Field notes & Studio Diary
Observations and reflections that arise while painting en plein air in the forest or in the studio. Notes on color, pigments, materials, and wildlife encounters. A slow diary of thoughts, written while standing at the easel.
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Open Studio – 18 & 19 April
In the weekend of 18 and 19 April, there will be open studios at the Sluisfabriek in Drachten. For these occasions, I rebuild my studio to welcome visitors. I still need to work on some details, but the video shows a little taste of what you can expect… You can find the Sluisfabriek at Tussendiepen…
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Cutting a large painting into two
I am fascinated with the effect that size has on how you experience a painting. It seems like very wide vistas work well on very small canvasses, while close immersive paintings work well on a very large scale, because you physically feel to be inside of them. For the small paintings, it feels more like…
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Drawing in Madeira
This week we visited Madeira. And we wanted to travel light, so as a little experiment I brought my tablet for drawing, and took it with me wherever we went. To keep things simple, I used an “HB graphite pencil” in infinitepainter. And just before I left, I added a matte “paper-feel” screen protector to…
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The trouble with curating yourself
Over the last few months I have reorganized my website 2 times. I used to have all the paintings in just one large gallery of around 100 images. Like a timeline. Chronologically and almost religiously transparent, like making sure my artistic path is completely visible. But, sometimes I would remove a painting that I started…
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Tension between memory and reality
When you’re in the midst of a forest, there’s an immersive quality to it. You’re completely encapsulated by the trees, leaves, the sounds, the scents. You become one with it. All the elements together are of an enormous complexity. You can’t copy this. Not with paint, or with the use of a camera. It is…
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A tree in motion
When I walk through the forest, most trees stand quite straight. I’m drawn to the odd ones out. Don’t get me wrong, the atmosphere created by a group of trees or the vegetation as a whole can also speak. But on this day I got compelled to paint this curved tree, as I had actually…
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Two painters
Sometimes it feels like there are two painters inside of me. There’s one who seems to calmly follow the subtle colors that nature presents, but there’s another who takes a more explosive and expressive route in the use of color. More and more, it feels as if it is not even a conscious decision who…
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The illusion of the perfect spot
Often, when I go out to paint, I’m not sure where to go. I know the nature in my area quite well, and there is the thought of maybe travelling further. But then again, I know that within a few hundreds of kilometers, the subjects won’t be so dramatically different. So I pick a place,…
