maybe the virus, maybe not, but you just don't know). All this is terrifying.
So I need drawing to set my mind to other things.

Family in glass

Three dimensional glass fusion object. I had made the first three figures before, back in 2015. Rianne was expecting our first grandson, Jake. But there is another lovely boy now, Willem. So I had to add another figure.
And another cat, first there was Noortje, now there is also Sammy.
A lovely family.

Where ships die

Elsloo

It was time to make an urban sketch again. I am busy with all kind of other projects and activities, so sketching went into the background a bit.
During lunchbreak I went into Elsloo, and made this little sketch of the church, up the hill. This is seen from the old castle, which funny enough is at the bottom of the hill. Apparently the church used to be more important than the gentry.

Geitenweg Nuth

One of October that I forgot to post. An old caravan on a countryroad, on one of my running rounds.
I was considering turning this into a painting. I am not so sure yet. So much to do, so little time.

Borgermolen, oilpainting

The Borgermolen in front of castle Terborg, in Schinnen. Just a few kilometers from my house.
I looked for a subject to paint, and found the white woodwork of the 1st floor quite interesting.
It's painted with waterbased oils, Talens Cobra. I only used Umber, Sienna, blue and Paynes grey. Thin watery layers of paint, then washed out with water using crumbled paper, rulers, cloth etc. Slowly the image emerges from the mud.

Tagebau Inden

I went to an exhibition of the drawings of the French comic book author Moebius (Giraud) in Brühl, Germany.
On the way there I passed Inden, just behind Aachen. There are huge browncoal works there. I was able to get to the edge of the terrain, viewing into the deep open mine. The machine on top of the hill stands about 2 km away, and is about 65 meters high. Just to get the scale in proportion.

Anatomy

Abelated christmas present for my son-in-law. He has a physiotherapy practice, and wanted an anatomical painting on his wall. I once visited Körperwelten, Body worlds, and made drawings of preserved human bodies. I made this collage basd on pictures of some of the displays.
Made on fabriano paper and caran d'ache watercolour pencils (museum quality, they are very good).

Gregorius and the wobbling waves

On his way to work Gregorius meets some wobbling waves. He realizes he will be 10 minutes late.

Lefthand gothic

Lefthand Gothic. Once in a while I do some drawing games with others.
Laura S. Fiat organized a "Sherlock game", a bunch of people make a drawing on a subject, and everyone will have to guess who made which drawing. Actually that is very hard. I only had one correct.
Subject this time was: make a drawing with your left hand, including a mirrored handwritten text.
Very hard to do.
And my inside joke: the chapel in the back is the one that is featured in the well known painting: American Gothic by Grant Wood.

Anatomy excercise

Excercise for a larger drawing, a commision for an assembly of several anatomical bodyparts.
This image was based on pictures of the Body World exhibition in Amsterdam. In 2014 I went there to draw corpses for a day. See 2014/08/body-worlds-amsterdam.
Made with a new set of Caran d'Aches Museum watercolour pencils, that I recieved for testing through Liz Steel, kast summer in Amsterdam. They are fantastic.

Marleen, but not really

After the Urban Sketching meeting we went to a cafe in Utrecht. We were chatting and trying to draw each other. With mixed success. This should have been Marleen reading her smartphone, but the resemblance is not that good. It's always hard to do live portraits under such conditions, but at least I think I managed to make a lively one.
Made with Technalo pencils in a A5 moleskine sketchbook.

Utrecht, Oude gracht

We had a meeting as urban sketchers Netherlands with all the local groups, to discuss issues and future plans. And to learn from each other and exchange information. Very well organized by Roger Klaasen and Judith Spijk. After that we had a few drinks, and took a moment to sketch at one of the canals in the centre of town. The Oude gracht, at the "werf".  But it was rather cold, just above freezing point. By the time I finished this one my hands almost fell off.

Eindhoven Botstraat

Lunchtime in our office in Eindhoven. Too cold to leave the office, so I will draw what I see through the office window.

Magpie in glass

I had finished this glass object some years ago, but it rested in a drawer in my house.
I never had the time to make the basis. During christmas holidays I finally got around finishing it. It now has a teakwood base.
The object is made from small stripes of coulored glass. When the sun shines through it is even more beautiful that the picture shows.

Olst, Overijssel

Business appointment in Olst, a village at the banks of the river "de ijssel".
We were a bit early, and parked on a quiet street in the village to eat some sandwiches (in the car). A moment to catch up on emails and phonecalls. This was the view out of the frontwindow of the car.
Took me 12 minutes to make this drawing. I had forgotten my watercolours, but washing out a Koi brushpen did the trick as well.
It's a very old farm called "De rooze".

Luuk, newborn

A newborn in the family! My niece had a babyson, called Luuk.
He looks lovely.
His parents are very happy to have him, and so are his new grandfather and grandmother.

Somewhere near Vaals

An exercise in watercolour.
This painting is based on a watercolour painting of a scene in Limburg, originally made by the fabulous painter Edo Hannema. His painting was a winter-scene, and I wondered what would be needed to turn it into a summer-scene. But still keep the same idea about contrasts.
I think painting was succelfull in this respect, but not as good as Edo's scene.
I had not done wet-in-wet technique for a long time, I must do it more often, it was a pleasure to do.
Watercolour on Fabriano A4 paper.

Chinatown NYC: underpainting

I started another serious painting again. A cityscape, of a picture I made last April in New York City. It's a location in Chinatown, where East Broadway crosses the Manhattan Bridge, an underpass.
The scene is in the rain, it was pouring that day. The basic photograph was taken on the go, while walking, it's not that good.


The location doesn't look like much on google streetview.
Anyway, this is just the underpainting (to get the composition and colorthemes right).
On canvas 50x60cm, so far with acrylics.
Next step is to adapt the scene to strengthen the scene, take out those elements that don't enhance the story.
Then painting it with oils. (I use Cobra watersoluble oilpaint).

I hope it will work out.