Sunday, 06-Nov-16 21:05:30 CET

Suzanne 6th of November 2016

It is Sunday 6 November and I am on the way to a model session at de Stoker in Amsterdam. Today I am less fortunate with both weather and transportation. It is raining and I am sitting on a bus typing this. Luckily it is a rather nice Mercedes-Benz bus so I even got a little table in front of me so I can type this with my portable keyboard! Now the challenge is to not get sick in the process so I am typing blindly and looking out of the window. Another problem I dressed to warm so I am slightly overheated at this moment.

One good thing though is that I figured out about the train situation on time so I managed to get to the bus 30 minutes earlier than normal.

I have been thinking what I should do with the painting of Susanne that I started on last week. Will I continue or will I start over. I think that the main problem is that her skin would be livelier with a warmer light. Perhaps I can convince Saskia to turn on her big warm light but I think it is too late really. We will see.

Next Tuesday there will be election in the US. I think never I have been so worried about the outcome like this time. No one has been able to calm my fear for what will happen. On Wednesday, we will know. “There are so many people unhappy about the establishment”. Supposedly that would be the reason that populists can get elected. I do not understand this. What is there now to be unhappier about compared to 10 years ago? It sounds like fabricated reasons. If there is such wide spread unhappiness then what is that based on? Is it based on hearsay? Everybody are saying that everybody else are unhappy and that should indicate that we all should go and elect a populist?

When I arrived at the studio I had time to talk to Saskia about the light and she thought it was a good idea to rig the big warm spotlight. I helped her with this.

Then I decided to start over and create a new painting. This time I used much less time to draw Susanne. After 30 minutes, I started painting and beware, I did not put any white on the palette!

This session throughout I had the feeling I was on time and that I had the initiative. It was still a struggle with the colors. The warm light helped though. It literally added a dimension to the painting. If I had a studio I would experiment with lights of different temperature from different angles. Well I don’t have that so I can stop dreaming. Anyway, from the front the model had a greenish tint in her skin. From the right behind her she had the new warm spotlight. From the left she had neutral fluorescent or even slightly cold light.

There was even time to work on her face and to sign the painting.

When the session was over I saw that the democrats were four percent ahead of the republicans. Sunday evening. Trump already won. Even if Hillary win officially, Trump won. Lies won. Hatred won. Science lost. Diversity lost. Innovation lost.