Balmoral Exhibition

Just one day left for me to finish new artwork for the Balmoral Exhibition, organised by the Upper Deeside Art Society. The art exhibition runs from 1 April to 31 July and can be seen in the Queen's Stables. Everyone is welcome during the opening hours of the castle, 10 am until 5 pm.

This framed work, created in acrylics and soft pastels a few months ago, will be shown too. Size 55 x 35 cm.

Joy ©Fenfolio 2011

Apart from a visit to the castle, you can explore the wonderful area Royal Deeside, so bring along your family and/or friends for a short break. More information about other events, attractions and activities, visit the website Discover Royal Deeside.

Artistic explorations: Swirls (1)

A few months ago I was playing with my new airbrush and watching how air would move ink on paper. Although I had already collected many digital images of vector art, I didn't have an end result in my mind. Shapes just developed (see examples here). Below are a few free stock images I downloaded to form my idea:

stock image 1

stock image 2

After my attempt with the airbrush, I tried to create swirls with traditional mediums like pen, crayons and ink.

For this one below I first created the background with Caran D'Ache crayons NeoColor II (watersoluble) and then painted a design in black ink on top.

Swirl Mixed Media ©Fenfolio2011

These are some other free stock images but then in black and white:

Stock image 3

Stock image 4

Stock image 5

I then drew some swirly doodles with pen on sketching paper and had lots of fun!

Swirl Doodle 1 ©Fenfolio2011

Swirl Doodle 2 ©Fenfolio2011

Swirl Doodle 3 ©Fenfolio2011

Artistic explorations: Geometrical shapes (2)

My previous article about Kandinsky was not enough to do him justice, so last week I browsed the internet to see what other professional and amateur artists have made that was inspired by his work. As mentioned before here, DeviantArt is a fabulous social network for all kinds of artists and is my main source to get ideas for my new projects. Here I found that one of the members was inspired by Kandinsky's "Softened Construction":

© Kandinsky

DeviantArt member FractalEyes then created his fractal interpretation digitally:

© FractalEyes

And this is my own interpretation after seeing the digital interpretation of Kandinsky's work:

© Fenfolio 2011

Gouache, collage and indian ink pen have been combined here on watercolour paper (A4). As everything was done manually and in a time limit (art class), the lines are a bit crooked unfortunately, but this study project has taught me a lot about composition!

Artistic explorations: Geometrical shapes (1)

Last year I shifted my focus from photography to painting and since then I have immersed myself in a new creative and personal journey of experimenting with various mediums like acrylics, ink, pen, pencils, crayons, collage, natural material and techniques to create certain effects. During my art course at Gray's School of Art this year, one of the requirements was to create a visual diary; notes about artists and artwork that inspires me, notes about exhibitions I have been to and reflections on my own artwork. Although this visual diary is in paper format, I'd like to share some of it with you here, in particular my own artistic inspirations and explorations.

My aim is to post articles within this theme on a regular basis. I will give every article a number because I expect certain subjects will return in my artwork. You can easily find all articles in this new theme by clicking "artistic explorations" in the Category box on the right.

Wassily Kandinsky (16 December 1866 - 13 December 1944)

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first introduction with Kandinsky's work was through a blank postcard I got for free via a gallery. I was a young teenager and thinking about going to art school in The Netherlands. Instantly I was a big fan of the Russian painter and art theorist, who is credited with painting the first modern abstract works.
During an art course I did in 1989 to prepare for my application, I learned about etching and played with  some geometrical shapes. These were first drawn and then cut into the unprotected parts of a metal plate with acid.

© Fenfolio 1989

Tour skating on the Weissensee

Techendorf am Weissensee

After some very busy weeks, with many creative projects I will tell you more about in my following articles, I've finally found some time to update my blog with our skating adventure on the Weissensee in Austria in the first week of February.

Me on my Swedish skates

My dad is a keen ice skater and I started to learn it on the frozen lake near our house when I was about 5 years old. I have fond memories of the many trips I made with him when I was a teenager, the cracking sound (is a good sign!) of the ice on lakes and canals, the "koek & zopie " stalls (cake and hot chocolate) along the way and the happy atmosphere all around us!

I'm feeling the rythm again!

Every year the Dutch ice skaters travel en masse to the Weissensee for the "Alternatieve Elfstedentocht".







 As the weather conditions in Holland are very unpredictable these days, it's very unlikely that the traditional tour in Friesland can go ahead, so many people do the alternative one to skate 200 kilometers on natural ice.

Skating suits hanging to dry

My dad has been there for many years and this year he asked us to join us.

Jaap in full gear

For Jaap it would be the first time on proper skates ever, so he was very excited (and a bit nervous on his first day). He impressed eveyone with his skills and could even manage to do "pootje-over" (cross-leg) in the corners!
After 5 days of lessons we signed up for the tour. You could decide how many kilometers you wanted to do. Eventually Jaap managed to do 52!

The beginners skating class

Jaap started his tour at dusk...

...and finished after 5 hours and 52km!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to do a long distance because of my weird feet that give me pain when doing extreme activities, but in the end I skated around the whole lake impressively quickly. Here we are showing our official document and medal!
 

We proudly present...

The whole week was just superb; the food and wine in our hotel was delicious, sunny weather the whole week, a beautiful area also for walking, nice people and being active outside every day.

Austrian puppets welcome us at the hotel

Happy skaters!

Views to the Dolomites in Italy

Me and my men