Tekenopdrachten Welkom – Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Bullfinches, Woodcocks and Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle plants are both delicate and very strong. I drew this branch because it grew in our Belgium garden. The former owner of our house had planted a few honeysuckle plants for his blind friend. Upon saying: ‘I don’t mind whether we sit in or outside because I can’t see your garden’, the former owner would reply; ‘You can’t see the garden but you will be able to enjoy its scent’. Honeysuckle plants have a lovely fragrance that is best smelled later in the evening when a garden gets a bit damp. The damp morning and evening air carries the perfume of the plant.

Woodcocks

Woodcocks are remarkable birds. They are rare in the Netherlands. Recently, I found a dead one in Nienhof, near Utrecht. It was at the end of a bitterly cold week and the woodcock probably suffered from not being able to dig for food in the hard soil. Next to that, woodcocks have a long list of enemies. Cats, martens, hawks, sparrow hawks, falcons, jays, magpies and humans who like to hunt and eat them. Imagine how hard it is for woodcocks to raise a successful nest despite its awesome camouflage colours that resemble tree bark beautifully. With so many enemies, surrounding you 360 degrees, it is said that woodcocks can transport their fledgeling from place to place. The woodcock will lift up its young with its long legs and transports it to a better place. Apart from starlings reported to lift up their fledgeling by their bill to a higher branch, I have not heard birds are capable keep their fluff balls away from prowling cats, rats and squirrels.

Bullfinches

This drawing of a Bullfinch couple was inspired by observing a couple of bullfinches foraging through trees while staying together physically and conversationally. ‘Are you still near, sweetheart?’, ‘Yes, darling, right behind you’. ‘Aren’t the seeds and tiny bugs of this restaurant not wonderful, sweetheart?’, ‘Oh, yes, sweetie pie, just amazing and look how the sun filters through the branches’. ‘Glad you like it, honey’.
The sun indeed showed beautifully on the plumage of the male bullfinch. His red chest stands out. For observing the well camouflaged female, I needed my binoculars. When she sat still, she blended in so amazingly. But their constant chatting, thus maintaining their bond, gave away that there was a female. Finding her felt like winning a price. ‘There she is!’ I drew them how I observed them; happily going about their day.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Commission artist & freehand work at:

Selling at Etsy

Portfolio at Instagram

Portfolio Paula Kuitenbrouwer

A website requires often changing its ‘theme’ (i.e. lay out) for security reasons. And thus, through the years I have given my website different themes. It is always nice to see a revamped website, but in case you do not opt for a more expensive theme, you lose information. I thought why not present my portfolio? Most of it must have fallen off my website due to implemented changes. I invite you to enjoy my artwork and please feel free to ask all sort of questions should you like to ask me something.

I have painted butterflies, birds, and tulips so often, I can paint them now without reference photos. Every time a butterfly, tulip, or birds comes alive on my drawing pad, I feel joy.

It is very rare for me sauntering through a park or through woodlands, enjoying a holiday outside my home town without feeling hugely inspired. Although I have done Celtic art projects, prehistoric studies, architectural drawings, and bookplate commissions, most of my drawings and paintings are observational records of memorable nature experiences.

Autumn is my most inspiring season. Those beautiful, deep, and spiritual ochre colours never fail to make me grab for my sketchbook.

Working on commissions and being in contact with customers is important to me. The interaction between a customer who has a wish lingering in his or her mind and me trying to grasp that wish and transform it in to a painting of drawing is a wonderful task.

Architectural drawings of monuments or prehistoric studies, every project results into more knowledge and more joy in drawing and painting.

Of all the different themes and projects I have done over the years, mandarin ducks and book plate commissions are the most regular. It is such a honour to be trusted to draw or paint a personalised book plate or living room painting with lovely mandarin ducks.

I have done a large floral triptych during the Sars-Cov-2 lockdown. It goes without saying that busying myself with large tulips, irises, and daffodils brought much joy in an otherwise scary and depressive time. See here: the power of art!

Book plates, mandarin ducks, sashiko decorations, a medieval Ex Libris, and an architectural freehand drawing. Express your wish and let me try to capture it on paper or canvas.

When I am not working on a commission, I busy myself with freehand drawing. I grab an old, art book and copy masterpieces of the past. Or I find Iron Age art objects in museums and try to crawl into the mind of its long dead maker. Or I design Christmas cards, greetings cards, textile prints, or study traditional or ancient geometric signs (Celtic, Iron Age, Japanese, Aboriginal, Saxon). I haven’t been a day without feeling inspired and I would need a few more lives with more time to be able to grow through art, to deepen my understanding of art, and to honour artists that have enriched our lives. Without Bach’s music, we wander in the dark. Without art we fail to communicate the meaning of life.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

at Etsy

https://www.instagram.com/mindfuldrawing/?hl=en

Hercules Statute Utrecht Netherlands

In my hometown of Utrecht, on two Rococo houses alongside the ‘Nieuwe Gracht’, stands Hercules holding the sky onto his shoulders. The ancient story goes that Hercules has taken up the firmament for Atlas allowing the old Titan a brief moment of respite to take up one of his labours.

I had to correct Hercules’ legs because all reference photos are taken from street level, and Hercules stands on top of a four story house, and it therefore the statute showed too short legs. I’ve elongated Hercules’ legs to create a level frontal view.

Hercules looks strong, but he is a demigod and demigods can do things we mortals can not. Yet, the maker of this statute, the Dutch sculptor Ton Mooy, has given Hercules a tormented expression.

I kept wondering why I like this Hercules. When I was about to draw his hair and face, I remembered. I had seen this kind of hair and facial expression before. Hercules has the same hair as Vercingetorix (see photo) and a similar tormented expression as the statute of the Dying Gaul (see photo), an Ancient Roman Hellenistic sculpture. There is beauty in showing that extraordinary strength and bravery often comes with pain.