2 men: portraits in ink

 

Two quick ink drawings, made this afternoon, based on pictures from the Internet, a photo by M. Odekerken (left) and a picture of some unknown Zapatista from Mexico (right).

Aunt Leny's anniversary: 100 years

 

My aunt Leny, living in Amersfoort, will celebrate her 100th birthday tomorrow. As a present I painted a scene of Amersfoort, at the Elleboogkerk. 

There is a little story attached to this scene. As long as I can remember my aunt has had a painting of exactly the same viewpoint hanging in above the dinnertable. But that painting dates from before WW2 (if I recall correctly). But it's a winter scene with lots of snow. Last summer I was in Amersfoort and I sketched on the same location, but I disliked that drawing. So I remade it with acryl gouache, here it is. Actually, nothing much changed during that time, only the trees are in bloom and they are a lot larger.

Anja, live portrait

 

Anja, monday morning live portrait session. Same technique as last week. Took 2 hours to make.

Armand portrait

 

Some experimenting this morning. A live portrait session, Armand this time. Acrylic paint and charcoal. on bamboo paper treated with tilemortar. That's what gives it's gritty effect.

Comics with Zara

 

Sometimes our grandchild Zara (now 5 years old) stays over, and she always asks me to make a comic story together. We invent a story, she makes the drawings, and I add text and (most of) the colors.

The top one was made yesterday, the other one was made the day before Halloween.

Crete: Spinalonga

Spinalonga was formerly a leprosy island, untill 1950 or so (when medicine came available). The area is a well known tourist attraction, and quite nice to visit. We had to wait for the return ferry, which gave me the opportunity to make this sketch of the entrance gate. I couldn't finish the paintwork, as the boat arrived.

Adiemus (Karl Jenkins)

Last Friday and Saturday, Gertie and I sang in the Limburgs Concert Choir, for the Dutch premiere of the renowned symfony "Adiemus" by Karl Jenkins. It was a symfonic piece with about 120 singers, 3 solist singers and about 40 musicians. We also sang South African choir pieces. We sang in Landgraaf and the concert house in Maastricht, completely sold out. We have rehearsed since april and finally it paid of to a great concert. We are very proud we could participate, under the guidance of Steven van Kempen. 

The choir will perform in January in New York in the Carnegy Hall, unfortunately we can't be there.

Alfa trial run

 Ran a trial run yesterday, through mud and rain, through forests and narrow cartroads. 12,5km, >200m height difference, in 1 hour 18 minutes. I finished about nr. 140 out of 300 runners. (I made a mistake, resulting in a missing time registration, but I know what I did). Which is very good considering there were only 3 guys my age or older.

AI images (5): the burning towers

 

Another AI experiment. I started with the images of the last post (ai-images (4) the wing, september), the drawing and its AI-image (top left and middle). Then I made a new drawing, which actually turned out to be horrible (not shown here).

I lost interest and eventually played around with the blue AI-image and combined it with another AI image theme that I created. Some burning towers in a desolate landscape (top right). That resulted into a new drawing (bottom left). 

Then I generated a new AI image with reverse prompting. But that one became rather like a fake watercolour drawing. But I also experimented with turning a sketch into an image using AI. Rather interesting what the system came up with.

Crete: views from the terrace

Two quick sketches I made while enjoying coffee at a terrace, somewhere in Crete. Top one: the Lassithi plateau, fields with windmills and far away mountains. Bottom one, Piskopiano, from our appartment to the other side of the valley. The idea was strong inkwork and toned down watercolour.

Portrait in pastel

 

Anoter live portrait session, with washed out pastel colours only. I painted the same model before, see 

https://renefijten.blogspot.com/2025/02/portrait-in-acrylic-and-charcoal.html 

Crete: Windmills

A row of windmills on the edge of the Lassithi plateau, in the center of Crete (Greece).
 

Exhibition in Laboe (Germany)

 

The coming few months there is an exhibition of my painting works in Laboe, Germany. 15 of my paintings (oil, acrylic and/or watercolour) are featured there.

It's up above Kiel, quite far from where I live, but in the good hands of Anja Klein (a friend and former collegue).

Armand

 

Live portrait session, this morning at the atleier Annemeik Jongen, Armand. Washed out pastel on paper.

Crete: sunday morning in Mochos

 

Last Sunday (our last day in Greece) we were driving to the Lassithi plateau, in the middle of Crete. It was Sunday morning, and we were sitting on a sunny terrace. Across were a few men enjoying coffee and Raki after Mass.

Crete: Agios Nikolaos harbour

 

Another drawing from Greece, I spotted this little boat under repair in the harbour of Agios Nikolaos. Pencil and ink on location, watercolour and some hatching in our appartment.

Crete, Greece: Piskopiano

 

Just returned from Crete, Greece. We had a great week with lovely weather. This is the view from our appartment, overlooking the hills, the sea and the sun, from our own private swimming pool.

The appartment was really nice, brandnew and very well detailed (architecturally speaking).

Clemensdomein

 

Clemensdomein, in Brunssum, near Merkelbeek. It's an old church (from about 1000AD), a few km from my house. For years this church was surrounded by a large and renowned monastry. But the monastry was abandoned and demolished some 10 years ago. You can view the church again how it looked like before 1900.

Coney Island after the rain

 

Finished another oil painting, on board (MDF) 50x60cm. It is called: "Coney Island after the rain", and was based on a picture I took in 2019 during our visit to NYC. The actual building is not so gloom, and I added a 70s car instead of a few campers. But the actual lookthrough towards the "wonder wheel" is really there.

I finished the painting for the upcoming painting exhibition in Laboe, Germany.

Vaesrade in bamboo pen and ink

 

This afternoon, drinig with my bicycle through the hills near our house. Quick ink sketch (with reed pen) and some watercolour on Canson aquarel paper.