La Civita, Italy

Magical Creature from Urbino

It is good to copy and learn from the artist. This small dragon, as I called it is a little beast out of an old Italian book on magical creatures that inhabited the capital first letters of old Bible texts and other important books. I did learn a lot and the creature has its likeness to the original.

Mostly I loved mixing exactly the right colours of the blues, blue greens and greens. Would love to design one myself. Will do good time and many a copying, I suppose.

The Toothbrush on the Teck

This small group of pine trees is called the Toothbrush and has been drawn by me many times as it can be found on a small vulcanic mountain in Germany where my partner goes flying model planes. If you look closely you can see a small plane on the right in the right making a start to land.
Having used a minimal palet of greens the strange effect of the fotograph has helped to create the Macintosh like image you see.

The light in Kerry Ireland has left indelible images in my mind. A small memory is held in this aquarell of the tipical Irish blooming yellow shrubs in the foreground of the see and ever changing heavens. The term Irish dry for a light drizzle of rain that keeps this country so nice and green.

Although I had not discovered wet in wet techniques this is as close as I came with clouds to this kind of work inspired by the water of the heavens still to be shed by the dark cloud on the right.

Japanse Bridge in Clingendael

The Japanese bridge is one of my favorites in the Japanese garden of Clingendael a public estate at the borders the of city of the Hague. The Wisteria is blooming and a Japanese snow lantern can be found if you turn your step over the bridge.

The picture is drawn with a charcoal pencis and further lines in with pencil and then computerised for more clair/obscure effects.

Olive Trees in Greece

A beautiful spring vacation on Greece's Peleponesus brought us to a house with this magnificent view. I did not have much painting material with me and made this small drawing to capture the serenity and the wide view of the place. Drawn with pencil and filled in with the palet of the Olive trees the basis of this picture and an ever enticing subject.

Wisteria in Andalucia, Spain

At a cold spring vacation we had rented a house in Spain with this grandiose and rich blooming Wisteria. I tried to draw it, to understand this amazing pant and it's flowers and failed with every attempt not able to catch the complex structures and colours of the plant.

Finally at the end of the vacation I put the drawing board aside and just took the most bright watercolour and painted from memory and within a time limit. The unconscious is often better than the frightened conscious mind that want to be perfect and looses itself.

View on the Tiber, Italy

Seated at the flowing water of the river Tiber in a late summer afternoon, just an hour east of Rome in the Sabina, I tried out my first wet on wet painting. That was scary indeed learning to float the paint on the water as the water drifted by.
After a while it also became fun and later working with the beautiful book on watercolour of my painter friend Jan I realised there is a new world to discover. Just the thing to post in the first month of 2010.