Friday 27 December 2019

Port-en-Bessin, October sunset


Last October we had one bright day in Port-en-Bessin (Normandy,France) and we enjoyed it from the first until the last moment. During our stay there I have already painted the sunrise, this is the sunset of that day.
We did not see the sun set in the sea, there were the cliffs on the horizon that were hiding the view we hoped for, but the colours of the sky were great.
My husband made a few pictures and today I have painted that scene.

I have chosen to do a 'portrait' format so I could paint a lot of sky. The cliffs are really far away and not much detail was visible in this light and the sea was looking calm so I decided to let these elements be of lesser importance. The clouds  behind the cliffs on the horizon are only suggested here, I remember they were very hazy.

The details about paper and paints used, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com  




Monday 23 December 2019

Holly branch



Near my street is a row of holly bushes, kept low and in a nice shape by the gardeners of our community and I pass by it very often and admire the red berries, green leaves and nice shapes.

Of course I wanted to paint these and last summer I have learned how to do that.
I made a sketch of a branch with leaves and berries using several pictures as my reference, making up an imaginary branch of holly that i would like to paint. This branch would have to get a background with a 'window' that is reserved with tape while the outline is darkened with several layers of watercolour paint.

For my colour scheme I decided on a grey background with touches of the red I wanted to use for the berries. The green of the leaves is mixed with the blue-grey that also is in the background and the brown colour of the branch is also used in the background. 
This limited palette gives a bit of tranquillity to the painting.


After my background was painted, dried and the masking tape removed I made a drawing of the branch, using my sketch as example. I had to adapt the final branch a little as some of the colour of the outline had bled into the bright part. Most of that is covered by a large leaf now.
While doing this I decided to experiment with my Iridescent Medium, this was used in the parts of the leaves that have the dark background. The medium was mixed directly with the paint (one of the suggestions of the manufacturer of both the paints and the medium) and I really like the result that is achieved in this way.
After all it will be Christmas in a few days and I am more than a bit 'in the mood'.

The details about size, paper and paints used, availability etc can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com  

Sunday 15 December 2019

Vallée du Rhône, November


Last November my husband had a congress in the South of France and in the high speed train on the way there he made a lot of pictures for me of the early snowfall in that weekend. I have already made some watercolour paintings using these pictures as my reference, and this time I have chosen a scene that was almost only in shades of white and black with some grey for the sky.

The fallen trees in the corner that is down right were not to be seen without enlarging the reference picture on my screen.
Using watercolours these trees might become too detailed  and that was not what I wanted. The small sticks of charcoal that I have used for this drawing are perfect for this scene and I am really happy with the result.

The details about paper used, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 


Sunday 8 December 2019

Blessing


The December challenge of "Goed Gezien- Goed Bekeken" (our regional amateur art association) is 'Peace on earth'. We just had a challenge about peaceful snowy landscapes so I was still 'in the mood' for that theme.
Peace on earth is also one of the Christmas wishes, so the painting had to have a bit of the Christmas mood as well.
And the words (and melody) of "A Gaelic Blessing" kept going through my mind so I decided to incorporate that in my painting as well.

Of course all that did not come to my mind in an instant, I was talking to my daughter about this challenge and my inspirations and she gave me some great ideas to work with. She also gave me the text is a way that I could easily copy it in the painting. 
I have used a (sharp) watercolour pencil for that.

Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the gentle night to you
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you

Deep peace of Christ the light of the world to you
Deep peace of Christ to you

The snow scene was adapted so I would have space to write the text and I have used the shadows of the hills as lines for the writing. 

The details about paper, paints and pencil used, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Saturday 30 November 2019

Snow along the route


Two weeks ago my husband went to a congress in the South of France and he travelled there by high speed train. Along the route he saw lots of snow and made a lot of pictures from the train, for himself and for my paintings.
The pictures are of an unexpected good quality considered that the train travelled at a speed of 300 kilometres per hour.

