Yellow water lily

Watercolor, 27x35cm

This is my first try on water lily. I based this on a photo I took in the summer of 2007 when we were walking in the 'Haagse Bos' in The Hague. There I saw a small lake covered with water lilies and other water plants. There are hard edges in this piece particularly in the background, and I'm thinking to let them just like that. The shadows are not very visible in the flower, I think I will make them darker.

Orange Rose

Watercolor, 16x24cm

This is another try of painting without doing first a sketch. Rose is my favorite flower that's why it is a frequent subject in my work. Hope everyone will not get bored of it.

Purple Iris



Purple Iris
Watercolor, 12x18cm



I'm trying to paint without making a sketch. So this Iris flower was done in that manner.  

Church ruins

Watercolor, 30x40 cm

 I normally don't use the flash from my camera when I take picture of my painting, so that could be the reason why the color in the picture is much softer than the original. Just like in this church ruins, the color is much livelier in the original. Numerous volcanic eruptions in 1814 buried this church in southern Philippines. And what remains was only this image which became one of the famous landmarks in that region. This is based on the photo by Donald C. Tapan published by NBS 2010. I still want to improve this painting.

Work in progress

I am not satisfied with how this rose came about. I don't like the color of the leaves, and I want to work further on the background. Folks I need some comments.

Perfect combination

Every time I prepare vegetable salad during meal time, I see to it that it includes fresh organic red bell pepper or 'paprika'. I really like its taste. I started mixing it with my salad since a nice dinner in one of the hotels in Frankfurt, Germany......One day I could not think of what to paint, then suddenly I thought of the bell pepper in the refregirator. An orange is a good combination with red, so there you are both are now standing on the table.

My simple vegetable salad looks like what you see below. I make my own dressing or I just use the available caesar salad dressing in the supermarket.

Playing with colors

I guessed I already said before that sometimes I have some moments that I just want to play with my watercolors and brushes. When this happens I usually pick up my brush, dip it with colors available in my palette and scribble. The image below is a product of one of those light moments. I really enjoyed doing this.

I'm back!

I'm back here in Holland after more than two months of being away. I decided not to blog during that period because I found it difficult to blog while on a trip and busy doing things other than painting. But what surprised me was that it took sometime before I could start painting again. I didn't exactly know why but I suspected that I was probably tired from my trip to the tropics. Or maybe I lost my enthusiam to paint as a result of being away from my painting world. Although I brought with me some painting materials, I hardly touched them. I could only make some sketches which I sent as cards to some family members. Below is a simple sketch of an Adenium plant which is almost everywhere in Southeast Asia. In general I had enjoyed the trip and probably next year I'll be there again.

To my blogger friends and others

For the coming two months - starting tomorrow, I might not be able to post any painting here because I'm on travel - around Southeast Asia. I'll be doing other things but I'll try to do some sketches as time allows. I'll also try to write something here and check what you are all doing. I hope that by the third week of May, I'll be able to normally post my stuffs here. All the best to everybody.
Here is a lily that I've done  in acrylic - as a practice, the size is 20 x 20 cm, on canvas.

Juicy Pears and Julie's notecards

I named this painting 'Juicy Pears'. This is one of the paintings I included during our exhibition last Sunday. I also selected a few from those paintings which I already posted here while the rest I hope to post them here later. The visitors to the exhibition were not so many as last year. One reason could be that there were other two  exhibitions in the same day, so the visitors were divided. Anyway, everybody in the group were happy and satisfied that the entire day went well. Some of us were able to sell and some did not because some of their paintings are not for sale or have already been sold.

This painting is done in watercolor, and the size is 30 x 40 cm (11.75 x 15.75 inches).

Ik noemde dit schilderij 'Sappige Peren'. Het is een van de schilderijen die ik laatste zondag meegenomen heb in onze expositie. Ik heb ook een paar schilderijen gekozen van die ik hier al heb getoond. De bezoekers aan de tentoonsteling waren niet so veel als vorig jaar, misschien vanwege twee andere tentoonstelingen die ook in dezelfde dag plaats vonden. Maar we zijn gelukkig en tevreden met wat tijdens de dag gebeurde. Sommige van ons hebben iets verkocht terwijl de andere hebben gekozen om niets te verkopen. Ik heb dit schilderij gemaakt in aquarel, en de maat is 30 x 40 cm (11.75 x 15.75 inches).

Note Cards from Miss Julie Hill

Last week I won a set of five notecards from Julie (click to visit her blog), the one I chose was Pretty Pansies. Yesterday I got them, they are very beautiful. There was also a magnet -the size of a namecard - inside the pack. This magnet will not be alone in front of our refrigerator because I have already a collection of magnets of other artists. Thank you very much Julie. See below the notecards.

Julie's 'Pretty Pansies'