Me in Tresoar

Next Sunday will be the opening of a very special little exhibition in Tresoar, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. Title of the exhibition is "Bloemenboek" (or "Blommeboek" in Frisian). It's all about the Florilegium painted by Franciscus de Geest in the 17th century in Leeuwarden. The book is all hand painted, never reproduced and very special. Normally it's being kept in Rome in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale but until the end of this year it is home again in Leeuwarden. Several months ago I was asked to participate in this event and I was so intrigued by the story behind the book and the time in which it was painted that I naturally offered my cooperation. Tresoar is the historical and literary centre of Friesland (a province in the North of the Netherlands). I had been there before with my mother to search for information about our ancestors (the archives are huge!).

This Spring the man behind this exhibition, Haye Bijlstra, came to my studio to make a short video of how I paint a botanical illustration. We went to Buitenpost where there is the Frisian Botanical Garden 'De Kruidhof'. For the film I chose to paint an apple blossom. Haye filmed me for four days while I painted. Of course it took at least 10 days more to finish it but it gives a nice idea of the process.
After the exhibition I'll post the film on my website but I can already show you the result of the painting. Of course the painting is in the exhibition too along with two other paintings done by yours truly. So, for now, here's the blossom of Malus domestica 'Reinette de Blenheim'.

Courses

These months are all about courses... last week I went to a master class about composition with Anne Marie Evans. I knew she was the best teacher already. This time she gave us such a great class that really opened our eyes and I think it made us all move up a level. We worked and struggled all week with Peonies and at the end of the week I had made a composition with two flowers and a leaf that I would never have done or tried before this class. I don't know if I ever will do something like this composition again (it's a bit too decorative for my taste) but that is not the point. The point is that she made us think much harder and force ourselves to do something that we never would have done. Not going for the easy or obvious composition.

Here's me and Anne Marie (thanks to Janneke Brinkman for taking this photo). See how wild my hair is from all the fighting with the composition? :P
She's here giving me some tips on one of my older paintings that I haven't finished yet. I was very happy to get some pointers that made sense and also that she loved my dark shadows (teehee) and the thin filaments I managed to get into the painting. But that is all more fun for me that it is for you. All you want to know now is how that Peony composition turned out... right? Ok, here it is:

Like I said, very decorative and it would be a great wrap around a bar of heavy scented pink soap. I haven't done much more than this since then because there's my own class that I'm teaching these weeks. I hope to get the Peonies painted after that.

This week my students learned how to draw leaves and flowers, how to measure things, how to work with graphite pencil and more basics. Next week they will start with coloured pencil. I'm very excited about that since it's the first time I'm doing a course about that. I'll try not to forget to take some pics next week so I can show you the place (we're in the greenhouse of De Kruidhof. That's a botanical garden in Buitenpost in Friesland, in the North of the Netherlands).

Finally another photo of moi that Ria van Elk took at the Anne Marie Evans Composition Course in Leiden (I really love this photo):

Dark side

Come over to the dark side... of my garden that is. Thought I'd make a dark version of the garden photos too. It actually is rather fun to do :)

Thanks Heidi for your sweet words! I'm feeling much better because of them :*

Pastel Garden

I wasn't feeling that well this week. Actually, I'm not feeling well at all for the last ... months. I had some good periods but overall it has been a bit hard lately. So this week, again, I had a bad week and I was very tired. I wanted to draw, I did draw... but the drawing is not going that well if I'm not feeling okay. When I'm not able to draw I like to play a bit with Photoshop. I decided to make this mosaic. These are all small details from photos I made in my garden.

Magnolia

Last weekend I was in Breukelen to visit my parents. I always visit my parents at the end of March because my father is having his birthday. So every year I see the beautiful Magnolia tree in my mother's garden and I love it. I always loved it. It is a small one because they have a small garden but the shape is so nice and I love to sit under it. When you look up at this time of the year you'll see this:

It reminds me of a painting I loved as a child:


It's the "Bloeiende Amandelboom" (Almond Blossom, 1890) by Vincent van Gogh. I haven't seen the real thing for some years now. I'm not sure it still is one of my favorites.

Maybe I liked it because it reminded me of my mother's Magnolia :)

No progress today...