The first snow scene, in my previous post, was completed before he was home again. Now I have seen all the pictures he made and I asked for some to be transferred to my laptop computer so I could use them as reference pictures. (very often my husband needs the desktop computer, both for his work and the charity work he does)


This snowy scene is a bit different, the trees are much closer to the railroad and the snow really needs all the shadows I painted to achieve the depth that was needed in this scene.

These scenes are a nice challenge to paint, snow is not completely white, certainly not when the landscape is uneven. 

I enjoyed painting this one and the details about paper and paint used, size etc, can be found on my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Sunday 17 November 2019

Early snow


Our regional amateur art association 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' has a challenge each month during this year, only for October and November the challenges are combined.
I had already painted an imaginary snow scene in October and I wanted to paint another one in November.

My husband has been to a Congress in the South of France this weekend and he sent me a picture of a real snow scene - probably from the train. So I did not have to imagine a snow scene, I had a real one for this painting.

This is a small size painting again, because this special challenge has limits to the size of our artwork. The artworks that are submitted in this challenge will be on display in a small museum in Nieuwpoort (Netherlands) in December, so they cannot be very large.

I have enjoyed painting this one, even though snow scenes can be challenging.

The details about paper and paint used, size etc can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Saturday 16 November 2019

Autumn in the Arboretum


First of all: the reference picture for this watercolour was made (for me) by Yvonne Koningen and I am really happy that she allowed me to use it.

In our country it's Autumn and the Von Gimborn Arboretum (Tree Museum) is beautiful now. I have seen some of the pictures that were made there last week and I envy those that go there often.

Most of the red leaves of this tree - I think a maple tree -  are still on the branches so it looks like there are large red clouds in the reference picture with some leaf ends pointing out. 
I was inspired by the colour of the leaves, almost a fiery red against a grayish background and the dark colour of the branches. 

I have tried to paint these 'red clouds' and to create a point of interest with some more detailed leaves. This was a bit of a struggle, because the colour values of the red 'clouds' and the blue background were very close. The groups of leaves really were almost clouds so I had to do something. The solution was easy, the darkness of the branches was strengthened a bit to create the darkest colour of the painting and to create a sense of movement from the bottom left  to the top corner right.

It has been a long time since I have painted on a half sheet (most of my paintings since summer were on 1/4 sheet or smaller) and maybe that explains a part of my struggle. The fact that I do not show most details of the leaves now - as I have done in almost every painting I made since last summer - was a change as well.
I write this short after I have finished my watercolour painting and I am still not completely happy with it, it's different from what I had in mind. But I am sure tomorrow it will look better, after I have been away from it for a while.

The details about paper and paint used, availability and contact information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Tuesday 5 November 2019

Autumn colours


During our walk in Bayeux (France) we passed by a nice bush with a few red leaves left on it, blue berries and some very red branches. All those branches were tangled but I did like the colours and made a reference picture.

The bush was growing over a low wall and the background of my reference picture is the water of the river Aure that flows though Bayeux.
I have no idea of the name of this plant, usually the names of plants are easy to find, but this is a mystery.

My reference picture was cropped to select the section I wanted to paint.
This was done mostly to find a nice section without leaves that belong to other plants that grow nearby. And of course I have made a background that would not distract the attention from my subject.

The details about paper and paint used, size, availability and contact information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Wednesday 30 October 2019

Bayeux - the old town


During our short vacation in Normandy (France) we visited the town of Bayeux, mostly because our vacation home was very close to that medieval town.
We did go to see the Tapestry and the Cathedral and walked back to our car by the river Aure that flows through the town. There are two watermills in Bayeux that are still working.

We did have many nice views during our walk in Bayeux, but this one inspired me to paint.
It is quite a change after what I painted before, to do a scene with all those roofs and buildings, but I wanted to paint the colours of the houses we saw in that part of Normandy.

The roofs of the buildings in Bayeux are grey, the colour of slate. The buildings are made with a yellow stone. Even the cathedral has these colours and in the villages we passed we also saw that this stone was used for houses and farms. 

