I have an exciting event happening in Corréze on Saturday, which I’ll talk about later. And on Monday I’m leaving for Helsinki for 3 days. I’ll be in contact when I’m back end of next week.
I captured (tried to!) a corner of the Loire just after we had floods coming past this way a week ago, sweeping the trees and branches and all kinds of debris across the river, leaving us with gray and turmoil water. This is a corner under the overhanging trees. I never try to catch the realism in a scene, but rather the motion and emotion. The water is much calmer than it is portrayed here and much darker. More sinister. My contrasts could’ve been stronger and my shapes more linear. This was done from a few photos I took. I’ll have another go at it again sometime, probably rather on the spot, which gives a painting so much more spontaneity, and the atmosphere does get carried over onto the paper. Not that it is so much fun sitting there in the mud, in the cold, in the wet next to the water…but I’ve been complaining so much lately about missing nature, being wild and free with the animals, that I should zip my mouth now and sit my sit…
…disquiet…
Done in watercolour and pen lines added afterwards on Fabriano artistico watercolour block HP extra white, 30x23cm(11,8″ x9″)
I came home this afternoon from a wonderful Rigoletto in the Opera Bastille last night, in time to splash some autumn impressions on paper. I just painted some colours onto paper as I saw the colours of the leaves and rose hips and and afterwards added some suggestive linework with 2.5 rotring pen. I think I’ll explore more autumn colours in the days to come, before winter takes over.
All done on Fabriano CP block, 18x25cm. Watercolour and pen.
Our international sketchbook exchange is nearing its end with only two more laps to go. I hate endings…unless I know there is something new to fill its place. Any suggestions? Anyone out th..e..ere..???
Here is/was my contribution to Nina’s(Ninajohansen.se) book. See her Polychromatic behaviour, where you can have a look at her cover and how it looks right after turning over that cover. It feels like yesterday that our FPP(Flying pictures project) took off, but it has already been almost 5 months. I decided to add scenes from le Jardin du Luxembourg in Nina’s book, a regular stop of mine to relax with a book whenever I’m in Paris. It’s one of my favourite places, with its colours, it’s water, its children, its sailboats, its shadows, and…its chairs. I’m fascinated by their chairs, standing in a “polychromatic” disorder all over. So I took my camera to Paris one day and just shot scenes all over the garden. Back home I printed them in black and white, pasted them onto Fabriano artistico and stretched the black and white scenes in colour over onto my paper. I thought that could be called polychromatic behaviour?
…the whole 21/2 pages…
…taking over from Vivien’s (Painting prints and stuff)brush and coloured pencils…
…close-ups…
…the end of my pages and off to Lindsay ( Non-linear-arts)…
I was in Amsterdam last week, criss-crossed the whole city and tried to do some sketching. I found it extremely difficult to sketch in Amsterdam. I struggled to zoom out the busyness of the city and capture only the essential in a scene. The canals are filled with boathouses and with sightseeing boats, the streets with bicycles and people and cars and trees obscuring the narrow houses. And I sometimes feared for my life as, standing on a spot with a sketchbook in hand, doesn’t mean you’re in a safe spot. I had to jump aside many a time, from the urgent ringing of a bicycle bell, just to hear the clang of the tram behind me, which had me scuffling quickly left, directly in front of some service truck, fleeing to the right, of course on the toes of some nose-ringed stranger and apologizing back onto one of the many black garbage bags on the sidewalk. That would have me slog shakily into the nearest coffee shop or bookstore.
An interesting city, with a heartbeat of its own. I’ve come to recognize many of the gables of the buildings, as we have them in SA as well. We ate kroket and patatje and drank our blond beers with a lemon slice. I enjoyed koffie verkeerd in the company of Rembrandt and Van Gogh and had my dry cleaning delivered to one of the other many Van Wijks there in Amsterdam. I saw the seductive silhouet of Madame in the window of her “Walletjies” apartment and quickly put my hand over Hartman’s eyes. A busy time. A busy city. I now revel once again in the quiet of my home back here on the banks of the Loire.
So here are some efforts, drawn on site in pen or pencil in my handmade sketchbook and moleskine and finished at the hotel with a wash of watercolour. For some pictures(more interesting and much nicer than the sketches!) you can go to Myfrenchkitchen.
…many bridges, many canals, many boats, many trees, many…
…and more…
…giant amaryllus…
…bulbs, bulbs and bulbs…
…in the way of the tram…
In my previous post, José made the suggestion that I post the full page and not only detail. So I took him up on his suggestion to show my pages, because there may be others thinking that I post the detail and not the whole sketch. I took the last couple of sketches in my sketchbook. Unfortunately it doesn’t look more interesting and there isn’t actually a bigger picture! I think you could say I “zoom in and choose to sketch detail”. What fascinates me is a broken window shutter, the the moss on a fountain, the intricate woodwork on a wall, a dilapidated door, a doorknob, the corner of a cornice, a shadow on a table, one flower in a bouquet…. so that is what I zoom in to. My sketchbooks are 19×24 cm and I use up all the space when I sketch. I struggle to paint on small format.
When I post, I don’t use any enhancement in terms of contrast or colour correction or whatever, except for the crop tool and then only to “neaten up” the page. It can be seen in image 1 and 2, where in image 2, I only took out the background and excessive white paper. And then of course I only post one page, because I scan most of the time and the whole sketchbook is too big for my scanner. And I also get nice white paper with the scanner.
Maybe it is time I zoom out and see the big picture….perhaps life could be less stressful…philosophically speaking?
…image 1…
…image 2…
…moleskine people sketches…
Africantapestry 
