Creating Voorlinden – 03-05-20

Website link: https://corneakkers.com/voorlinden-03-05-20
Print: https://corneakkers.com/print-voorlinden-03-05-20/
Printable: https://corneakkers.com/product/printable-voorlinden-03-05-20/

My Favourite Park

This pastel drawing ‘Voorlinden – 03-05-20’ depicts some lovely pines on Estate ‘Voorlinden’ in Wassenaar, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands. Surely it has become my favourite park in a short time. There is a classic mansion from the 1920s. One where Inspector Morse easily could solve a murder case. Next, you can find a museum of modern art with an interesting collection. Last but not least there is a forest surrounding the main buildings. When you enter the estate you’ll see wide meadows in the front. They turn into chesnuts and oaks followed by pine trees dune up. From the highest point one can look over Meyendel. Watching oil tankers in the North Sea almost sail over treelines is a surrealist trip. Somehow Voorlinden reminds me to the hills around Nijmegen where I grew up. Maybe I like elevations in the landscape so much because we have so few of them here.

Rendering

Initially I tried to convey the feel of the vast quantity of trunks. Intersected by blue and green segments I carefully avoided rendering individual segments of leafs and branches. Obviously this principle is inspired by Cezanne. However, the result is a tad more realistic look than it actually represents, induced by atmosperic depth and chiaroscuro. What I also tried to achieve is to create a combination of less strong (saturated) colors but within a complementary scheme. Therefor I used a combination of brownish pinks and greyish green. Consequently I got all the benefits of the liveniness of a complementary scheme. Within a wide variety of nuances in color saturation though.

Live and Non-Live Session

Back in 2013 I drew Voorlinden for the first time where I saw it at a distance from the main road. On my way home I was after having sketched in Meyendel. The museum was not there yet and as such the mansion was not very striking from a distance. It was easy to capture though because of the small sized sketch book. This pastel i did not make at Voorlinden but I drew it later in my studio based on a picture I took. The main goal was to make a pastel drawing within 2.5 hours (a normal session duration for me). This is the result.

Pastel drawing on Clairfontaine Pastemat paper (50 x 70 x 0.1 cm)
Artist: Corné Akkers