Recently I went to Amsterdam with Cilei for a conference and vacation, this was before the pandemic issues and conferences were popular. Now that I think about it, conferences probably used to spread viruses as much as ever, but there was no COVID-19 to draw our attention. Maybe we will all be safer against other viruses like the flu. The painting shows Hotel Casa on the right where we stayed, it is located in the south west part of the city but like everywhere in Amsterdam it is well connected by tramway, metro and bike paths. The colour of the hotel was tough to mix; I found the colour by trial and error. In retrospect, it is a desturated low value turquoise, but at the time I wouldn't have known that. Hotel Casa 5.5 x 7.5" hot press, watercolour, August 2018
Going into the touristy areas was a challenge, there are throngs of tourists everywhere crowding the sidewalks and shops. I did not include them in this painting in order to focus on the shops and architecture. This was a typical set of buildings with a souvenir shop on ground level, and crooked windows on the top floors. The X shape in the windows is a sort of Amstersdam flag, a triple X logo.
Tourist Shop, 5.5 x 7.5" hot press, watercolour, August 2018
This building is some kind of museum or theater called the Eye, it is visible across a very large canal from the back of the famous Centraal station. The iron girder beam is holding up a huge covering that keeps pedestrians covered when it rains (which it dos a lot there). I caught the tiniest portion of a bike tire in the bottom left of the scene.
View of the Eye, 5.5 x 7.5" hot press, watercolour, August 2018
I did a few other paintings that I wont show on the blog, including a garden near the conference center, the conference building, and another scene of Centraal station.
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