Self-portraits...

Dear nobody,
I am writing this letter to you because I wanted to know who I am. I started my searching through making self-portraits at Art class. Our assignment was to make two portraits; an angry-sad portrait and a happy portrait. We had to show our emotions with colours. Those self-portraits have to show who I am. We had four lessons to finish our paintings. Every lesson you paint something which made the portraits complete. E.g. at lesson one you draw the background of both portraits. And the next lesson you draw the clothes, which had to be a complementary colour with the background.
For the angry-sad portrait I chose dark colours because when I see those colours I feel very sad. For the clothes I chose the colours of the background of the happy portrait, but I mixed it with black and other dark colours.
For the happy portrait I have chosen colours which are very bright and supose to mean happy. I think you can clearly see the differences between the angry-sad portrait and the happy portrait. Don’t you?
To draw my hair was very difficult. I got examples from my Art teacher. I put my brushes in water and used different colours of brown. The result is good, because it looks a bit as curls.
I’m not satisfied with the skin colours and the eyes the faces. The faces don’t look real in my opinion, do you? I tried to paint as Vincent van Gogh-style. This has a better result at the happy portrait. I also wanted to make my happy portrait happier. I don’t really see a smile. For the first time of drawing portraits I’m quite satisfied. What do you think about the portraits?
I can’t really give an answer on ‘Who I am’, because I used to be happy and have a positive view of life, but in the drawing it do not really show this.
At the top of this letter you can see the angry-sad portrait and the happy portrait.
I’m curious about your opinion of who I am and about my portraits. I hope to hearing from you soon.
Yours Jeanine de Rijke

Impressionism:

Venice Twilight by Claude Monet:




Above you can see the painting of Claude Monet called ’Venice Twilight’.
The only problem is that there are more illustrations of this painting but than with different kind of lights and colours. It was hard to find which the good one was, but I choose for this one because I think this one looks realistic one. But on the front page you can see an other one.



This painting is made by Claude Monet, a French painter. He is born on 14th of November 1840 AD, in Paris, and died on the 5th of December 1926 AD. He was the second child of Claude Monet Adolphe and Louise-Justine Monet. When Claude was about five, the family moves from Paris to the small town of la Havre. Claude Monet spent his childhood in le Havre. He first became known for his caricatures locally. During this time, he met Eugene Boudin, who became his mentor. Eugene Boudine influenced Claude Monet to begin painting outdoors. He also encouraged Claude to try oil paint and pastels instead of charcoal.
Claude Monet made several trips to the Mediterranean between 1883 and 1903. During this visits he painted many landscapes and sea shapes such as ‘Venice Twilight’. He painted ‘Venice Twilight’ in 1908 AD. An other favourite subject to paint for Monet was the landmarks of the Mediterranean.
His paintings in Venice included ‘the Grand Canal Doges Palace’ and ‘San Giorgio Maggiore.

“You must know I’m entirely absorbed in my work. These landscapes of water and reflections have become an obsession. It’s quite beyond my powers at my age, and yet I want to succeed at expressing what I feel. “
– Claude Monet

He wrote this quote in the time he was in the Mediterranean.

In the painting you see the lake ‘San Giorgo Maggiore’. And a burning sky as the sun sets over the lake. In the distance you see a kind of a church and houses of Venice. And you can beautiful see the shadow over the lake of the buildings. Some people say you can see the romance of the city.
When he saw Venice he knew immediately he had to paint this city.
The paintings he made of Venice are one of the most know paintings of him. You can also see that still now, because there are made a lot of copy prints of it.
He made the painting with oil and pastels. I think he uses both linear-perspective and aerial-perspective. But my opinion is that he the linear-perspective more detailed. He painted ‘Venice Twilight’ from a distance of Venice.

My opinion:I think it’s a beautiful and realistic painting. He painted the water very detailed, you can see waves etc. But the sky less detailed f.e. there is not really an

Canterbury --> Cathedral

Canterbury:

Hi!
On the 5th of March 2010, we, T2A, went to Canterbury. I was in a group with; Veronie, Manon, Fabienne, Jan Peter, Lennard, Kees, Niek and Mr. van Gorsel as leader. I had a great time with them.



When we came there, you could immediately see the huge cathedral. Here you can see it--^(don't look at the date;))

It was an amazing building. I was inquisitive to the inside of the building.

When we entered the cathedral, you could see the beautiful stained glass windows. I think that, that was the most beautiful part of the cathedral. Because it has many different colours and I think for the common people in that time it was very important. Because most of them could not read, but they could read the and understand the stories through look at the pictures, who were painted on the stained glass windows. Below you can see one of the stained glass windows.

We got a tour through the Cathedral. It was interesting, but I think it was far too long, it became boring and we were very tired.

In the cathedral you could see were Thomas a Beckett was murdered. (He was murdered on the 29th of December 1170.) There is a memory of that in the cathedral; three swords, because Thomas was murdered in his own cathedral through three knights. I think it is an original memory.

I'd like this story, because the cathedrale became a place of worship for many pilgrims. They came on foot all the way from London.



I'd like also the ceilings and pillars of the cathedral which were beautiful and detailed decorated. I think that was a lot of work. Especially for the people in that time, because they hadn't the materials like we have now. I have a lot of respect for those builders who made the cathedral.

At the end of the day we were all very tired, but we enjoyed Canterbury and especially the beautiful cathedral.

Made by Jeanine de Rijke, T2A