My son Martijn likes to travel the world. He does not need much of an excuse to pack his bag and leave for a short trip to visit a place he has not seen before. This scene is from a journey he made a few years ago, mosty using trains for transport. He visited several countries in the eastern parts of Europe and made lots of photographs for his own memory and he always kindly allows me to use these landscape photographs as reference for my watercolours and other artwork.
This time I was inspired by a view on Koper in Slovenia. There are not so many buildings visible in this scene but the mountains in the background make this an inspiring view. The church tower is a nice landmark here and I decided that this had to be my 'point of interest' - if possible. I have not been simplifying the view of the roofs and houses much, I guess my son had a high standing point when he made the photographs I used.
These buildings are built in a way that is not common in The Netherlands, so I had to concentrate well while painting them. Shadows, angles, roofs or streets are not what I am used to see in daily life so I cannot rely on my memory and have to work with my sketch - with lots of notes written on it - close by.
I have been painting this in two steps, the first step was wet-in-wet for the sky, the mountains and the 'details' in the background area, and the second step was wet-on-dry for the buildings, the trees between the buildings and the details.
Usually I paint the whole painting wet-in-wet first with details wet-on-dry and that works very well for most landscapes. This little town asked for another approach and I am pleased with the result.
More information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
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