figurative painting

3 posts

Cistus ladanifer, rock rose or gum rose

Cistus Ladanifer painting

Each Spring, the Cistus Ladanifer (rockrose, gumrose, labdanum) takes over the landscape of the Algarve with abundant white flowers. It is a rather invasive plant which overgrows all the abandoned farmland. But in Spring you forgive this plant that bad habit. It is so beautiful to see them in the morning sun, opening their flowers towards the sun and gently waving in the wind. April is the month with the most flowers and every year again I have to take photos of it. So why not paint them? I did already an early one in 2018, which is sold. So […]

Lady with turban 2

Lady with turban 2 (painting process)

It’s a long time ago that I wrote about my painting process. This time I wanted to give attention to the highlights and darks in a painting. A good amount of highlights and darks can give a dramatic effect on a painting. The old masters and especially Caravaggio, often used this technique to create more drama. And drama was an important thing in paintings and fresco’s when you imagine that paintings hung in areas where the light was not often good or the distance from the viewer to the painting was huge. Preparation For this painting I used an Artists […]

Paint classic!

It continues to itch. Drawing real bodies. So this week I have drawn and painted in a more classic way. I got it on the canvas rather quick, with a dark underpainting. But the composition was not satisfying for me. Through this process I go more often. The painting doesn’t give a feeling, it doesn’t look yet. And then I remembered a quote that painting is mainly simplifying. Remove all that is not necessary. I don’t know any more who it was, but it could have been very well Picasso. He was a genius in simplifying. Meanwhile I also started […]