portrait

Daily Painting, Roy

| Aafke-Art

A small sketch in pen, with water colors, of Roy,

This is my favorite technique for my sketchbook. This is pretty fast so good for work-on-the-go. I don’t have too much bulky stuff in my travel gear, and you still have precision and colour. Of course you can also work just in pen or water colours, but this is fast and it looks good.
At least that’s how I think about it.

In this case I used a drawing pen. The Sakura Pigma Micron 03 in black. These have been favorite pens for years. I have them in black and sepia. Very reliable and water proof. So you can add a water colour wash.
The water colours are my trusted Winsor and Newton watercolor set, the same one I have been lugging around with me for 20 years now!

CAM01186

Daily painting: Meeting with a donkey

| Aafke-Art

On our trip to the Dallas Heritage Village we met with Nip and Tuck, two giant, very friendly donkeys.

I found them strange, they had a lot of angles and bumps, beautiful to paint of course. They are both greys with a lot of different shades in their coats. I do not know who is Nip or Tuck, so here is either Nip or Tuck!
This painting is quite small, 4 inch by 4 inch, it’s a miniature, it’s like a small jewel when I hold it in my hand. It will show up much larger on your computer screen, unless you are looking at my blog on your phone. 😉

Oil on board

4” by 4”

DSC00259-1

Daily Painting: The adorable Huck

| Aafke-Art

Huck is an Australian shepherd. He is adorable and a master in manipulating people. He has some psychic power which forces me to give him treats. He does not like bananas, he thinks bananas are offensive! He is on the same flyball team as my Antar and I feel good when we race behind the Huck because he is very reliable. Huck can also look very regal as you see here.

This is Huck at White Rock Lake. I had an Italian, renaissance style portrait in mind. Something like this:

renässanskvinna

The lake and background were just right. And Huck had the correct regal look.
What do you think?

DSC00256-1

Oil on panel
6” by 6”

Pete the Qatari Cat

| Aafke-Art

Remember the ”Cat from the ninth circle of hell”?
(Which he wasn’t, he was a lovely cat)

2-februari-2-2010Well, he was really named Pete and he passed away.

Pete was a very special cat, P asked me if I still had the apinting of Pete and I did, but to make P happy I also painted a proper portrait of him.

It’s oil on panel, 6 by 6 inches

DSCN6188

DSCN6192-1

Jagger, portrait in oil

| Aafke-Art

DSC09003-1”Jagger” 10” x 10” oil on painters board

Jagger is a great dog.

It started off with an umber base, and used soft colors for the base. I decided on painting in a light simple background to Keep all focus on the dog.

DSC08995A bit more definition. I did not want to get too finicky.

DSC08996And the finished portrait!

DSC09003-1

The Tarq is good to go!

| Aafke-Art

DSC08987

The vet has been and Tarq’s tongue, what’s left of it, looks very good! Everything is healthy, no infection, and at least the skin is growing over the torn end. Which means he can have all his normal food and hay again!

Which is very good because the stuff we were giving him was not at all good for him. Way too much sugars and proteins!

Tarq is very happy too.

Daily Painting, Two Great Danes

| Aafke-Art

Two great Danes on an 8” x 8” panel!

DSC08985

Oil on painter’s board, 8” x8”

This was fun to paint! And this proves my theory: As soon as something is fun it is also good. I went all daring with large brushes, and I love the shapes of Great Danes. The spotted one has such a sweet expression on her face.
I used M. Graham oil paints, a new discovery for me. I love them, beautiful top quality paints.
I used a very minimal palette, set up with white, yellow, red, umber and blue, With these you can mix all the colors you need

Portrait of Spijker, a Golden retriever

| Aafke-Art

DSCF7011

This was commissioned from the Netherlands, but I was in Dallas so had to make do with photo’s. If at all possible I prefer to makes sketches from life. But I will take commissions using photographs.

And the internet makes it easy to send photos, make sketches and share them, and discuss the final painting.

The style was to be somewhat 18th century, a real state portrait! I used oils on marouflé, painting board, covered with Belgian portrait linen, this makes for a very stable panel, of very fine quality.

The final pencil sketch:

DSCF6747

The painting in progress

DSCF6971

The finished painting!

DSCF7011