Little Country pleasures

Hello my friends,

Already it is the middle of january. There is some progress on the dressing room for lady Zonneschut, but I will show you that soon in another post. Today I want to show you the progress made on the first workshop I attended in 2023. And for those of you who have been following my little blog for a while, will recognise in the first picture one of the steps of painting porcelain. 

Sometimes I decorate plates and vases in freehand. But here, just like the tile tableaux of Prince Maurits and Prince Frederick of Orange, I prefer to transfer the scenes onto the tiles first. And this stage is done at home so that I can start with the actual painting as soon as possible during the workshop.

In the picture above you can see prints of designs used for painted tiles made in Rotterdam from the 17th up to the 19th century. Rotterdamse Pleziertjes (tegels-uit-rotterdam.com) These were meant for single tiles but when you reduce it 12 times little remains of the little country scenes. These scenes are called 'pleziertjes' (pleasures) and depict scens of people enjoying the good life. Either in stately gardens or in the countryside. 

I chose 3 scenes and intend to use these tableaux in the tiled kitchen. They look like an echo of the gardens and landscape that surround Huis ter Swinnendael bat are not visible. The fourth tableau is not intended for the kitchen and is not a 'pleziertje'. But more on that later. 

I colour the backs of these images with pencil, tape them onto the tiles and then draw over every line with a ballpoint pen, pressinggraphite from the back of the image onto the tiles underneath. 

When you have traced all the necessary lines of the drawings you get something like you see in the pictures above. 

You can also see the big tile with the little 'tableaux-to-be' in a blue box. This is a lunchbox that held some lovely presents I received for Christmas from Birgit of the Biwubaeries blog! I whill show you those lovely gifts she send me in the next post on the progress on the dressing room.

This picture is taken during the workshop given by Cocky Wildschut. As you know I try to attend every year one or two times. More if possible. Because I so love to do this. The first step is rather easy. Simply retracing all the pencillines with 'drawing ink' (porecelain paint in a different mixture from paint used for painting).

At this stage you can add or leave out a few details if you so wish, but you do not yet fill areas in with colour. That will be done during my second workshop of this year after these lines are fixed due to firing these tiles.

The "inked" drawings look a bit smudgy but that is the loose graphite powder of the traced drawing. That will burn away during firing making the result more crisp and smooth than it looks now.

And what about that fourth tableau? Well that is a design of my own creation. It shows you the heraldic crest of the Zonneschut family enveloped in a rococo frame and held up by two hounds. Those of you who have followed this blog for some time will know I love hounds. And therefor I only find it fitting to have them supporting the crest rather than lions or other animals. 

When you look closely you can see that one supporter is female (in honour of Tara) while the other is male (in honour of the late Bosie).

The motto written on the scroll around the base reads "Ut vitam cum grano salis" which happens to be my personal motto. (what a coincidence ) ;-)

It translates in english (litteraly) as "take life with a grain of salt", which means to me "Do not take everything too seriously". In other words a little levity from time to time makes life nicer. Do with it, or think of it, what you will. But I am happy to have this as my personal motto.

Just like the tableaux I painted earlier all will get a monochrome decoration in blue. Except this one. The two red fields in the escutcheon (and the collars as a detail) are already filled in. In the next workshop I will fill in the two yellow fields and the blue around the diamond shapes. This exception will let the coat of arms stand out from the otherwise monochromatic tableau. 

But I will have to wait until the end of march to continue on these pieces. So back to the dressing room!

Be well, 

Huibrecht