Culemborg | Molen ‘De Hoop’ – 2026-07-31

Take the Next Step

This pastel pencil drawing ‘Culemborg | Molen ‘De Hoop’ – 2026-07-31’ shows a beautiful and typical dutch landscape. Modelled after Mondriaan’s ‘Mill in Sunlight’. Well, at least the colour scheme is. After 8 consecutive pastel drawings executed in black and white only, I was in for something new. The mid-tones were taken care after the tan color, which I came to love very dearly very quickly.  I was wondering, why not take the next step and see how this AMI sketching paper (‘KBB’) reacts to color. After two weeks I was used to working with pastel pencils again. Getting customed to all the hardships with broken pencil tips when you try to sharpen them and all that. That’s all part of the game, I guess and even graphite pencil tips break occasionally. It’s just that certain tips of brands like Conté’s tend to break very easily.

Mondriaan’s Color Scheme

As mentioned above, I had it in me to replicate Mondriaan’s color scheme. Done that before, such as in ‘Mill ‘De Vlieger’ – 2014’. That one catched on and got sold quickly. There was this photo I took, when I visited the ‘Culemborg Weeshuis Museum’ on New Year’s Eve, December 31^st 2025. One of those darker days after winter solstice you’d say but this one was quite light. The sun shone and when I walked to the museum it was already setting behind the houses and trees. Next to the mill you had this lovely razor light, being fractured in different hues by rooftops and trees. I decided to capture those with loose streaks and strokes, just like Mondriaan’s famous mill painting. After I set out just doing that, using his colors red, blue and yellow, I decided to include also green and why not, it lifted up the scene.

Technical Details

Pastel pencil drawing on Ami Sketching paper (‘KBB’) – 29.7 x 21 cm

Artist: Corné Akkers

Sales info: info@corneakkers.com

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