Year: 2017

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Dog portrait commissions

I’ve been doing a few dog portraits for fun (I like to paint animals) in the second half of 2017 and posted them on reddit. They received some nice responses and a few people have asked if I did commissions. So in this post I’m putting together some information!

First of all: at the moment I can do a dog portrait for €125, the size being 7×10″ watercolor paper. Right now I can’t do other sizes, because mailing becomes a lot more cumbersome for larger sizes (which I could do, but the price would get higher). The price includes postage. I have time for about 1-2 paintings per week in my spare time. Mail from the Netherlands to the US takes roughly 2 weeks (track and trace is provided).

About the photo reference: the most important thing is good lighting, and second most important thing is composition. Good lighting is cross lighting (no frontal flash!), and preferably the light will highlight the dogs eyes/face. See this excellent reference photo of Ralph the beagle:

Also this photo illustrates good composition, the photographer is at about the dog’s eye level. Often dogs are photographed from above, and this makes for a poor composition.

Send me an e-mail at wout@woutdezeeuw.com for working out the details. Messages on reddit are difficult to track down.

Here are some dog portraits I’ve been doing in the last few months, hope you enjoy them!

Beagle portrait
Beagle portrait
Beagle
Beagle
Copper the beagle
Copper the beagle
Harley
Harley
Ralph the beagle
Ralph the beagle
Ralph the beagle
Ralph the beagle
Posted on by — Leave a comment

Ideas for food chapter interior

Wondering if a semi-open lowered ceiling would work in the Food Chapter restaurant part of seats2meet Eindhoven. It kinda reminds me of a garden pergola, it’s a bit more intimate, but not claustrophobic. Also it still let’s light through (there’s large windows on one side of the restaurant). From there my mind wandered to botanical gardens, and greenhouses, see pics below.

French garden (from http://www.home-designing.com/2013/03/traditional-french-country-home):

Botanical gardens are fantastic, not sure if it’s possible to replicate that atmosphere in a smaller space (from https://www.phipps.conservatory.org/plan-your-special-occasion/facilities-overview):

On a smaller scale, green houses! Greenhouse restaurant in Copenhagen (from https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/gardenista-sourcebook-for-outdoor-living-3748417/vakst-a-greenhouse-restaurant-in-copenhagen-4886327168):

I like the wall texture here, giving it a more organic feel:

There are many variations on the theme, this is a bit more fancy:

http://www.oranit-ltd.com/pic/drim__9597.JPG

 

 

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Portable palettes

I saw a photo of Joseph Zbukvic doing some plein air urban sketching using the Winsor & Newton fieldbox. It looked pretty practical with integrated water container, so I just ordered one from amazon.de with the Cotman watercolors, a lot cheaper there than in the Netherlands.

For pics and other portable palettes read this nice review by Daniel Novotny: https://www.ateliernovotny.com/2017/07/21/101-4-6-how-to-set-up-your-watercolor-palette-portable-palettes-paintboxes/.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Saatchi art commission increase

Saatchi art decided to up their tax from 30% to 35%, whilst calling this a “slight increase”. For those of us who did math, this is a 16.6% revenue increase for Saatchi art.

In an important e-mail Saatchi art justifies it as follows: “Saatchi Art has not increased its prices since 2011”. Imagine your tax going up every 6 years. They are portraying a margin increase as a price increase. I can’t believe how dumb Saatchi art thinks their customer base is.