I am working on a large drawing of a branch of the Black Alder tree. It took me one day to make the sketch and get the drawing on the Fabriano. Today the drawing wasn't leading me anywhere. That's very frustrating. I used to keep on working, hoping it would look alright in the end. But most of the time that ended up in a ruined drawing and tears. So, having learned from my mistakes, I decided to stop the drawing for today. It's not good to mess the drawing up now (as if it ever is a good time to mess it up).

I thought I would do some crocheting instead. I am making a cat. And since it is a bit cold, the cat needs a scarf. I made her a grey spiral scarf but it was too dull for her. So now I've made another one. It's purple.... I guess I will have to make a second cat to match the grey scarf...

Aaah, life is hard.....

Winter Buds of Cornus mas

I first had no idea what kind of shrub this was but my friend Michiel Thomas helped me with that. It's a European Cornel, one of the Dogwood family. It was planted beside the road in our village and I liked it. It will get very yellow flowers soon, but for now it is still looking very pretty (I don't like very yellow flowers).

My first coloured pencil drawing after the surgery. Not a masterpiece. But I'll keep trying.

Coloured pencil on Fabriano designo 5 Liscia paper. 25 x 11 cm (the branch)

Check out the large size: View On White

Foot

Last week I started to draw in my new sketchbook. After some weeks of pain in my wrist, I am very happy to say, the pain is almost gone. Of course I can't do everything yet, and some sudden moves still hurt but, most of the time, the wrist is painless. I still can't bend it very well though and that's the reason why I'm not touching my coloured pencils just yet.
This week however, I did my first drawings with graphite pencils. First I made a drawing of Bertus. I made it from a photo. Normally I don't work from photos but Bertus just can't keep still (and I really doubt if he ever will). It is Bertus playing on the beach of Schiermonnikoog last summer. His first time he saw the beach and the sea.

The next drawing I made was a botanical one. Small, but nice. It is a branch from the Climbing Hydrangea next too our front door. It really isn't big....

And yesterday evening I decided to draw my foot. On Flickr there are a lot of people now uploading self portraits. Very nice.... but I am just so scared of drawing my face. I know it will frustrate me enormously. It will drive me absolutely mad.... So this is my self portrait. My foot. And so I started to draw my right foot. I had never made a drawing of my foot before and frankly I thought it would end up in the dust bin. But it didn't. It actually went really well. And after sketching my foot I sketched my ankle, also good enough.... So I sketched some more, calf, knee, thighs... stop... hold on.... Thighs????? Oops, that was a lot of foot!!!!! I just didn't know where to stop. Lucky for me and the rest of the world, the paper stopped before I could. So the thighs is the end of the foot drawing.
Anyway.... I am pretty pleased with this first drawing of my "foot" ;-)

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Merry Christmas!!!

Hedera helix berries, watercolour (I'm painting again)

Don't worry... This will not be a long post. Just to wish you all a merry Christmas and to thank you for all your kindness these last couple of months. I hope next year will be a very good one for all of you. Happy holidays to all of you :-)

Eenrum

Last weekend I was in Eenrum. A nice small village in the north of the province of Groningen. My favourite nursery "de Kleine Plantage" is there. I buy most of my plants there.... they have lots of interesting stuff. Every month they have a special weekend. Like a Hosta weekend, fruit and vegetables weekend, bulbs weekend and so on.

Last weekend they celebrated their 25th anniversary and invited all there contacts and friends to celebrate it with them. People came from everywhere with their own specialties to sell at "De Kleine Plantage". Since this year they also sell my cards in their lovely garden shop. And Fleur, Eric and Fenna asked me to come too this weekend. I sat in the greenhouse and sold cards for the Dutch Society of Botanical Artists. I also demonstrated how to draw....

I made a nice drawing of an Anemone and a small Geranium. Both very pretty. It was such an inspirational weekend. I met so many beautiful people. It was great! Absolutely great!

self-portrait

On Flickr I've joined the Nederland/The Netherlands Group. A nice way to discover more Dutch people on Flickr. There's a 'dicussion' in this group. The challenge is to send a portrait of yourself. I hate it when people take pictures of me. And I'm not the type that takes pictures of herself a lot. So this was a BIG challenge.

So I combed my hair and had a go at it. Gosh, that was hard! I mean really hard! I didn't know that I could look so worried, tired or just so extremely dope...

So I picked the best one and got rid of most of the colour. Haaa, much better. Everything looks a lot better when there's no colour (at least when it comes to my face :-D). And here's the result:

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