I have just returned from a two week holiday. Sylvie, my wife was attending a conference in Holland and I just hung along for the ride. Later, we took the train to Paris and then visited her mother in Brittany, France.
I didn’t look at the exact location of my wife’s conference on the map. It was in a place called Noordwijkerhout. A farming region, flat as a pancake, south of Amsterdam. Small towns dotted around but mostly just farmland. No windmills. What could I paint? A field? A field that once had tulips? And, they had been harvested weeks earlier …
It’s fascinating how, when one stares long enough at a seemingly mundane landscape, one can find beauty. I did my best to capture it. I had walked around for hours with my easel. It was late evening when I settled for this scene.
Tag: plein air
I’ve been having a great time in Mexico visiting my old friend Jorge. Yesterday, Luis , a new friend, showed me a wonderful spot in the local forest to sketch. My adventure is coming to an end soon. I have to get back to Stockholm. My life drawing classes begin this Thursday. Contrasts.
I painted this watercolour back in the summer of 2021. We had sailed to Åland from Stockholm and as usual our first port of call was Rödhamn. While there I painted this plein air sketch of the Radio Station Museum and a nearby navigational sign.
I basically was unhappy with it and I placed it in my failures tray back home. Saw it recently and said to myself maybe I can tweak that watercolour a little and it will be okay. This is the result.
Happy New Year! 😃😃😃
Just doing it
In the beginning of the week I took the ferry on a short trip across the water to Djurgården here in Stockholm. I wheeled my art gear behind me and looked for an inspirational spot to paint from. In the end it was the weather that decided. I needed protection from the strong easterly wind which was making 7 degrees feel really unpleasant.
The day’s subject became some oil storage tanks on the other side of the water. I was more interested in the sky but I needed a point of focus for the sake of the composition.
The finished watercolour may not be a masterpiece but for me just getting out and painting was the biggest achievement of the day.
Have a nice weekend.
Cheers 🙂
I just published my latest video:
Painting outdoors in the autumn Ep35
I painted the other week on Beckholmen, Stockholm. The view is of Danvikshem which is very close to where I live. Size: 26 x 36 cm.
What a contrast to the week before. Then I was in Croatia enjoying warm and sunny conditions, on this day (last Monday) I took myself out to Sandhamn by ferry. Sandhamn is a popular harbour during the summer months but now in late autumn it’s empty.
It was a grey day, 7 degrees, rained from time to time and the wind gusted to 16m/s. It was important to somehow find shelter on the harbour. Thankfully I had a stool with me so I could keep a low profile behind some seating on the pier.
The highlight of the day was to go to the local pub/restaurant and eat freshly baked cod and drink a local beer.
It’s a short working day. The light started to fade around 3pm. I took the ferry back to Stockholm at 5pm, it was dark by then.
Painting plein air locally
I try to be out in the Stockholm archipelago as much as possible. But sometimes the weather isn’t kind and I’m forced to stay home. This was the case last week when there was gale force wind with heavy rain. It wasn’t raining all the time though so I was able to nip out and paint a scene close to where I live.
The building I chose to paint is called Danvikshem, an Art Deco old folks home, it is a dominant feature on the local skyline. I sat myself down outside an apartment in Finnboda and had a go at capturing the scene.
Painting in the wild
In the beginning of September I spent two days sketching on Nämdö which is an island in the Stockholm archipelago. I was with with an old friend. So nice to be to be in nature while most people are back in the office. The hunting season was in full swing though so we had to be careful in the woods not to be mistaken for deer.
My sketches were 17.5 x 12.5 cm in size.