Collage experiments...

Collage of flowers 1

 

Collage of flowers 2

November expositie en verkoop met Galerie Beeldschoon popup-galerie, Haarlemmerstraat, Leiden!

Beste allen, 

Gedurende de maand november zijn mijn werken, tesamen met andere kunstenaars, te koop bij de pop-up shop van Galerie Beeldschoon! 

Mochten jullie unieke kunst willen aanschaffen voor Sinterklaas of de Kerst, dan is dit een aanrader. Er is voor ieder wat wils!

Onze popup-galerie is  verhuisd van Haarlemmerstraat 205 naar Haarlemmerstraat 73 Leiden.

Openingstijden zijn: 
Maandag:       GESLOTEN
Dinsdag:         13.00-17.00u 
Woensdag:     13.00-17.00u
Donderdag:    13.00-19.00u 
Vrijdag:           13.00-17.00u
Zaterdag:        11.00-17.00u 
Zondag:          GESLOTEN 

Behalve op koopzondag de laatste zondag van de maand van 13.00u-17.00u.

Let op: Bij aankoop alleen kontant, of bij grotere werken in overleg met kunstenaars.

Jippie

Some dear friends of ours had the cutest cat! He was very playful and often layed in between them to cuddle and spin away. He was in inquisitive little fellow and full of beans.

Alas, he died last year and the were very sad about the loss. Of course I would draw their pet for posterity! Rest in peace Jippie.

Jippie

Size:A3 framed

Medium: Pastel Pencil on Clairefontaine Pastelmat

Photography: Petra and Noah
© Artwork by Astrid Keus (June 2019)

About tigers...

Many years ago, when I was still at the National School of Arts, (Die Kruin) South Africa, we had a very interesting prescribed book for the German language. The story was about a tiger in India, and how it was considered a very sacred animal in their culture. The book fascinated me endlessly and I found the tiger to be one of the most beautiful animals in the world. Not only did the story about the tiger introduce me to the Indian culture, but also how one needs to preserve these nearly extinct species for the future!

As an animal lover, especially for anything 'catlike',  I challenged myself to draw the tiger in pastel pencils. I was pretty pleased with this one... :)

Illustration of a tiger

Size:A3 framed

Medium: Pastel Pencil on Clairefontaine Pastelmat

Photography: Jason Morgan, with kind permission
© Artwork by Astrid Keus (June 2019)

Doing botanical paintings in watercolour

Hi everyone!

For the last couple of months I've been working on several botanical paintings. I've only recently discovered how challenging it is to get this technique under control and it took me some time to practice, practice and practice until it started to look remotely like I wanted it to look. ;)

Watercolour isn't like any other medium, it does what it does: The amount of water one uses as well as the drying process itself has an influence on the pigment which interacts with the kind of paper one uses. You wet the paper, let the paint flow, and add drops of pigment until it dissolves into the paper... You literally have to work it up layer after layer and than the best results are achieved if you let it dry naturally in between each layer. What also fascinated me is that your brush is not just your tool to place the pigment on the paper, but also to 'erase' it off the paper!

It takes oodles of patience but once I started to see the results, I was completely mesmerized by this medium! I can watch how it interacts with different colours and paper, for hours! ;)

My effort resulted in the painting below of an orchard which I have growing in my lounge, and which I photographed myself to get a creative result. Everytime I look at the results I believe I get a lot closer to master watercolour, but it is by no means perfect. Hopefully, as with many artworks created before, they will be the stepping stones to even better artwork in the future!

Botanical illustration of an orchid

Size: 40x29,7cm

Medium: Watercolour on Canson Montval 300gms

Photography: Astrid Keus
© Artwork by Astrid Keus (September 2019)

 

Botanical illustration of blue poppies

Size: A3 (including cardboard frame)

Medium: Watercolour on Canson Montval 300gms

© Artwork by Astrid Keus (September 2019)

 

Botanical illustration of Red Lilly

Size: A3 (including cardboard frame)

Medium: Watercolour on Canson Montval 300gms

© Artwork by Astrid Keus (September 2019)