Friday 23 December 2016

Early morning in November


Over a month ago my daughter Mariska and me took a bus to an arts-and-crafts event. 
As we wanted to arrive as early as possible (around the opening hour) we had beautiful views from the bus. 
The ride took us through the landscape of the Alblasserwaard, a landscape with fields, some cows and villages and trees in the distance. The sun was still rising and the clouds were looking great. Some of the morning mist was still visible.
Mariska took several pictures from the riding bus and this is a watercolour painting I made after one of them. There are more great pictures so more paintings will follow.

I do not need a perfect picture to paint from. As the bus was driving, the foreground is not sharp and the tree was a bit more blurry than I painted it. The clouds and the mist were visible though and that is what I needed for this one.

The Alblasserwaard is close to my home, although I do not cross it like this very often. Usually I take a motorway, the bus uses a provincial route in order to pick up passengers where possible.

This painting challenged me more than I thought it would. In fact I made the mistake to choose Burnt Umber to mix my grey instead of another brown colour. When I apply my grey mixture on wet paper, the blue and brown will flow each in their own way and give blue clouds with a brown lining. So the paper got a 'special treatment' with the shower and I started over. Still using the Burnt Umber, now on not so wet paper. The result is now what I wanted to achieve and I learned another lesson.

I like this painting, it has a bit of the mystery you can feel early in the morning on a misty field.

More information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Where three rivers meet - at sunset


A few weeks ago we had visitors and as the weather was great, we went for a walk by the riverside. Whe live near the point where three rivers meet: Merwede, Noord and Oude Maas. On the left you have a view on Dordrecht, on the right hand side lies Zwijndrecht, behind the trees of the riverside park.
In the weekends the river is quiet, not so many boats as during weekdays.
The upcoming sunset was colouring the sky in a marvelous way so we stopped for pictures. My husband Peter made the reference picture I used for this watercolour painting.

Painting a sky without clouds is a thing I do not often get the chance to do, so this was a bit of a challenge.
The colours of the sky were reflected in the water, but as there was a lot of wind the water was not  calm. As this is a point where rivers meet and the tides are still of influence the water is never completely calm here.

I enjoyed painting a view that actually is very close to my home. To us this is a beautiful spot to visit all around the year. There is so much to be seen - even when traffic is low - and the light changes every minute.
In fact this was a favorite spot for some of our Old Masters as well and I can easily understand why!

The information about size, colours used etc can be found on my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com  

Sunday 4 December 2016

Rotterdam in November


On a cold, windy November afternoon we went for a walk in the city of Rotterdam. As this was a family reunion, we walked in the area just south of the river, partly between the earliest harbors that lay in the inhabited area now.
Crossing one of those harbors (by bridge) we had this view.

The back-light simplifies what usually is a landscape with too many details into a skyline with only chimneys and cranes as recognizable features.
Of course there was wind, so the water was rippled without much reflections of the buildings, trees or clouds.

The colours were also simplified by the weather conditions, a yellow haze for the sky and some blueish grays for the clouds, river, buildings and trees.

This painting will be a good remembrance to a nice family reunion.

More information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com