Church of St Mary, Cambridge



The picture of the interior of St Mary's in Cambridge was conceived in 2006 on my second visit to the extraordinairy Cambride Folk Festival. It was only completed at the end of 2012 as before I did not have the courage to wrestle with colour, perspective and and clair/obscure of this magnificent building.
With the help of my experienced art teacher Peter Britsia and the inspirations from Jan Hart's book on exceptional colours including a late sleepless hour at one in the morning the picture finally was completed. caputing a bit of the serenity and calm openness of this enlightened sanctuary.

Travels with my Paintbrush Delft VAK

This picture is the representation of Travels with my paintbrush. It is a changin blog als this picture was not made in a life situation, but also represents the internal pictures and visions that come on the paper. I suppose a picture is always a play of brush and reality and our own internal views of form, colour, structure, composition and the like.

Vecchia Masseria Sicily

In the middle of Sicily on the Southern side you will find the Vecchia Masseria and old estate and farm, almost the size of a small village delightfully furnished with Arabic tents to lounge and be sheltered from the blazing Sicilian sun. When I came home, I refurbished this small picture with more colour to get to the effect of strong lights and warmth that gives red shades in green surroundings. The heat should be palpable.

Punto Secco, Sicily

A small drawing of Punto Secco in Sicily, the setting where 'Inspector Montalbano' is working in the Sicilian mystery series for television. I do understand why this is inspiring, a lovely beach and all people walking as if they are on television screen.
aah well, I tried a small sketch for myself of this lovely townview from the beach and coloured the shades as dark as I could. 

Elsmeren Belgium

De Heerlijckheit in Elsmeren Belgium is a lovely estate with as a extra this extraordinary Chestnuttree with its mirror image in the water. I actualy painted this with the rain dizzling on my shoulders but me and the watercolour were able to hold the space long enough to have it finished.

When is a watercolour finished anyway; do not finish it as you just might have finished it off, you just stop in interesting places. I used a watery technique, alternating wet on wet with colours as they came from the box to enhance the picture.

Schwabenlaendle, Germany

Junes entry

Summer in Delft

This image of a beautiful summerday in the old city of Delft depicts the porch to the Prinsenhof
I dared to use pink as a basis for the buildings and a light yellow on the sky which turned out nicely.

Tenerife Mountain Teide

The Teide mountain is beautiful on all times of the day. This evening view struck me because of the layers of lights that are so clear close to the aquator.

English Cottage and Garden

This English Cottage and garden were painted to get a good look at the different shades and tones of the plants and really have the viewer take a mindful walk to the door in his or her imagination.

Merman's House in Delft

The Merman's house in Delft was painted after a picture taken in Autumn in

the sun and depicts the roof of the famous mayor in Delft who had this name.

The merman is shining in the sun and I learned in this aquarel how to create the illusion of gold and sunshine in the picture on the merman. I realised that straight forward blue skies are not in the spirit of an aquarel and that a blue sky that has a few movements and clouds is much more interesting.

In the full picture you can observe the trees standing out in the foreground just by making the roof a lot darker.