Pad naar Zee, Westduinpark, DH (De Savorin Lohmanpad)
oil on linen - 90 x 120 cm
painted in the studio - March/April 2022
€ 2850.
As most of you know, I'd rather be on location, in the open air, making paintings. However every now and then, especially in the winter months I do spend more time painting in the studio. In this case I made a larger version of a painting made on Jan 2010. That work was considerably smaller, 30 x 40 cm. and made on the spot.
Really what motivated me to make the above painting was to bring back a moment in time when these dunes where covered in lush vegetation, very green and with large shrubs and all kinds of trees which had all these lovely warm tones. Also the paths themselves were rougher looking, they fitted in with the surrounding Nature in a wonderful harmonious way. What happened was a few years ago the municipality of The Hague decided to crop almost everything in this park, in the vain of bringing the area back to its original sandy dunelike layout. After much protest from the locals, that project was curbed considerably, but just the same some areas of the dunes here looked more like a desert in Africa, than a park on the North Sea. Slowly but surely, as Nature would have it, the area is starting to look healthy once more. And my job is getting to be more fun, once again.
As you can see on this painting I made the path look scruffy, broken up in places, just the way I remembered it. BTW, to pay homage to Nature, I especially painted in that little tree in blossom. Besides it helps with the composition.