This past weekend we were on a short vacation, to the German town Saarburg.
We were in a vacation home on a hill above the town, surrounded by vineyards and some cornfields that are now bare.
The weather was a bit foggy and as the temperatures were low, everything had a layer of frost. We really were in a white world, or almost white. The fact that the original colours of the trees and fields were still showing made this landscape extra beautiful.
We made lots of pictures while we were walking over the hills to the next village (Ayl) and back to our vacation home.
The afternoons were for painting, my husband Peter was enjoying the swimming pool so I could do as I pleased.
Because I never painted a landscape like this before I chose a small size paper and I decided that only a few colours would suffice to paint the atmosphere of that slightly foggy day.
Everything just seemed white, as I said before, the original colours of the fields and trees were visible. The fog made everything that was a bit further away into a gray mass. The pure white is only at the ends of the branches and the tops of the clay in the fields. This means I had to paint much more than just a few outlines. Of course i was prepared for that and I enjoyed painting this scene.
This is just the first one, I have painted more of this white world in the next days.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, materials used, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
In previous posts I have mentioned that I was taking part in a contest, organised by the French magazine 'Plaisirs de Peindre'.
For that contest we could pick a sketch from twenty suggested ones and paint with that sketch as guideline. There were three equal rounds, each giving twenty new sketches and each ending with twenty 'finalists'.
At the end of the contest there were to be twenty winners. The number twenty that keeps coming back is of course because of the twentieth 'birthday' of the magazine.
I have entered in the first round without result and I have published my entered paintings short after I found out I did not end in the finals with them.
For the second round I have painted several paintings, published the ones I did not enter and waited for the results. I ended in the finals with this painting!
After the third round the final results and the twenty winners would be published and I waited for that to publish my painting.
I am not one of the twenty winners, but my painting was published in the magazine announcing my place as a finalist.
Of course I am very proud that I have got this far and I am ready to try again next time.
The sketch shows a house by a forest lake or pond, surrounded by trees and bushes and there is a reflection in the water.
I have made the house an abandoned building, as they are seen very often in France or further south in Europe. The forest is green, as in early summer (or late springtime) so some of the background can be suggested behind the foliage.
There is almost no wind, so the reflection is close to being a mirror image.
While I was working on it, the mystery came into my painting and I welcomed it of course.
I think the abandoned house by the lake has a nice story and I think I can best leave that to your imagination. I can paint the atmosphere, telling the story is not one of my talents.
More information about this painting (size, materials used, availability, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Sometimes I make a second version of a watercolour painting in white-on-black, because I like to see the difference.
This Poinsettia is a very welcome subject for such an experiment.
I have adapted the composition to the paper size and made a slightly different background.
Because I am mixing my watercolours with white Gouache paint and have to work in many layers (the paint is absorbed by the paper and I have to 'build up' the image) there are differences in the colour values, mostly in the largest flower.
Of course I have used this to my advantage and did not have to add shadows afterwards - as is necessary in watercolour painting.
This painting is not available, my mother has it now and when she does not like it any more, my daughter is waiting in line. They both like these white-on-black paintings and drawings very much and encourage me to paint more using this technique.
More information about this painting and the watercolour I have made with the Poinsettia flowers can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
A few months ago I started thinking about Christmas cards.
I usually make a watercolour painting, make a good picture, add some wishes to that picture and order some printed cards.
The cards have been sent two weeks ago, I really hope the mail delivered them all.
Now it is time to post the online wishes and to add this painting to my blog.
This is the result of the work I have described above, a Christmas Card in the Dutch language of course.
My inspiration came from a book with templates to be used for drawings, embroidery or something else and I have changed the flowers a bit to get a nice composition.
I have used my Cotman set of paints - mostly because I still have them and don't want them to go to waste.
Flowers are not a subject I am very good at, but for this year I wanted to try these beautiful Christmassy ones.
More information about this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
After having painted a lot of watercolour paintings I was looking for a change, a different technique and if possible, an experiment.
My Conté Sketching Crayons are relatively new to me (I bought them last summer and have not used them often) and I thought I could try these on my 'all black' heavy paper that I usually paint on with white gouache and some watercolour.
As the Chapel is a subject I can sketch by heart now I have done another imaginary landscape with it, now a night version.
While I was drawing I could see the composition needed the clouds and moon for balance.
These make the scene a bit more friendly - as I wanted this to be.
I have tried to place the highlights in the right places and the light in the Chapel is also where it usually can be found.
The picture was more challenging than the drawing itself. I have tried to show the right colours and contrast but I fear I haven't got everything as it looks in reality.
More information about this Conté drawing can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
When I was thinking of the possibilities of placing the little chapel in imaginary landscapes, this stormy weather was one of the things that came to my mind.
As I have written in a previous post some construction work was going on in my home so I have not been able to paint as often as I like, and it has taken me a few weeks to make all the paintings that appeared 'on my list' for this project. There is even more inspiration coming up now, so I am not finished yet.
The landscape resembles the 'misty' version, and this is very much like the real landscape the chapel is standing in. It is almost alone on a hilltop, visible from afar.
Maybe you have already noticed, there is always a light in my chapel, visible through the window and the open entrance.
Of course the chapel must have been consecrated, so it is home to the presence of God and there is always a light inside to symbolise that.
I have chosen to emphasise that in all the versions I have made - and will make.
More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Another watercolour painting with the little chapel we saw close to Reifferscheid (Germany) in an imaginary landscape.
This time a snow scene with a warm feeling to it, like one of those days with sunshine and some clouds. The winter sun is low, so its light is really almost gold in these days.
The inspiration for the colours I have chosen comes from a step-by-step demonstration in one of the magazines I subscribed to. I decided to try this combination - as far as I have the colours that are used in the demonstration in my own palette. There is a small difference, but that does not matter for the result.
I have changed the location of the chapel, now it is a bit hidden behind a line of bushes and some snow.
The winter trees are added and there is another hilltop behind the little chapel.
The shadows on the snow, indicating uneven spots hidden underneath are a bit experimental, I still have to learn how to do this. We do not often have that much snow in The Netherlands so I cannot really work from observation. Once again I have looked at some tutorials for guidelines.
More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The third painting with the little chapel is a monochromatic one, I used sepia because that is a very dark colour so I can have a good range of values in my painting.
This time I added a winter tree, maybe an oak as there were lots of oak trees in the area we visited.
I have tried to paint a winter scene without any snow in it.
This is again a small size painting, mostly because my bathroom is being renewed over the past weeks and I have hidden away most of my paper to shield it from the dust that comes with these building activities.
Another reason is of course that I really am inspired to paint this little chapel in as many imaginary landscape settings as possible and it's nice to use the same paper and size for all of these watercolour paintings.
More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, availability, etc) and the other paintings I made with the chapel can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
