Time flies.

Time flies when you are having fun ...
It was May since I last posted on  my blog.
Did I mention I was bizzy drawing ?
Well, to catch up we will make a time leap to August.
I was then on holiday in England.
A guided bus tour through  the Lake distrikt and Yorkshire.
It involved a lot of travelling and tight time schedules so it was hard to find some drawing time.
But I managed to do a few pages and here is one of them:

                                                    © Gertjan Velthuizen

On the first of September there was a national sketch day in Rotterdam!
Organized by the Urban Sketchers Netherlands and Rotterdam.
I made a few drawings but the one I want to share here is of the White House.
Built in 1898 and  has been for years the highest office building in Europe.

                                                        © Gertjan Velthuizen

Some nature drawing was done too !
Here are  two  recent pages of that :

                                                             © Gertjan Velthuizen

                                                              © Gertjan Velthuizen

Urban Church drawing.

Last week I attended a sketchcrawl in Geertruidenberg , a very small town with a nice centre with old houses. I started with a coffee at a  terrace at the market-square from where I had a nice view on the old trees around the square and  the top of the tower of the old church just visible above the trees.

                                                        © Gertjan Velthuizen

While drawing this I had no idea that some time later  I would be on top of the tower, making my second drawing of the day !
The organizer of this sketch session had arranged that we could visit the  Geertruids-church. 
The verger  welcomed us kindly and gave us a guided tour .
And took us up the tower. From were we had a stunning view.
With a strange contrast.
One sees the market-square, the old trees, the old houses , and lots of green trees further away
and then .....the  giant chimney of the powerplant . Dominating the horizon.
At first I thought not to draw it, but this was an urban sketchers trip, we draw what we see.

                                                                 © Gertjan Velthuizen
So there it is .
There was a nice old ballustrade to keep us from falling down, so I drew  some of the pillars too.
As happens with old churches , during the ages , there were parts destroid, rebuilt, things build but never finished, parts added and taken away. So this building has a rich history.
The last drawing I made in the church , a small one. Well most of my drawings are small, but this one is really small.

                                                                      © Gertjan Velthuizen
             

Monochrome and a bit of color

However spring is all around, some of my latest drawings are monochrome, and it was fun to do.
But first some color.
At the start of this month ( april) lots of yellows from the coltsfoot and pilewort were all around ,
the willows started to blossom too, (we call the flowers  "katjes"),giving early spring a lot of color:

                                                    © Gertjan Velthuizen



At the start of April there was a very nice sketchcrawl in "Den Haag", organized by the urban sketchers Den Haag. We had great weather and a lot of beautyfull sketchers !
Among some color sketches I made a monochrome one too:

 © Gertjan Velthuizen

I had fun with that , so during the rest of the month  I made some more  drawings in ink, with a wash of the same ink:

 © Gertjan Velthuizen

 I like a brown  for my nature drawings and I used a Faber-Castell Pitt-artist pen with sepia ink for a long time. It is getting empty however , so I bought a new brown ink ( Noodlers bulletproof brown #41) and a new pen to carry it (TWSBI ECO-T). I love both !!
I was on a fishing trip to Germany were I drew  this stairs to the bridge over the river we fished (Kyll , at Kyllburg)

 © Gertjan Velthuizen

 At  the "Waalbos" I did a little landscape with this lovely ink!
For the ink-wash I used a waterbrush and with that I took the ink right of the nib of the pen.

 © Gertjan Velthuizen

A sign of spring

Temperatures go up and down , spring isn't far away but winter is still here.

                                                             © Gertjan Velthuizen

 During a short walk I made several small sketches.
The group of trees is a stand alone in the fields , standing there for years.  A bike path and a walking path  go right beside it, so it is probably to busy nowadays,  but some time ago when  there was only meadow around it , it was a favourite  resting  place for the buzzards.
On several places the yellow flowers of the coltsfoot are popping out of the ground. One day there are none , next day countless! First signs of spring !
The blue heron looks a bit strange  .
I touched the the ink before it dried properly, giving the heron a weird smudge on his head . I like weird birds.......

                                                           © Gertjan Velthuizen

Winterblues? No  way!

It is februari and the days are cold.
Nevertheless I try to get out to draw as much as I can !
Trees are among  my favourite drawing objects and especially the knotted willow tree is the one I like most .
Knotted willows are  the most positve things I know !
Most of the time  their branches are cut of once a year, their stems split or burst open, all kind of humps and lumps are growing on them, other plants and trees grow on or in them, but every year they produce new branches and new leaves! And keep going on, no matter what.
I like that. Very much.
So every now and then I make time for them , and  draw one .

                                                                  © Gertjan Velthuizen

Wintertime also means most of the trees have no leaves.
So you see em kinda naked.....................
And that is nice to draw too.

                                                                      © Gertjan Velthuizen

One day the sun was shining, it was still freezing cold, but the birds were quite active !
So i drew a few of them , to be seen in the next drawing., a Robin, a common Kestrel and a blue Heron.     And of  course some little landscape drawings, featuring trees !

                                                                    © Gertjan Velthuizen

The last drawing I wanted to share here is one done during various lunch and coffee breaks at my work.

© Gertjan Velthuizen

Some landscapes

However I have been urban sketching  in the beginning of 2018, I did some landscapes as well!
I am concentrating  a bit more on the sky in my landscape drawings, well, just trying......
Those were all done in my Pink Pig A5 sketchbook filled with 270 grms matte Ameleie paper.

One of my first little landscape drawings of this year is still a bit urban perhaps, it is the view of a village on the other side of the river.:

                                                       © Gertjan Velthuizen 

The next one's are  more rural, and made in my favourite reserve .

                                          © Gertjan Velthuizen 

You can see   my  sky -struggle in this one:

                                                                     © Gertjan Velthuizen 

During the actual drawing and painting of the last drawing in this post,the sky was great, there was even a little sun, but temperature was slightly above freezing and there was a severe cold wind , what made it  feel  more than freezing cold. I had to walk up and down several times to keep me a bit warm !
Perhaps not my best drawing ( that I am gonna make tomorrow 😊 ) , it always feels good  afterwards ,  to make a bearable drawing in this circumstances !

                                                  © Gertjan Velthuizen 

A walk in the park

                                                          © Gertjan Velthuizen