Koninginnedag

Today is Koninginnedag, Queens day. We went to Utrecht for the festivities, free markets, foodstalls, improvised bars and music everywhere. And Orange flags and dresses wherever you look (Orange is the colour of the Dutch Monarchy). The weather was fantastic, I cannot remember we had better sunny weather ever on this day. And thousands of people in the streets and on the boats which swarmed the canals.
I made this drawing while sipping coffee on one of the terraces next to the main midtown canal, overlooking the Oude Gracht. It was early, 11.00, the festivities had yet to start.

Louisiana houses

On the morning of my flight back, I rose early to make sketches in the vicinity of the hotel. I managed to sketch and paint 3 sketches (one of them is horrible though). A few hundred meters from the Baton Rouge hotel I found this more or less typical Louisiana suburban house, with a beautifully porch. It's on the corner of Marigold and Cherrydale avenue. I tried to find the house back on Google streetview, but apparently the house was not yet built back in febr 2008!
One funny thing about these houses: they are located in huge grass lawns, with beautiful full grown trees, but there are no fences, hedges or shrubs to define where your garden ends and your neighbours starts. That's very strange to a Dutch eye.

Burrito in Atlanta

Phew. That was a busy week. First to the USA on business trip, then co-organising the local Sketchcrawl, then four days with my wife to Istanbul, Turkey. The latter to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
I have a stack of about 15 drawings I made in this week, which I will post the coming time.
Here is a sketch of the fast food meal I ate on the Atlanta airport on my way back to Europe.
Actually the meal was not the best choice, it was quite heavy stuff, it bothered me during the flight.
Een (fastfood) burrito, zoals gegeten op het vliegveld van Atlanta, USA.

Mississippi

I still have some sketches left from my trip to Louisiana, here is another.
As stated yesterday, I would have liked to sketch the steamboots on the Mississippi, but this is second best: the Plaquemine ferry across the river. My company, Roel, decided to make a nice detour for my benefit, and take the ferry instead of the bridge. It was a strange ferry, the ramp was located at the side of the boat, and the cars had to manoeuvre around the steering house in a circle to park their cars. Like a floating rotunda. I just finished the drawing, sitting on the stern, when we arrived at the other side.

Sketchcrawl

Yesterday we did our first Sketchcrawl in Heerlen. We did not know if anyone would turn up, and much to our surprise in total 12 people of in total 4 nationalities showed up (Dutch, German, French and English). Initially the rain poured down heavily, and we drew from the library windows on the first floor of the glaspaleis, later it became dry and we could go outside.

Here pictures of the  group; unfortunately some crawlers had to leave too early for the final review and group picture.  The results will be shown on our special blog: http://sketchcrawllimburg.blogspot.com/

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Just on my way back from a short visit to Louisiana, USA. Only one day in Baton Rouge near New Orleans, on business. Luckily I managed to make a few sketches, here is the first of them. I would have liked to draw steamboats on the Mississippi of course, but this roadcrossing near the hotel tells also about the USA. It was made early morning just before breakfast. You have to take an opportunity as it comes.

Me, myself and I

This is the most difficult painting I ever made, a self portrait. You can see the preliminary stages in the post of March 24th. I finished it yesterday.
Looking back, I think the painting became too refined, it lacks broad strokes and rough edges. But once I started painting this idea (the mirror, the camera, myself etc.), the painting led itself to this style.
But I really enjoyed working with oilpaint, it was the first time I used it, and it works very fine.
So here it is, on 70x90cm oilpaint. Me, myself and I.

Aan de kerk

Another sketch of my home village, across the road from the castle. The lane is called "Aan de kerk"; obviously it leads to the church (dating from 1850).
I was told that in the 30's an aunt of my father had a café in the house on the left. As she was widow another uncle would be there every evening for protection; consuming free drinks. Untill he got so drunk, he had to be carried home. Family stories.

Luca

Art class. A quick painting of Luca, the daughter of Annemiek, our teacher. This is one of the 2 paintings I made in these two painting hours that we have on Saturday morning.
Acrylic, 50x60cm. The difficult part was to know when to stop.

Do chairs go to heaven?

 

Doodling during a memorable meeting. One of the participants went on drooling about hardly relevant details and definitions, until the irritated client flashed out and intervened. That was a first time in 20 years experience.

I started with the shoe. I have no idea why.

Sketchcrawl

Nico and I am organizing the first Heerlen Sketchcrawl !

Sketchcrawl is something like Urban sketching in a group, organized worldwide on April 21st.

Have a look at the Sketchcrawl site.  

