Slibtong met venkel en saffraansaus

 

De kunst van het schetsen

Eind vorig jaar kocht ik het boek The Art of Urban Sketching van Gabriel Campanario. De subtitel van het boek is Drawing on Location Around the World. In het boek zijn inspirerende schetsen afgebeeld gemaakt door tekenaars vanuit alle hoeken van de wereld.

De typografie van de begeleidende teksten is uitdagend. Je kunt aanvoeren dat het in dit boek om het plaatje gaat, maar het verhaal achter een tekening is vaak net zo inspirerend. Maar dan moeten lettertype en grootte van het korps dat verhaal wel makkelijk leesbaar weergeven.

Buiten dat is het boek inspirerend genoeg om er mee aan de slag te gaan. Al doende kwam ik echter snel tot de conclusie dat mijn gezichtsvermogen lastig verenigbaar is met het schetsen op locatie. Ik heb namelijk een bril nodig om dingen veraf goed te zien. Daarvoor heb ik twee uitvoeringen tot mijn beschikking. Een montuurloze bril is praktisch als je veraf wilt zien en dichtbij wilt lezen. Daarnaast heb ik voor mijn werk een beeldschermbril om het dagelijkse werk achter de monitor een beetje vol te kunnen houden. In bovenstaande tekening is dat het rode exemplaar.

Voor dichtbij, bijvoorbeeld lezen en tekenen, kan ik het prima af zonder bril. Maar met schetsen naar "het leven" moet je dan eigenlijk je bril steeds op en af zetten. En dat werkt niet lekker. Dus sinds kort heb ik een multifocale bril om drie brillen te vervangen en om zonder de bril af te hoeven zetten in de buitenlucht te kunnen schetsen.

Je kunt gerust zeggen dat er in meerdere opzichten een wereld voor me open ging.

Volkswagen T1 - "der Bulli"

Ink & Watercolor

150x220 mm

Terschelling Classic 200 grs

And Now For Something Completely Different

Due to several time-consuming activities both work as sparetime related, I have not been able to make a lot of pen drawings the past few months. Mainly because I have taken up a course of management science in combination with the start up of the new company by my employer.
But for a good friend you'll allways make time. As it was in this case where a friended couple both turned 50. To celebrate this unique event they invited us over last weekend, with a bunch of other friends. We all took our kids and camping gear with us, so it was quite a happening. Furthermore the Dutch soccerteam won the match against Costa Rica, so the festivities lasted a great part into the night.
As a gift I've drawn the farmhouse our friends bought a couple of years ago. It's situated in the north-east of the Netherlands, near the German border, in one of the more remoted parts of the country. For us it is allways quite a trip to get there, not only in means of distance but also in means of atmosphere: more rural then we are used to. The kids had a wonderful time, though. There were lots of activities to be done, water and mud included, which led for quite a lot of dirty clothes in just two days.
Pen and ink and watercolor on 300 grs Canson.

Illustration Friday - Sky

Drawing with pen and ink isn't sometimes enough to express what you want. Occasionally I add watercolor to my drawings. For long I've had troubles painting the sky, until someone taught me how to: wet the paper, use a light blue and a darker one and then 'paint' the sky with a sponge. Being not afraid to mix the two colors on your paper. For me this gave fantastic results, I must say. And it's also a quick method to paint an expressive sky.

Illustration Friday - Water

Reflections in the water - pen and ink and watercolor

Tools: pen and ink

People in different jobs use all different kind of tools to do their job. Drawing, for instance, can be done with a pencil, but my favourites tools are pen and ink. Mostly added with a splash of watercolor, using different colors or only black. As you can see in the drawing above.
I am a great admirer of craftsmen in general and I strongly believe that they must be more appreciated in what they do and stand for.

Workshop

Last saturday I attended a beginners workshop portrait drawing. One of the exercises was to draw a selfportrait. The difficulty was that you weren't allowed to look on the paper to see what you were drawing. Purpose of the exercise was to let your hand 'feel' where the different parts of a face are. At the end I'm glad I don't look like my self-portrait!

One of the things that is important for your brain to recognize a face, is mainly the shape and size of stains that are 'hidden' in a face. Your brain doesn't really recognize a person by the looks and number of detail in his or her face. So one of the exercises was to make a portrait just by painting stains.

I must say it was very enlightening for me, also because I'm used to draw in a very detailed way. It's nice to know that there are other ways to make a drawing. Or portrait, in this case. Certainly a very well spend day and challenging to see what I can do with that knowledge in the nearby future.

Tarbes

I always like to watch the Tour de France, which starts again in a few weeks time. If possible you can find me alongside the course at some point to see the cyclists. It's not only them why I like to see that race. It's also the anticipation of the people around me standing on the street about what's gonna happen. Sometimes you'll wait for several hours just to see the cyclists pass by in less than a minute.
I remember back in 1996 it was a very hot and sunny day in the south of France when the Tour de France took place. I was on a cycling holiday and only my cycling mate and me had plans to watch the Tour. The other participants of that trip choose to cycle that day on their own and climb some mountains (Hautacam, Aubisque, Soulor). Just for fun.
Anyway, my mate and I took our bikes and drove to Tarbes, a little town in the neighbourhood of Lourdes. We arrived at about 10.00 AM and the Tour would pass around 2.00 PM. So plenty of time to look for a good spot. We thought that standing on a corner would be nice and after a long search where the Tour would actually pass (nobody we asked could give us a solid clue), we posted ourselves on the corner of Avenue Francois Mitterand and rue Eduoard Dallas.
After about an hour our waterbottles were empty, due to the tropical temperatures, so we had to score some water. A gas station with the name "Station St. Christophe" seemed to be the right place for us travellers to fulfill our waterly needs. Alas, due to the passing of the Tour de France the station was closed...
A guy across the street noticed us walking with our empty waterbottles and waved to us, asking if we want something to drink. He offered us wine, being a Frenchmen off course, but we refused kindly by saying it was a bit too early for us to drink wine. We'd rather had some water. After filling our waterbottles he asked where we came from ("Holland", we answered) and then he asked if we would like to drink some beer with him. A cold beer is always welcome, so we followed him to his fridge. It turned out he only had two bottles of beer and being with the three of us made it a bit uncomfortable for him. His looked a bit disappointed, probably because he realised that being the host he had to give his beer away to two strangers from Holland. We saw him being in some sort of indecisiveness and suggested him to fill out the two bottles in three glasses. After this enlightend idea and some poor jokes about Dutch treats we almost missed the passing of the Tour.

Trail

The Citroen 2CV was designed to ride across the French countryside. One of its goals was to enable the paysants to transport their fresh eggs to the market without breaking them during the ride on rigid trails. Not many modern cars can copy that nowadays!
Pen and ink and some watercolor.