Bird of Paradise

While watching a TV program "Hour of Power" yesterday, I saw a vase of mixed flowers with a bird of paradise in it. Then I thought I will make a sketch of the flower. And here what I made out of it. This is of course in watercolor.

Lidice Rose 3

Every one of us has our own favorite subject to paint. For me, I like roses because they are my favorite flowers especially the yellow ones. So, in this blog I would like to tell everyone that once in a while you will see roses here :-). I hope you'll not get tired of enjoying my roses as I do. Regarding the title of this post, Lidice is a place in Czech Republic where a memorial park dedicated for those who died in the area during the war is located. I had been in the area in June 2009 in which during that time, the park was full of blooming roses.
This is done in acrylic on Canson's acrylic paper, 20x25 cm.

A try on pastels

This is a small subject just to try on pastels. I thought it would be good to know how to use the medium. At the moment I cannot say if I'll use it frequently. I used here light gray Canson pastel paper.
I did the pencil sketch of this shell while watching on Sunday the Australian Open Tennis championship (on TV) between Nadal and Djokovic. Both played amazingly for more than five hours. I am a fanatic tennis fan.

WIP: a cat project

This is what I'm working at the moment - my first cat project. 

There are still some finishing touches to be done on it.

Have a nice weekend to you all.

A try-out with my new brush

Don't take this work seriously. I did it this morning just to check and test my new watercolor brush. I played with the colors of the building, so its original colors are different. I had some fun while doing this, so I thought why not share it here.

This building is a chapel in Ronchamp, France. It was designed by the famous French architect "Le Corbusier."   I had been in the area twice and had photographed the chapel myself. However, here I got my reference photo from the newspaper "De Volkskrant."

Something orange

This is a few minutes sketching and using colors. I love drawing 

simple subjects such as this carrot. 

yellow rose from Pontigny

This is the WIP rose I posted a week ago. I thought of using dark background for this but could not decide what color to use. In the end, I came up with this light wash combining cobalt and ultramarine blues. I noticed that the leaf could have been a bit darker. This is in watercolor, size 30x40 cm.

Again a rose :)

The WIP yellow rose that I posted before this one is not yet finished. In the coming week, I plan to finish it and probably post it here again. This rose however is the colored version of a sketch I had posted in this blog sometime last month. The real story behind this rose is that it was one of the pieces from the bouquet of roses that we got 'gratis' from the supermarket near us - the Albert Hijn. This supermarket sometime gives for free its old stocks of flowers to its clients. A nice way of disposing still usable things, I thought. We love and always buy yellow roses, so we were delighted when we got them. 
This work is in watercolor, and done in wet on wet and wet on dry techniques - both in the background and on the flower itself. I welcome comments so please feel free to tell me what I need to improve. Thanks.

WIP: A Rose at Pontigny Abbey's garden

I have not used my paint brushes for almost two weeks now. Fortunately, today I am able to work again on this painting which I started before Christmas. This is from my photograph which I did last fall at the Abbey's garden at Pontigny in France. This is work in progress and in watercolor. I still have to work on the background and on the flower itself. For the background I'm thinking of dark colors, but which colors - I'm still undecided. 

Last holiday season I did not do any painting but I found time to read something about pastels. Why pastels. It is because of the urge to use the box of pastels which had been given to me long time ago but I have never used them. I found it a pity if they will just be kept in the box. So in preparation I have to know and understand how to use the medium. 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

Thanks everyone for sharing your painting expertise. 

I learned a lot from your works and comments. Hope that 

everyone will continue to share your paintings.