So, if you are into sketching everyday life, come, take your drawing gear and join us on April 21st, 13.00 hours in Schunck cultural center and library (glaspaleis) in Heerlen. And it's free!

Check our special  blogsite: http://sketchcrawllimburg.blogspot.com/

For those not living in Limburg, there are other sketchcrawls in Schiedam and Gouda.

Voor de nederlandstaligen onder ons: lees de flyer.

Amstenrade

The castle of Amstenrade, just around the corner of my house.
This is the view from the village, as seen from the Hommerterallee, with the small unused guardhouse in front.
The caste is still private property; the count and/or countess d'Ansembourg live there.
Kasteel Amstenrade, gezien vanaf de Hommerterallee.

Spring

Spring is in the air.

TA Cap

On Chemelot (the chemical plant where I work presently) massive renovation works take place, called TA/CAP . They do that every 10 to 15 years.
An extra of 1200 workers are brought in, continuously dismantling installations and building new ones. As the works have to be done in something like 8 weeks, works go on 24/7.
Here a sketch of one of the numerous mammoth cranes on the terrain.
Renovatie werken aan een van de productielijnen op het Chemelot terrein, Geleen.

Self portrait in process

 For artclass we had to make a painting with the theme "mirrors". I didn't like the theme, I did not want to make a painting with a person and its reflection, because you are focussing too much on the differences between the two.
So I decided to treat the theme mirror literally: a painting of a mirror and myself in it.
As I had to work on two different locations, I had to use a photo. So I decided to show that I used a camera as well. Besides, I like the idea of showing the hands, makes the self-portrait composition more interesting.
To make life more difficult, I decided to use oilpaint, for the first time on a serious painting.

First picture is the underpainting, made in acrylic on a 70x90cm canvas frame, based on a charcoal drawing.




The second picture shows the mirrorframe, painted in oil.
I realised that the portrait part was not useful as underpainting, it was already too detailed. An underpainting should determine composition and shadow/light aspects.

 Here I adapted the face, in acryl. Note that I changed things like the length of the wrist.
I also started painting the background of the face, ochre on top of the yellow-green underpainting, to give the ochre a deeper effect.

In this phase I worked on the face and hands again. It was a first time in oil, and I found oilpaint works nicely, you can push the colours into each other. But I also realised that I was working too detailed, with all kind of different touches and tiny colour transitions. Even though it comes closer to the photo, it drains life out of the painting. I already added some broader strokes, but it was too late to change the panting around. Next time I have to keep more distance
Also note that I have not yet painted my glasses, they sit on top of my face, and for that reason should be painted later (after the paint dried somewhat)
To be continued....

Lancia Fulvia

This morning when arriving at work in Geleen, I parked my car next to this vintage Lancia Fulvia. Couldn't resist making a quick sketch of it, while two interested security guards were watching me draw and paint. Unfortunately the car was in desperate need of repair. Vanmorgen vroeg op het parkeerterrein van Chemelot (Geleen), vond ik deze mooie oude Lancia Fulvia, in helaas nogal roestige en verbleekte staat.

Tsunami Japan

A year ago Japan suffered from this horrible Tsunami. I saw some footage from the devastation last sunday; some of the images stuck in my mind, and I reworked them in this drawing. Washed out Hero fountainpen ink in a large Moleskine.
Tsunami Japan, nu een jaar geleden. Afgelopen zondag zag ik wat beelden, daar moest ik wat mee, en ik verwerkte het in deze tekening. Uitgewassen vulpeninkt in een Moleskine.

Glass in progress

Not much inspiration lately. So I post here an update on my stained glass window, as of this evening. Proceeding slowly but steadily.
The size of this pane is 60x70cm. Still a long way to go.
Mijn glas in loodraam in uitvoering, de stand van vandaag. Nog een tijdje te gaan.

Factory

Still having my desk on the Chemelot plant in Geleen. The weather is nice for the time of year. So during lunchbraek I went out to draw. Not very inspiring, this view of one of the many plants on site.
Schets van een van de vele fabrieken op het Chemelot terrein.

Cortenbach

The castle of Cortenbach, in Voerendaal. Also near my home in Limburg.
Funny, we don't see it anymore, but there are a lot of these castles in our surroundings. I count at least 6 within a 5 km radius of my house. Castle Hoensbroek, Amstenrade, Terborg, Rivieren, Terworm, Cortenbach. Not all of them very large, but larger than the numerous strengthened farms that you find here.
A quick sketch made during lunchbreak, on my way between a client and the office. The weather was too nice not to go out of the car. Schets van Kasteel Cortenbach in Voerendaal.