Composition practice

Just a little photoshop fun...

Digital landscape sketches.

Some from reference, one from imagination...

Warmup sketch

Today's warmup sketch. Gouache.

Gouache sketch

It's freezing cold outside, so the mind wanders off to warm places...

Plein air sketch

Sketch of a street in Rotterdam. These houses will be demolished soon, and have been neglected for a while now. You can see nature taking over. I loved the light when I decided to do the sketch here. It was cloudy, occasionally raining, but also sunny from time to time, which gave the backlit grass a vibrant coloring.

Plein air

Vijverlaan, Rotterdam. Gouache.

Gouache sketch

Outdoor sketching

I wanted to do a sketch outside inspite of the freezing cold. Not equipped with the right protection (like gloves...) nature forced me to stop at the moment I could no longer move my fingers.
I had so much fun, though...The suffering is totally worth it...

Norway

I spent two weeks in Norway. It is a very beautiful country with very inspiring landscapes....

Plein air 29-06-2009

Gouache and watercolor sketch. I had to work fast because of the setting sun.

Plein air

Quick gouache and watercolor sketch at a factory.

plein air 07-06-2009

I had a lot of fun doing this outdoor painting (oils: 12' x 10'). The colors on my palette were: Ultramarine, Cerulean blue, Yellow ochre, Burnt sienna and Burnt Umber. I accented the path and the yellow grass to lead the eye to the focal point: the tree.

Plein air 01-06-2009

I have been wanting to do a sketch of this site for a long time. Besides the difficult perspective, I had a hard time watersketching, because I was standing on a windy and bouncing bridge, constantly being disturbed by curious pedestrians and a quickly moving sun.
Sketching on the spot is a great way to come up with color keys, that are almost impossible to create when working from a photograph. Being a part of the environment you are painting, lets you make descisions that are essential to capture mood and atmosphere.

Quick sketch

Very quick sketch at the Zuiderpark today. The small size of the sketch forces me not to go into detail. I took little time to create the sketch, so I had to make descisions fast. This kept me focused on the main values of the composition.

Urban gouache sketch

Even an ugly city like Rotterdam can be fun to draw. I am using a very limited palette, using only ultramarine blue, yellow ochre, chinese red ,violet and white. Using a limited palette gives you the oportunity to get creative mixing colors, and the image gets tied together.

Belgium

I spent the weekend in Belgium, Ardennen. The weather was beautiful, and the environment beautiful. These are a few gouache/watercolor sketches.

Moleskine gouache sketch

I lost my moleskine sketchbook some time ago. After weeks of searching and hoping to find it, I decided to forget about it and buy myself a new one.... These are my first gouache sketches in it...

Plein air pleasure

Gouache is a great medium for quick outdoor sketches. It takes less time to pack your stuff and start painting than oils, but gouache gives you the same possibility to start with transparent layers, and then move to opaque painting.

Arne let me know he went outside yesterday to paint ( see his and my outdoor sketches here ). I felt I could not stay behind, so even though the weather was rainy, I took my sketchbook and went outside for some serious sketching...
I had to be quick this time, because it started to rain soon after I started painting. Because of that I had to make desicions really fast, and focus mainly on the basics of the composition. I would have liked to stay and add a little more detail here and there, but because of the rain I had to quit.

This is Arne and I painting last sunday in 'de Hoeksche Waard' .

Watercolor

I made this watercolor to practice my understanding of value and color.The composition is very basic, and I left out most details to focus mainly on the value of the different areas.

Quick sketch

This is a ten minute sketch of my neighbourhood...