House No. 118: Dutch Row Houses

 

House No. 118: Dutch Row Houses

encaustic on paper

18 in. x 12 in.
118/365; 04/28/11

This semester I made my 2D design students try their hand at (cheap and easy) encaustics using crayons and irons and candles and blow driers and cookie sheets pulled from the oven. I got some great work from them, and I really dug how much it freed up their style. I thought that I should revisit encaustics myself, cheap and easy style.

It did free up my hand, and the colors are so lovely and bright, which is why I went with the Amsterdam row houses again. I love their fun colors and shapes.

I used a cookie sheet covered with foil and heated in a moderate oven and a tub of Crayola crayons. As I stress to my students, crayons are one thing you cannot cheap-out on. The pigment and texture of generic crayons just suck.

Try this at home: put your paper on a hot cookie sheet and draw with unwrapped crayons. I use a few pencil lines to guide my pigments.

House No. 106: Dutch Row Houses

House No. 106: Dutch Row Houses

ink and watercolor pencil on repurposed card stock
3 in. x 1.6 in.
106/365; 04/16/11

I still have Dutch things on my mind. I think that yesterday's house left me wanting for something more Dutch-y. (And I still have pancakes on my mind too, but I digress.) These are stripped-down Dutch row houses, and I am rather partial to their stepped-gabled facades and bright colors. They are perky and reflect Holland’s ubiquitous tulips. I think simple was the way to go with these.  I do enjoy making something into an icon, and that is probably why I enjoy designing logos so much.

House No. 105: Dutch Colonial

House No. 105: Dutch Colonial

ink and watercolor pencil on repurposed card stock
2.5 in. x 1.75 in.
105/365; 04/15/11

I didn’t mean for my Dutch colonial revival house to look like it was on acid. It just happened. It's all dayglo and listing to one side, and I took a lot of liberties with the architecture because, hey, I can make it way more fun and also slightly cage-y looking.

I think that if I lived in a Dutch colonial revival house, I would feel trapped, though that barred appearance was really more of an accident than a statement. I have never been a fan of the style, and I am not entirely sure why I decided to draw it.

I think that I had Dutch things in my head because I was reading A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, and she gives a recipe for Dutch Baby Pancakes, and I have sort of been obsessed with the thought. Although, I think that Dutch Babies are really German. I have had pannekoek when I was in the Netherlands, and those are also amazing. I think that I really need pancakes. Stat.