Sunday, 11-Mar-18 19:19:36 CET

Ernestine 11 March 2018

It is Sunday 11 March, and I am on my way to a life model painting session in Amsterdam. Today it is a Dutch model.

This week I have been working on a panel jig for my router. The current batch of panels did not fit in my wet panel box. It is challenging to cut 2 or three millimeters from the side of a board manually with a handheld saw. You can also use sanding paper, but that is also a lot of work. I figured out I had to use my router to cut off the panel, but it is likewise complicated to use a handheld router to do the cut. The solution was to build a jig. That is a plate where the router is bolted on to, and one side of the plate got a rail so that I can slide the panel along the rail and on the other side the router bit is cutting of the little extras.

Since I had to have the panels this Sunday, I could not wait for this build until Saturday because on Saturday there was a birthday to attend. It worked out well. On Friday evening two panels could slide into the panel box. The design can be improved though because I need something protecting from the bit and I need wheels that push the panel against the rail.

It is rainy today, but the cold has given in. I am sitting in the luxury intercity service train with soccer fans and gamers. They talk soccer and computers.

The artists today were Tom, Saskia, Frank, Irene and me. The model was Ernestine.

Today Saskia wanted the light to come from under, and that was interesting to paint.

From the rest of the studio came incandescent light that looked greenish or blueish if you looked hard. I tried to make it blue.

I made no intermediate photos of this painting. It did not feel euphoric to paint today, and I don’t know why. It is not so that all other times it feels euphoric, but I felt a bit tired. I did my best, and that is what I can do.

On the way back from the studio the sun was shining. At ten past 5 PM, I came to Amsterdam Central so I had some time to kill before the luxury intercity service train to Almere would arrive. I took some photos of the water behind the station. At the back of the station, the pillars had reflective material, and it was perfect for a selfie, a selfie where I look very tall and thin. They even had mirror-like material in the ceiling. Another selfie. Click, Click.