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Just a small drawing for the cover for the Easter weekend. I will not attend, I will be in Dallas!
Just back from the lovely Sidesaddle weekend, I have enrolled for the ”Ascention-Weekend”. Not that we plan to ascend to heaven, although that is always a possibillity when dashing through the forests at ”Ludicrous-Speed” with the Tarq…
No, Ascention day means an extra long weekend in the Netherlands, with extra holidays so this is the very best ponycamp of the year, as it starts on wednesday!
So I made this cartoon for the booklet.
It says ”Ascention Weekend” ”Yes! We are going!” And the Tarq says: ”But I am still not going into the trailer”…
This little equine portrait is a cute little filly which is being trained by my friend S. She came as a very scared little thing, grown up in the wild. She is the offspring of a mare from a free-roaming group of Exmoor ponies, and a naughty spanish stallion who escaped his comfortable lodgings to have a night of hanky-panky with the wild ladies. Who consequently gave birth to a pack of cruzados, all unwanted because the aim was to keep the Exmoors as a pure herd.
So little Kyra arrived as a shivering bundle of nerves, and my friend S has been working with, and caring for the little lady for about six months now. By now Kyra has about doubled in size, her somewhat crooked legs have become straight, and she has become a very sweet friendly little horse, enjoying working with S. and looking forward to every session, and looking at the world with open curiosity.
I was completely taken with her.
My friend S also likes photography and she had one photo which struck me in it’s monumental simplicity. She send it to me. I usually don’t work from photo’s other than using them for details, information. The danger with really working from a photo is that you get a very static painting. You can usually see at first glance when an artist has copied a photo. There is something languid and boring and static about such paintings.
Yet when one has to make a portrait of a horse on another continent, or one which has died, one has no choice. If I have to use photo’s and can’t meet the horse in person, I prefer to get a lot of photos. That way I can have a more complete image in my mind of the horse and it’s personality.
I think the major problem is that if you have such a clear, static, two-dimensional image in front of you, you tend to concentrate far too much on that easy image.
I have noticed paintings which follow a photo so slavishly that silly things are copied too, like a hoof dangling at a weird angle. Now the human mind works thus: if it is a Photo, your brain doesn’t really register a detail which is artistically a bad detail. But as soon as that image is transferred to a drawing or painting it becomes immediately apparent. So you should weed out those things which will look wrong in a piece of art. You should also avoid looking too much at the photo, but instead concentrate more on your painting.
So as I looked at that photo I kept seeing more details, more interesting combinations between blacks, greys and browns. I thought it would be an interesting study, use the one photo, try not to get bogged down with details, and explore those subtle colours.
Now of course I also know Kyra very well, but I really wanted this to be an excercise in using only one photo, and keep it fresh.
So what do you think?
This is also Diary painting 9/10 December. And to show you a bit of my painting process I show you the portrait half-finished too.
The photo of Kyra
Kyra half finished
Kyra
9/10 december 2010
9” × 9” oil on canvas
Oil on Canvas 9” ×9”
This from a series of designs I made which are meant for modern interiors, as a quiet but colourful touch. Somebody asked me for some designs, and at first I thought it a stupid commission, but I really got to enjoy myself and I made a lot for myself! I am going to do a few as diary paintings.
I ahve been busy and a bit ill, so my diary paintings have suffered, very bad!
Bad Aafke!
I have some still to share with you. But unfortunately I have lost my memory card. it fell in the snow, and now I have lost all the photo’s I made, and I sold most of them at the horse show.
I have made a Banner for Blogging Buddy Bedu!
It symbolised both herself and her blog.
It has an Arab horse of course, but also Bedu’s cats, and a Nejdi goat, and an image of the beautiful Nabatean ruins in Maidan Salah. There’s a lot more to Saudi Arabia as just sand and oil!
You can see the banner in situ, read lots of interesting posts, (and heated discussions 
) at American Bedu. Click here.
I will be painting at a horse-fair all weekend and no internet!
At least I expect to be coming back with lots of artwork 
Long time ago I was very sad, my pony Mona Lisa had to go, she was way to small for me and she had a mental kink, making it impossible to ride her. She was going back to my Aunt so she would be all right.
But at night I had a bad nightmare… My mom came because she had heard me scream and she told me that somewhere there was a horse for me.
My next dream was about a brown horse, galloping down a grassy slope.
I remembered thinking, ”Oh, no, not a brown one, I want a black one!”
I then forgot about the dream.
Some months later I met the love of my life, Cartouche.
Who happened to be a brown mare, and a year later I remembered having this dream…
Acrylic on canvas
9” × 9”
Saint Nicholas is back in the country!
This is what he does at night: Jumping around on the roofs, distributing small gifts and candy and chocolate in the shoes of good children.
I’ve been on a short break in England. So instead of diary paintings I have been making sketches. And photographing them and I am now writing from one of the many café’s with wifi!
The sketches are photographed at dark in the café!
I stayed with an Indian friend and she took me to some sari-shops where we looked at super dazzling indian costume jewellery! And I got some very huge prandis, the decoration for your plait. I am going to use them to make some show decorations for the Tarq!
There were a couple of really nice art cafés in Derby! I had no idea!
A ten minute sketch, because we were having tea at M&S and they wanted to close so we got kicked out! Mark this face: Shivanna, future Pop star!
Hmmm. What about Captain Kabob and Shivanna for a mega-star-duo?
Now my friend lives in what could be called: The Stately home triangle. It’s really palace-central! There are so many sites I want to see all at her doorstep! Upton hall, Hardwick hall, Chatsworth, Haddon Hall, Peveril Castle, Kedleston Hall (Adam interiors) and Calke Abbey.
Unfortunately, all these places are closed since last week!!!!!!!!
Aaaarrgghhhhhhh!!!!
So we just roamed about the park a bit at Calke Abbey.
This is the deer shelter
And although not nearly as good as the house itself, which is something of a time capsule, the outbuildings were quite cool. But, being cold and windy, I did a sketch from the comfort of the restaurant.
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