For this painting I have been searching my 'archives' of reference photographs in order to get inspired by one of them.
This scene is at the reservoir of Bütgenbach, in the Ardennes (Belgium) where I was on painting vacation twice. This scene we saw in the first year and although I did not paint it that day I made some quick pictures for later use. I have been making a charcoal drawing of a bridge that day and this was at the other side of that small bridge.
There was a grey sky that day and only minutes after I took the pictures I used here we had to save our artworks-in-progress from a heavy rainfall. The whole group packed everything in the cars and drove back to the house where we all finished the paintings and drawings we had started 'en plein air'.
The water is a side arm of the reservoir and it is partially covered with plants of all sorts. In the background there are lots of trees and bushes, a field of magenta coloured flowers and the marshy left side of the background is filled with grasses or something that looks very much like grasses.
As this is summertime all the bushes, trees and grasses are in shades of green, only the water plants have a shade that is more distinctly blue-green. So I had a nice challenge here, but if I don't paint scenes like this at all I will never master those green, wet landscapes. I have been struggling to create depth in all that green and in the dark parts of the water, where the trees are reflected.
The water did not move much, so the reflections of the tree lines and the clouds were clearly visible.
The bushes on the foreground were a tangled mass with some small flowers in between. I did not give them much details as that would attract too much attention.
Working on this watercolour painting was fun, even though I had set myself a challenge.
More information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
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