My First One This Year

This graphite pencil drawing ‘Den Haag – 09-02-24’ is my first one this year. Last one I made on Christmas day. In between I completed 4 oil paintings and I got quite the hang of it. However, after linen I also crave for painting on wood panel again. Those are in the process of layering them with gesso. Time to do a drawing again and why not one of good ol’ Den Haag, my residence. You can browse through my series on this city if you like. Throughout the years I made many.

St. James’ Church

In the centre there she stands: the Great Church or St. James’ Church. In town I often pass it by and especially during summer it creates spectacular vision. That’s due to cast shadows and segments of the roof glowing in the sunlight. This phenomenon always makes me stop for a second and I sometimes take a couple of pictures. Capturing the beauty of it all and promising myself to use it for an artwork one day. This is such a day.

Not the First Time

Not the first time that I drew this particular church. In 2015 I made a pastel. This time the angle was steeper. The effect of the light on the roof tiles and the zigzag pattern reminded me of the appearance of a jagged knife. First I thought of a rather cubist or abstract approach but soon I realized that wasn’t quite suitable. You see, the walls are not particularly attractive, rather flat. So no exciting patterns such as in my drawing of the St. Bavo of last year. Instead I kept it quite simple, just an impressionst view and of course an elephant. Not the first time that one came about.

Graphite pencil drawing (Faber Castell, Pitt Graphite matt, 14B) on Winsor & Newton Bristol board paper (21 x 14.8 x 0.1 cm – A5 format)

Artist: Corné Akkers

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