Friday 27 November 2015

Twilight Colours!


The special edition colours by Winsor&Newton Professional were too tempting.
I already had the Smalt (Dumont's Blue) and I never use black colours, so I bought Sanguine Red, Quinacridone Violet, Aqua Green and Cobalt Green Deep. 
It was a challenge to find something to paint  for an average reference photo does not have (all) those nice colours. Last winter we were in the train that rides alongside the river Douro at the time of sunset and my daughter Mariska made a lot of pictures. 
I decided to use one of them, a picture I had not painted before. 
The sunset was really nice and reflected in the river beautifully, I just had to change the colours a bit. The mountains were all black because of the strong backlight, but I do remember seeing detail in them so I painted them that way.

Getting used to a new set of colours is not done with just one painting so I expect to have a lot of fun with this in the near future!

More information about this watercolour and the others I made after our winter trip to Portugal last year can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Sunday 22 November 2015

At the prehistoric burial mounds


Our beautiful National Reserve 'De Veluwe' has been the inspiration of my latest paintings. It is not over yet!
As I mentioned before we were in the vicinity of a moraine, a leftover from the last Ice Age. A lot of the low hills in the area are part of that moraine, but this scene is a bit different. 
The area of the Renderklippen also contains some prehistorical burial mounds. 
They are 4000 to 5000 years old and still visible in the landscape, situated beautifully on the edge of a small moor. The foggy weather made the site even more mysterious.

The reference photo was made for me by my husband Peter.
More information about this watercolour (size, colours and paper used) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

Tuesday 17 November 2015

Scene from a hotel terrace




A simple scene of the terrace of our hotel is ideal for experiments!
The combination of the small bush with autumn colours and the dark flower pot drew my attention and I wanted to paint this somehow.
I decided to work it as a charcoal drawing and to experiment with it. 
First I decided on my composition - simply the two elements I wanted to paint with a suggestion of a background.
Then I decided on my experiments - one with a Conté pencil in Sanguine and one watercolour underpainting in the red colours of autumn.
Working with Conté added to my charcoal was nice and not much different. I found out I can decide to add that whenever I like in the drawing process. 
The watercolour underpainting needs some planning ahead and it affects the paper in a way I cannot smudge my charcoal the way I like to do. 
So for my charcoal drawings I will stick to drawing - with charcoal and sometimes I will add Conté for some colour.

More information can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

Sunday 8 November 2015

When the fog lifts....


The first time we saw this landscape it was foggy weather. So when the fog lifted after a few days we could see much more of the autumn colours this part of the Veluwe has to offer. And we all had a very pleasant surprise!
The sky was still cloudy, but opening up with bright red/orange and patches of blue.
The trees were changing from green to a reddish brown and the heather lost their flowers but still had a lot of violet to be seen.
As I explained earlier, we were in a moraine so the landscape is not as flat as the rest of The Netherlands. We were walking on the top of the hills and looking at the scene below us when my daughter Mariska made the reference photo I used for this painting.

More information about this painting (size, colours used) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr