The Spaarne flows – Ode to Haarlem

October 31, 2020 – December 1, 2020

Multimedia artist Stefan de Groot was commissioned by the Museum Haarlem a work of art made to the music of Boudewijn de Groot. It is a painted animation in watercolor and shows the cultural life of Haarlem of the past fifty years. This digital artwork 'Het Spaarne Stroomt' can now be seen in the permanent exhibition All Haarlemmers.

The Spaarne Flows – Ode to Haarlem
In this small Gasthuis exhibition you can see the hundred original watercolors and all the individual animation drawings that De Groot made for 'Het Spaarne Stroomt'. These works are painted in a mixed technique, on paper and on the iPad. For digital painting he developed a watercolor brush that has all the properties of a real brush. In a concept painting he developed a workable method to produce more than a hundred watercolors in a short period of two months. All watercolors were painted in multiple layers and brought into depth via software with a parallax effect. In the exhibition, this new technique is explained in images and video and the entire story of the animated film can be seen as a storyboard. The book is in the museum shop The Spaarne Flows – Ode to Haarlem available. This book contains all the watercolors of the artwork with an explanation of who can be seen here.
Watch a report of the presentation of the first copy to Boudewijn de Groot here:

View Read an interview about his working method.