6 Feb 2011

Ballinstadt Hamburg

by | 4
Skizzenbuch, Pen & Gouache, 2011

Over 48 million people left Europe and immigrated to the USA. It is hard to imagine how great their desperation and hopelessness must have been and how brave they were at the same time. I wonder what they must have thought, when for the first time they had set their eyes on the busy Hamburg harbour (in north Germany) with its sailing and steam ships.

Till 1850 most people would emigrate via England, France, the Netherlands or the port Bremen (North Germany). In 185o Hamburg recognized that emigrants were a major economic factor and seaports like Hamburg became emigrant transship centers. In 1893 after a cholera epedimie the decision was made to build special housing areas for the emigrants and set up a system to prevent epedemics.

The Museum Ballinstadt in Hamburg has rebuild parts of this aera and in their exhibition they explain why and under what circumstances people left their native country.

Related Posts

  1. Preperations, Oil on board
  2. At the Sandtor harbor at sunset (Oil on linen)
  3. Dock I
  4. Early morning : 14 F
  5. The return of the pilots
29 Jan 2011

How it all began…

by | 13

How it all began…

The last days I spent my time in front of my computer to answer questions for upcoming articles. When, where, how I will tell. But one is really BIG news!

Hans Jansen, Pastell, 50×39cm, 1957

I was asked when I started with pastels. I began using pastels, when I went to an Art Class with 18, but my love and affection towards them started much earlier. My grandparents had in their sitting room two pastels by the German painter Hans Jansen. You could see two seascapes, one with the rolling waves and another very quiete and peacefull one. I can remember how I sat there many, many times and looked in awe at those paintings. When I was about 6 I remember saying to myself, that I would love to paint something as beautifull as this.

My grandmother once told me how they had met Hans Jansen in 1957 at the beach, when he did a Plein Air painting.

Related Posts

No related posts.

16 Jan 2011

Henri Roché Pastels

by | 7
2010 © Astrid Volquardsen

It is funny how a small wooden box can get you all excited. My heart jumped at this sight. The box contains some Roché pastels!

2010 © Astrid Volquardsen

I was surprised how long and quite hard they turned out to be. If you compare them to the hardness of other pastels, I would put them somewhere between Girault and Unison.

Because they are so long, you can hold them at the end and move them easily from top to bottom. It’s obvious why Degas was able to leave with the Roché Pastels the kind of marks one can recognize in his paintings and sketches. Anyway it is a mystery to me how it was possible for him, that the pastel layers stayed on the wrapping paper he used.

Even though the pastels are quite hard, they are too soft to hold many layers on the paper. Clearly one of the reasons why Degas experimented with different types of fixativs and steam.

Unfortunately he kept this secret to himself.

>The cost of one stick with 14 Euros is quite expensive, which probably can be put down to the manufactoring process. (you can watch a film about this here). The pigments quality seems to be very good, but if they are superior to other excellent pastel brands, I doubt. Those who want high quality won’t do anything wrong with the Roché pastels and they certainly do expand the possibilities of further pastel techniques.

Ausschnitt aus einem Bild von Edgar Degas

Related Posts

  1. Plein Air Pastel Tip #2
  2. Pigments: A decission for quality
  3. A visit at Caran d’Ache / Pastel Pencils
  4. Pigments
  5. Arranging my palette
1 Jan 2011

Eva in the bath (VI)

by | 10

Eva im Bad VI, Pastell,
2010 © Astrid Volquardsen

To all my readers, I wish you a happy new year and all the best for 2011.

It was really interesting to see all the different feedback I got for the last Eva post, because I wasn’t happy with the hands.

So here are some thoughts that came to me.

First,the spectator doesn’t necessarily dislike a certain part in your painting, but the painter himself certainly does. Maybe he or she recognizes it, but it doesn’t do any harm to the general liking.

So this leeds to an important rule, when exhibiting. Never, ever mention, that you don’t like your own pictures or parts of it.

What’s the reason, why artist sometimes have problems to like their own paintings and seem to be dissatisfied with them?

I got a new idea from Daniel Coyles book »The talent code«. He has the theory, that there aren’t special people born with a talent, but that it comes down to put in the hours to become a master. (Take any field you like). It is a combination of putting in 10.000 hours, having good teachers and most importantly to stay in an active learning zone. It is this active learning zone, where our dissasisfaction often derives from. You are setting a goal, try to get there, see the difference,between your goal and what you achieved and you start all over again. Concerning the faces people make when they are in this zone, it doesn’t seem to be a comfy place.

No, it is not always a comfy zone, but a place where it is worthwhile staying in, because you can often feel, how you are moving forward, even though you feel bad about certain parts of your painting.

Because it is new year and don’t we all like new year resolutions, here are some of mine.

  1. Drawing hands on a regular basis (geometrical forms only)
  2. Study other painters and how they managed their hands.
  3. Painting hands in pastel with a very limited color range.

Related Posts

  1. Be patience with yourself
  2. Eva im Bad
  3. Eva in the bath (IV)
  4. Eva in the bath (III)
  5. Eva in the bath (II)
1 … 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 … 80