Plants are wonderful models...

Plants at home and at my work are very obvious. My mother had many plants at home. And I too. I cannot imagine a house without plants, it is in my opinion, no home. It is incomplete. My own plants are often used as models for my drawings, paintings and linocuts. Even plants that I meet in nature, in zoos and botanic gardens. It is for me relax to study and sketch plants at home, anywhere outdoors or in greenhouses. And they are perfect models because they do not move!
It is wonderful in the greenhouses of Zoo Blijdorp where birds fly freely and walk around. If I’m drawing there, it is nice to hear their sounds and to enjoy their presence. And the plants usually smell very nice at the end of the day.

For plants in  some of my paintings see my Flickr: monkeys, Night walk and Summer.

A few examples of sketches made between 2004 and 2011:

In the Botanic Garden in Leiden:

Linocut of my Succulent plants (leporello book): Watching the clouds on the windowsill. At Flickr is also a linocut with my Monstera deliciosa in the foregrong.

In Zoo Blidorp, Rotterdam

In Zoo Artis, Amsterdam