Photographing art

Does anyone have some advice on making photographs of paintings?
I have a great camera, yet I find it hard to make good pictures.
Can anyone tell me something about lighting, how to avoid reflections, how to avoid distortion, etc.

Thanks,

Wouter

Oil practise

This is an oil painting I made last week, based on the watercolor sketch I posted earlier. I tried to keep my brushstrokes loose, and let them fall into place when you look at the painting from a distance. Further I managed to keep the piece colorful, accomplishing grey parts by placing different colors next to each other, so that even dark parts remain bright. I has a nice imprssionist feel, that I want to keep exploring.

Recent illustration work

Aside exploring my impressionis way of painting, I am doing a lot of illustration jobs. I am not always permitted to post those drawings immediately, but here are some of the ones I can show. The upper illustration is a detail of a book cover for a book called: De scheepsjongens van Bontekoe, a book based on a true classic Dutch story. They're also making a movie of the story, and this illustration was based on the actual actors of that movie. I would really like to paint the movie poster as well, but at this moment nothing is cetrain yet.

The other images are editorial illustrations for different magazines

More watercolor practise

This is a watercolor of the 'oude haven', where I made several ink drawings as well. It is truly an adventure, exploring the possibilities of the medium.

Maassluis

This is a watercolor I did of Maassluis. I think watercolor is a difficult medium, so I want to do more studies to get a grip of the medium. I tend to overpaint a watercolor, and in this on I succeeded in keeping the layers simple. I want to keep the darker values even more open.

More ink drawings

freezing cold

Today I went outside into thefreezing cold to do another pen and ink drawing. With my hand frozen, I managed to put some ink on my paper. The drawing depict the oude haven in Rotterdam. Time for hot chocolate now....

Ink

This drawing was made with ink and reed pen. I love doing these sketches.

The drawing depicts Veerhaven in Rotterdam.

Harry Mulisch

Portrait of the dutch writer Harry Mulisch (31 x 24 inch Mixed media: acrylics, colored pencil structure mediums)

ollie the elephant

Illustration for another of the gestreepte boekjes. (www.degestreepte boekjes.nl)

Muzz

This is a drawing of my band. (www.muzz.nl) It is a new design for the Muzz website.

Skullduggery Pleasant

This is an illustration for Skullduggery Pleasant. A novel by Derek Landy, about the adventures of a 12-year-old girl who is heir to a mysterious fortune and her fully articulated skeleton mentor.

Noor and her runaway parents

Noor and her runaway parents, that's the translated title of a dutch book I've been doing illustrations for. It was a lot of fun, making illustrations about a girl whose parents instantly left one day, leaving a small note and some money.
It was a challenge to use only black, white and grey, and create different layers with these elements.

The cool cowboy

These are some sketches and colour studies I made for the children's book I am still working on:

The cool cowboy. A story about two children fantasising. The boy wants to be a cowboy, and the girl a prinsess.

Elections

Some of the electable politicians for the upcoming elections in Holland....