This is the question I regularly ask myself. Especially when I’m in a museum and see all those brilliant works by so many painters and come to the conclusion that I am nowhere near up to their level. Let alone that I can ever match the great masters. But I remain motivated and came to the conclusion that I’m always taking steps forward, even if they are only small ones.

The subject of the workshop painting in the 19th century at the Teekenschool at the Rijksmuseum is a painting in the style of the Dutch painter Breitner. George Hendrik Breitner was a Dutch painter known for his depiction of Amsterdam city life.

Today I want to take a look at the Pierre Noire Pencils from Conté a Paris. In my eyes it is a charcoal pencil but actually that is not quite the case I believe. Conté a Paris also has the Natural and the Compressed Charcoal in their core range so why should this be the same? It draws like a very hard charcoal but it does not erase like charcoal, that is been my experience anyway.

At the end of March my challenge of a drawing a day came to an end. What initially would take 30 days, became at the end a 365 days journey. In any case, it has resulted in a whole stack of sketchbooks filled with drawings.

Recently I tried to send a painting to an address in Germany. For me the first time, so with some uncertainty I handed over the package and then entrusted it to others. Fortunately, you can track your package online nowadays. Because I had sent the parcel via our national Post, it was handed over to the Hermes shippingcompany in Germany. After Hermes had received the package they claimed immediately that the address on the package is incorrect. Strange because even the address that was included in the digital track and trace info was correct. Unfortunately, there is no way to make it clear to parties that everything is correct. 14 days later the doorbell rang and I received the package, with a dozen stickers on it, return. Most likely it would have been a nice tour through Europe, but of course very sloppy from the Hermes company and certainly not sustainable this uselessness.

Every now and then you are confronted with the fact that the white of the paper does not give the desired effect. This may be because the paper is not completely white in color, the spot can no longer be erased properly or because there is simply too little contrast in that part of the drawing.