Since the Corona virus lockdown I started with my so-called Corona project: making every day a pen drawing of flowers and/or young women wearing them. You can see my work on social media and of course forthcoming exhibitions.
Besides this social media/virtual initiative, which has grown into an impressive portfolio over the last few months, I have also built up over the years a portfolio in oils, pastel and watercolor.
Let me tell you first somewhat more about my Corona Art Project. I had the idea to start a large large collection of daily drawings, and continue to do so as long as the Corona pandemic is among us.
I took the idea of using social media for my art, as showing one’s work in galleries and exhibitions became impossible in the lockdown. Instagram has become the platform for many artists and galleries. I also wanted to bring a message of beauty and hope, showing what nature can give us in stunning and rejoicing elegance: flowers.
With my drawings, I also want to show people the wonderfulness of our planet, and bring the message that we should take care of it.
It forces me also as an artist to practice the art of (ink) drawing daily, to trigger and enhance my creativity and also to approach the essence of drawing and art. The drawings are deliberately kept simple, done with drive and zest, to capture the soul and essential qualities of the given subject. It is drawn (mostly) from imagination, but sometimes also from reality, as I focus on plants and flowers growing in a specific region/place in this wonderful world.
There are a few things I consider essential in creating pictorial art.
The first thing to do is to draw line(s) and contours. To master the art of drawing is essential to me. I continue to be my own (strict) master and teacher. I draw daily, and this Corona project is a welcome platform. If you start drawing, remember to do it often. Try gesture drawing. This means to work faster than you would normally do. Draw loosely and light. Let your hand guide your imagination. And vice versa. Let the drawing flow. Have lines and rhythm in your drawings. Later then come building blocks, cubes, brought in the proper proportions. And much more.
Personally, I find line drawings always wonderful and exquisite, and I will use it for many subjects, from portraits to cars, buildings, flowers.
The right color…
I also found it essential to master the art of creating the right colors and nuances you want, and then to establish your very own color palette.
When I started as an artist, one of my very first things I did besides learning to draw was to try out all the possible color mixes combining the primary and secondary oil colors, and this led to a whole catalogue of hundreds of colors, which I still carefully keep as reference sheets, when I am making a painting. I did the same for watercolors and pastels.
What media do you use?
At the moment, besides ink, oils, acrylics, gouache and paper, I like pastels. They are (almost) pure pigments, and can enhance vigorously made lines and drawings, with bold color accents. On the other hand, you can use them also to build layer upon layer, making very subtle color mixes and nuances, to achieve color mixtures with a very high degree of refinement.
I like also the directness and speed of acrylics, especially when I create large canvases. Then there are luckily always the retarders and gesso’s to make the paints more malleable, or slower drying and/or thicker to make stunning impasto’s. I would say, try out all these different media when making your way forward as a pictorial artist. There are now also solvent free oil paints, or water water mixable oil colors. Indeed, oils are of course the ideal tool to make a painting, they are marvelously slow and can be erased/changed almost endlessly during the creative process. They can be thinned with oil mediums to make them wonderfully transparent and allow the “glacis” technique, as the French call it, which means simply painting layer over layer. The transparency of the different paint layers leads to a unique result. I will soon try out the water mixable oils, and see for myself if they have the same marvelous qualities.
Of course, there are also other media.
In pastel, I have worked over the last months on a series of tree drawings, adopting in the background of these tree silhouettes the color band harmonies and juxtapositions pioneered by American moderns like Rothko.
The subtle contrast of these colors has always fascinated me, the vibrancy they create on the paper or canvas is unique. As pastels are essentially pure pigments in powder form, this medium is very suitable to express these colorful variations in the paintings I made.
They can convey soft outlines and contours, yet being very expressive in their wonderful hues. I entered one marge pastel painting lately in a concours exhibition “Achter Glas” or “Behind Glass”. The organizers had put forward a general theme “fire”, and I depicted a young woman hovering in the distress of Corona ridden times over a burning city…
Besides the tree theme, I also endeavored into seascapes or so-called “ Nordic coastal landscapes”. A few pastel paintings depict the hues and colors of dune vegetation in a Nordic coastal setting within the unique light conditions and distant horizons so typical of our low countries.
Accompanying this work are several pencil studies of the coast lines, beaches and their vegetation.
I will soon be embarking on a same series of large format Nordic sea/landscapes, again celebrating their wonderful hues and quality of their light, in all media, in pastels but also in oil and acrylics.
At the moment of writing, some of my pastel works are exhibited in The Art Bar, in Antwerp, Mechelsesteenweg 113. Opening Hours Wednesday and Thursday from 16-22.00h, Friday and Saturday 16-23.00 h.
Hans Knol ten Bensel
