Sunday, 01-Apr-12 21:55:00 CEST

Manneken Pis Tavern, Brussel

On 2 February we had a theme evening of a motive in a café. I found this image from a tavern in Belgium on Internet. The atmosphere at this café looks absolutely fabulous. It is a darn difficult motive though. I had already had a go at this motive the week before but that was not a satisfying exercise either. If you have more than five people to paint at the same time it is usually five times more difficult than one person.  Pushing the limits of my capacity as I sometimes do or as I heard the British say it “Pushing you out of the comfort zone”.

This picture has more than ten people in it. I decided to put the intellect on hold and just break down the picture into little pieces of fields and just go with it.

I think that a motive like this is better suited for acrylic or oil paint actually. Then you start off in the same way but continue improve each character until the painting as a whole is on an acceptable level. My way of painting aquarelle is in such way that I touch the paper once or twice and if I did not succeed with that then I failed. So this was not so successful this time and certainly not successful for a painting made within two hours. So this is why my next painting this evening is interesting…

I will keep the photo and who knows, I might do it in acrylic or oil next time.