Japanese Garden 2 (2014)

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People Talk

This pastel drawing ‘Japanese Garden 2 (2014)’ is the second of two pastels. The first depicts the little red bridge with two artist colleagues in the back. Just before I had a chat with them in the temple building. One of the topics was how difficult it has become to do a live drawing in a place like this. Some time ago I was drawing the Hall of Knights (De Ridderzaal). There was this couple from China with their daughter who chatted with me. A first appreciation of what I was doing quickly turned to a focus on their own work mostly. So after having heared from them how talented their own daugther was in drawing cast shadows were completely different. Basically, further endeavours at the very spot were completely oblitterated. I wonder why that is. You can always disturb an artist but probably not a paver at work.

The Comfort of Drawing at Home

However, I’m not complaining. It shows people show an interest in my work. Well, at least on first sight. Doing a live session in a popular park like Clingendael is virtually impossible. Luckily for me I have a good camera and I can work back home. Especially pastels are a bit too big for outdoors sketching anyway. Strangely, I love to be outdoors ofen but I consider myself to be a very homely artist. Perhaps it is just that I enjoy the comfort of the set-up in and privacy of my own little studio. All the pastels I search for are within reach. Furthermore, I can put on my daylight lamp whenever I want to or go to the loo without delay.

Impressionist View

As to the drawing, I must have taken the picture for this one just before or right after aforementioned meeting. It shows that little temple smack in the middle of the depiction. As mentioned in the art statement to the first drawing I like the idea of a big reddish block. Situated in the mid-section of the artwork it is blocked in by an upper and a lower green section. Still a bit worried about the static look of horizontal alignments though. Next time I would like to incorporate more diagonally placed forms. This having said, I’m quite content with the impressionist view. The depiction of the foliage is perfect and I surely won’t be able to improve that further in the future.

Pastel drawing on Canson Mi-Teintes Touch paper (50 x 65 x 0.1 cm)
Artist: Corné Akkers