While I was painting this scene I thought I made a wrong choice more than once, because this was not easy. Mostly because the scene is not what I usually paint and also a bit because I was not having ideal painting conditions like I have in my little studio at home. 
In short, this was a fight - with myself, the paper, the paint, the subject, etc.
When I was about to give up, my husband said the painting is nice and I should have a rest and a cup of coffee. That helped.

This watercolour painting is not about the architecture of Old Bayeux, but about how it feels to walk there between those yellow stone buildings by the river Aure and I think I managed to paint that - even though it was not easy to do so.

The details about paper and paint, size, availability etc. can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Monday 28 October 2019

Port-en-Bessin, seaview


Our short stay in Normandy (France) had one bright sunny day and we used that to walk towards the village of Port-en-Bessin, walk around the small harbour and enjoy the view towards the sea and the coastline.
We could walk on the jetty that shelters the harbour and we had great views, helped by the sunshine. There were no clouds and no fog that day - only a bit in the morning.

We made lots of pictures again and I chose this view towards the west - with the chalk cliffs, the sea and the beach covered with seaweed for a mixed media work.

The underpainting is in different shades of blue watercolour and the cliffs and beach are in watersoluble pencils.

This was another 'experiment' for me, trying out my materials and finding out how I really love to use them. This certainly was fun to do and I will probably do more in this technique - someday.

The details about paper, paint, pencils, size etc can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Sunday 27 October 2019

Normandy - sunrise

 

Last week, in Normandy, we had a vacation home with views on lawns and a golf court, which means lots of grass on all sides. The view on the little church was on the front side of the house, this is the back side.
The first morning I was awake and dressed (it is cold outside in the mornings) in time to make some pictures of the sunrise.

The view is showing the lawns and golf court I mentioned earlier and the apple trees that were everywhere. This is Normandy and there are apple trees wherever you look, to produce all that cider, Pommeau and Calvados for which this region is famous.

I have chosen to make a small size watercolour, just to show the colours of the sunrise and the remainder of the morning fog that could be seen just above the grass and between the trees.

The details about the paper and paint I used, the size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Saturday 26 October 2019

Église St Pierre, Port-en-Bessin - evening mood


Last week we (my husband and me) were in Port-en-Bessin, on the coast of Normandy (France). We had found a nice vacation home there and we could see the little church of St Pierre just across the lawn in front of the parking place. 
The first evening we were in need of a walk, after two days in the car so we made use of the good weather and walked towards the church, made some (reference) pictures and walked some more streets in the direct surroundings of our vacation home.
We returned after sunset, in the last light of the evening.

There were some nice dark clouds when we were outside and they did give the church and its tower a great background. Because it was really late and the light in the house was not great to paint by (a bit yellowish), I decided to make a charcoal drawing. That does not give any problems with colour matching so the shade of the light did not really matter.

Of course, in broad daylight the church does have a foundation, a churchyard with a fence, a house nearby and some trees behind it, but this evening, with night falling, dark clouds and a hint of fog on the ground there was an air of mystery that I wanted to capture in my drawing.

There are some more pictures of this little church, so maybe one day I will make a more detailed painting.

The details about size, paper, availability and contact information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Sunday 13 October 2019

Wintertime


October has arrived a few weeks ago and there is a new challenge for the members of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken'. We have to make a work of art with the theme 'Silent night, white splendor' and there are other art groups involved in this challenge too.
Some of the works will be seen in the month of December in museum 'Het Stadhuis' in Nieuwpoort (The Netherlands).

Because I always make something new for a challenge I had to improvise a bit. Winter is not here yet and I had to imagine a snow scene.
For this one I took the watercolour I made on the plein air painting day that was organised last May (by 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken) in the area of Meerkerk (Netherlands).

The water tower may have some snow on its roof and on the ledge below and the row of bushes has got a different colour because they do catch a lot of snow.
The pollard willows have lost their foliage in autumn and the branches do not hold the snow so these trees are dark shapes now in a mostly white landscape.

The theme of the challenge is all about atmosphere - exactly what I want to depict in my paintings and the challenge for me was to find a scenery I had not done as a winter scene before.
There are some more landscapes I can convert to a winter scene, and probably I will paint one or two other watercolours that can be used for the challenge that continues until the end of November.

