Illustration Friday Atmosphere

In this sketch I've tried to catch the atmosphere of a sunny morning in a quiet French village. What you see is a little service station, with the Citroen 2CV AZU in front of it.

Not The House Of My Father

Another advantage of cleaning up archives, is the joy of finding drawings which were long time forgotten. For instance the drawing I've made of this cottage in the village I was born. I'm not sure in which year I've made this pendrawing, but it must be around 1994, cause it's made with the same sizes and drawingpaper I used for the drawings I made for the exhibition that never took place (read my previous post).
This cottage stands on the corner of the street where my father was born. His elderly house didn't look a bit of what it looked like when my father lived there, so I choose this house as subject of my artistic needs. The house my father lived in was also in use as a bakery and a little shop. My father started his own bakery when he got married and my uncle inherited the bakery my grandfather started. Over the years the building was reshapen to the demands of modern entrepeneurship and architectural ideas of how a bakeryshop should look like. That is: according to my uncle. That didn't turn out to be a pretty sight, as you might expect.
Luckily my father had some very old sketches in his possession, which were made in the 1930's by his old neighbour. Using these sketches and some old black and white photographs, I've made a coloured pendrawing. This drawing still hangs on the wall above my father's organ, back in my parents house.

Essential equipment

First rule of paragliding is: safety. So before I go out for a flight, I check every detail of my flying gear. It's very important to have your equipment checked, at least the night before, so you don't get surprised the next day at the last moment when you're about to take of on some mountaintop and realise that there's something not working.
It's also very important to take care for another big issue when you're about to fly: water. I once forgot my waterbottle and landed far from the landingspot. So, finally, more than two hours later on a hot summerday (we always fly at hot days because of the thermals) I arrived at a little village closest to the place I landed just to find out that every store was closed because of the middaybreak. Luckily there was a fountain at the villagesquare...
So, from that day on I always look after a sufficient watersupply along with my flying gear. Two waterbottles, just in case one get's broken.

Farewell to Cevennes

This is the fourth drawing I made regarding my holiday in France, back in 1995. It's always relaxing to draw something you were impressed by during your stay. It sort of brings back good memories. Although I don't remember what part of the scenery impressed me most when I was standing on this spot. I guess the serenity of a little village in a empty landscape.