Monthly Archives: January 2011

Pieter Jansz Saenredam

Posted in On Art by

Pieter Jansz Saenredam
St Mary’s Square en St. Mary’s Church in Utrecht (1662)

This is an old painting that I like; ‘St Mary’s Square en St. Mary’s Church in Utrecht (1662)’ by Pieter Jansz Saenredam. This painting shows Utrecht with impressive buildings (the towers still stand),  a large open square and only a few people. To get a taste of this quiet Utrecht, you need to wake up at 5 in the morning on a nice summer morning and walk through the town. You will see how beautiful the old centre of Utrecht is. Within a few hours everybody will wake up, and the busy city goes about its day.

Paula

Picture from Schilderijen.nu

Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750)

Posted in Botany, Dutch, Dutch antique, Dutch Golden Age Floral Painters, Dutch Golden Age Floral Paintings, Dutch Tulips, Featured, Motherhood, On Art, Rachel Ruysch, Studying Art Through Drawing, Teaching Art or Art Class by

 A flower bouquet by Rachel Ruysch. I have seen Ruysch’ paintings in different museums and studied how she, and other Golden Age flower painters, made these paintings.

Ruysch’ flower bouquets’ do not exist in real. Ruysch’ flower paintings show all flowers in bloom at the same time. We know that flowers bloom in different seasons. What you see in Ruysch’ paintings is that spring, summer, late summer, probably even beginning of the fall merged in one bouquet.

Golden Age floral painters made several sketches and paintings of flowers during the seasons. Sometimes artists waited whole seasons for a particular plant to flower so it could be drawn and later painted. They used their sketches often for more than one painting.

Rachel Ruysch had 10 children and kept painting till she was 84.

Rachel Ruysch Portrait by Godfried Schalcken.

Here is her extended biography.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Paula Kuitenbrouwer sells exquisite original art work (drawings and paintings), fine art cards, as well as larger reproductions, and smaller business-, gift- or mummy-cards. See Purchase in the header for what is available as well as the price list. In case you like to commission Paula, contact her at mindfuldrawing@gmail.com

House Sparrow

Posted in Birds, Coloured Pencil, Free Drawing, House Sparrow by

House Sparrow small cards are available at mindfuldrawing@gmail.com

House Sparrow

Big picture on the front, smaller on the backside with additional information.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Paula Kuitenbrouwer sells exquisite fine art cards of her drawings as well as reproductions, and of some drawings smaller business-, gift- or mummy-cards. See Purchase in the header for what is available as well as the price list. In case you like to commission Paula, contact her at mindfuldrawing@gmail.com

How to draw birds

Posted in Birds, Coloured Pencil, Free Drawing, How to draw......., Zoology by

Bird Cards

Bird Fine Art Cards are available at mindfuldrawing@gmail.com. Have a look at Purchase in the header.

How to draw birds?

Drawing birds is not easy for the simple reason of missing living bird models. I found the following solutions that might work for you as well. If you can, go to a museum that has stuffed birds. Or sit in your garden and hope a few birds will sit still longer than a few seconds.

Toy birds

Help might also come from models, like toys. My daughter’s toy birds serve me well. The colours of most toy birds isn’t right neither are their patterns and most of them are too puffed, too cute or miss feet. However, one can cure these flaws.

If all these tricks don’t help, you might like to try Frederick Franck’s advice: ‘…If -as I hope -the how-to tricks with ellipses don’t work for you either, there is no other way of drawing a sparrow or an eagle than to draw it ad infinitum, until the brushes on your paper are fuller of birds than any bushes ever were, and you know sparrow and eagle inside out, having been them yourself’. (p. 61, The Zen of Seeing, seeing and drawing as meditation, ISBN 978-0-394-71968). I think you should do this anyway, how else will you learn to draw? Besides, it is fun.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Paula Kuitenbrouwer sells exquisite original art work (drawings and paintings), fine art cards, as well as larger reproductions, and smaller business-, gift- or mummy-cards. See Purchase in the header for what is available as well as the price list. In case you like to commission Paula, contact her at mindfuldrawing@gmail.com
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