It was really very chilly on this cold February Sunday morning when I did this small plein air study of bare trees under a grey sky. The rain was drizzling on and off. Each year in February I have enough of the winter season and can’t wait to see the fresh colors of spring. The [...]

At the end of the year 2012 I did this plein air study of a neighbour village named Zaisersweiher. The format is mid size ca. 15″X25″ , a bit unusual for me as I prefer small studies for oil pastels. In this case I had in total three sessions sur le motif including some pouring [...]

I painted this larger format (50X70 cm) landscape oil pastel from a photograph taken in Provence. I liked the blue sky and the strong contrast between light and shadow that is so typical for the South of France. Meantime I had the opportunity to take a better photograph that shows the full painting.

Little huts in vineyard, print for sale on Redbubble On a mostly grey November day small pieces of blue sky and a few sun rays can make a big difference. The owners of small vineyards and fruit tree meadows convert their small huts step by step into weekend houses. The two in this oil pastel [...]

A typical November day, drizzling rain, moist air and a colossal grey sky with slowly moving clouds. I tried hard to capture those thin clouds that smoked from the wooded hill named “Burgberg” in the background. I have been there on top to meet the “Schreckstein” which translates to “the stone that scares you”. And [...]

I have a fancy for romantic landscapes and antiques. As my wallet does not have the right size I have to create the objects of desire myself. This one is a picturesque landscape after Claude-Henri Watelet, an amateur painter who lived in the 18th century. I picked that subject (in fact an etching after Watelet) [...]

There is a new publication available on Blurb now. Over the last couple of months I have collected a portfolio of blurred landscape photographs. 56 photographs were selected and grouped for the 60 page book. I decided to publish this book as document for the latest change in my way to see and look at [...]

A friendly reader mailed me two incredible text quotes, one from Sartre and one from Vaclav Havel, which I want to post here. From Nausea by Sartre “So I was in the park just now. The roots of the chestnut tree were sunk in the ground just under my bench. I couldn’t remember it was [...]

The small landscape study, a plein air sketch in gouache colors, was done for the postcard exchange going on within the Sketchercise group. It is fully in the tradition of the 18th century and later traditional expressions in landscape painting, preferably on oil. John Berger describes the traditional art of oil painting in his book [...]

This is an older plein air landscape study in charcoal. A soft eraser was very helpful to work out the field and grass in the foreground. As to the trees I kept things pretty much undefined in a more or less impressionistic manner.