Geesje Kwak – 10-05-21
There is this girl that I know for a long time: Geesje Kwak. Throughout the decades I visited many museums. Once in a while I also come across Breitner’s famous oil paintings in the ‘Girl in Kimono series’.
There is this girl that I know for a long time: Geesje Kwak. Throughout the decades I visited many museums. Once in a while I also come across Breitner’s famous oil paintings in the ‘Girl in Kimono series’.
Sometimes a portrait commission comes along. This time it was the commissioneer’s opa (grandfather). Usually I am reluctant in accepting such assignments but this one was fun to do. The lighting was beautiful: full of midtones so I could study the skin folds thoroughly.
Last week on my way home from a student I came across Buitengoed Leeuwenbergh. It was late in the afternoon and surprizingly a drizzly grey day turned into a blue sky with a beautiful sunset. It so happened I saw this incredible and bizarre curved tree trunk.
Just on the brink of Christmas I thought I should make a roundism drawing looking rather risqué. It was a strange and hefty year for us all, I think.
A cat comes in handy when you are out of options and do not want to simply draw a pretty picture of a beautiful woman.
In 2018 I was visiting the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam with my parents to see the exhibition of art works by Jan Henderikse, a representative of the Dutch Zero group.
Not often is it that I depict animals with children but this one is a beautiful exception
A commissioned piece. I never did a cottage, Usually it is either trees or women. It is often with commissions like these that I come to study things and structures I normally do not draw or paint.
Today’s my birthday and I thought I’d offer you something different: a special treat.
Based on my previous drawing ‘The Venus of The Hague – 18-05-20’ I went further in abstracting body shapes after my roundism style but still referring to the play of light and dark in the original.
Last session with my model was fruitful and I had a mirror in mind like I used in my drawing ‘In hoc signo – 14-10-19’. I was satisfied with the result then and I sold it very quicky. Time to emulate it.
In my last drawing ‘Roundism – 29-03-20’ I employed the technique of solarisation again. It turned out to be a rather realistic one and so I decided to do another one more abstract.
A unique situation: everybody all around the world at home and as to me: I got nothing to do except for painting and sketching but hey that is what we artists do all the time.
This one is special. Long since they passed away only know to reappear in pastel. This one represents my uncle Ben taking care of his son Matthijs some 30 years ago.
This day I got warned by a Reddit group moderator to tag my art work as ‘NSFW’ (Not Safe For Work). That almost exclusively means ‘including nude’: as if one should look at social media or nudity when working at all! Who gets this idea?
And so it came to be, that I was attending to a wine tasting, organized by Jan-Wieger Eikema of the Bourgognespecialist (Burgundy specialist).
This one is the oil version of a previous drawing ‘Roundism – 11-01-20’. The tonal gradients in that drawing subtely shifting, some abrupt some gradient, represent life itself in all its expressions.
It so happened that I was instructing a knight on horseback to prance in front of me so I could do a live painting on him, then all of a sudden this beautiful maiden was ruling us both.
I am always looking for inconventional vantage points as to looking at a model and this position seemed both sensual and integrous as implicitely explicit.
A commissionary piece. The girl has natural blonde hair, alabaster skin and blue eyes. It goes without saying that it was senseless to put her in full daylight. I let her sit for me ‘contrejour’ so the light from behind would be shattered through her blonde hair like through a prisma.
Every woman needs a celebration and when one sees a particular beautiful one and the principles of clairobscur love to portray her, then it is time to make a move and render her in my roundism style.
No doubt about it: cats are portals to the other side and through the vortices of their curly tails we are directly drawn into it.
My model came with this pose Modonna used for one of her albums. Originally it was intented to do square sized pastels because I happen to have 4 spare square frames but today I saw a greater scheme I had to work out first.
When I returned to my car from my little trip to Kethel, Schiedam, Netherlands, I saw this beautiful tree in bloom. Sometimes you look for grand things and the little all of a sudden pop into your eyes when least expected.
I was listening to ‘Between the sheets’ by The Isley Brothers when I completed this one so I tried to capture the sensual feel of the song in my drawing.
There is this specific spot in Voorburg at the beginning of the Herenstraat where it is particulary beautiful.
In springtime Voorburg is a wonderful place to be. The Old Church is catching light and the big ol’ tree in front of it is shattering the light on top of the church roof.
I went to visit the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum with my parents to see the exhibition ‘Alle Rembrandts’: All Rembrandt sketches and etchings, well most of them anyway.
I was heading for Julia Filament’s exhibition on Katendrecht when I decided to take a detour through Kethel, a small encapsulated village in the north of Schiedam, near Rotterdam.
I am in a spring kind of mood and since my last drawing I see more blossoms although real fine weather is only due for next week.
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