The details about paper, paint, size and availability of this watercolour can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Tuesday 8 October 2019

A group of mushrooms


In my 'archives' are lots of pictures with mushrooms, all taken during autumnal walks in forest areas all over this part of Europe. Usually we don't go far for our autumn vacations, sometimes The Ardennes (Belgium) sometimes The Eiffel (Germany) and sometimes we go to Normandy (France). Where this group of mushrooms was growing is something I cannot really remember, it could even be very close to my home.
I also do not know the name of the species, most mushrooms are hard to identify from a picture and without large volumes of botanical books.

They are beautiful and that is reason enough to make a picture and to paint them.
I have made a brown background in earth colours and placed the group of mushrooms on that background. 
Most of the shapes are defined by negative painting - I have painted the shadows around the hoods and stems of the mushrooms. The hoods were made just a little bit darker than the background, using the same colours in a stronger mixture.

The negative painting technique is one that I do not use very often, but for this painting it was the natural thing to do. The resulting painting is what I hoped it would be.

The details about paper, paints, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Tuesday 1 October 2019

Time for mushrooms again!


Now autumn is really here, after a few days with a lot of rain there are also mushrooms everywhere. That gave me the idea to look into my reference pictures again, looking for a nice mushroom to paint or draw. These reference pictures are mostly made by my husband (he holds the camera most of the times we are walking) and I keep them until I get inspired to use one or more of these pictures.

This time I chose a 'false chanterelle' for my model-of-the-day. As usual I had to look in a book about mushrooms to know the name of this one.

On a sheet of paper I made a watercolour under painting, using the earth colours in my palette. For this under painting I have chosen to use study quality paints, one of the reasons for that is they are gathering dust now and that is a waste of good paint. These may not be the best paints but nevertheless they are good quality and can be used for an under painting like this.
The under painting has only one layer of paint, so the pencil work can stand out against it.

For the mushrooms and the grasses I have used Graphitint pencils (by Derwent) and only the mushrooms have had a touch of water, changing the colours a bit and filling up the little wells in the paper. The grasses are a bit ragged now, and that is exactly what I wanted them to be this late in the year. Two of the mushrooms had some lines drawn with a Line Marker, but these do not really stand out much. The difference is visible, but very subtle.

Working on this drawing was fun and I am happy with the result.

The details about the paper and all the colours of watercolour and Graphitint pencils I used can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Friday 27 September 2019

Violet berries! (I love violet)


Not far from my home is a bush with beautiful violet berries that I wanted to paint. Of course I had to find the name (using the Internet) and it is the only name possible: beautyberry.
The branches are also very decorative in winter when only the berries are left, the birds don't like their taste very much so they stay on very long.

For this autumnal scene I had to paint some leaves, their colours are also very beautiful in this time of the year, the shades of yellow and brown contrasting with the violets of the berries. I have made a composition using several reference pictures of the berries and the leaves, choosing a few beautiful groups of branches, leaves and berries and drawing them together until I was happy with my sketch.

The background is not very complicated, only a yellow and a brown shade because I wanted the berries to be visible. The shade of violet I  used here is not very dark, so the background had to be light where the berries were to be painted. 

The details about paper, paint, size and contact information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Tuesday 24 September 2019

Blackthorn in autumn


Last autumn we walked by a large bush of blackthorn, the branches almost falling down over the slope of the hill where our path was dug out. For several meters there were branches, berries and leaves and I could not really decide which view was the best, so I made a lot of reference pictures.

These past months I think about composition before I even start to make the sketch I will use for my reference to paint from and I compared the pictures I made to pick the branch that attracted me most. This one was hanging down in a nice curve and I could use the background to suggest the other branches and leaves that were in the vicinity of my chosen branch.
The grey background was inspired by the rocky slope of the hill where this scene can be found (near Reifferscheid, in Germany).

I have studied a step-by-step guide for a botanical painting of a blackthorn and looked at the colours used for reference. This was not very elaborate for a step-by-step guide, but I only needed to know a few things.
The blue of the berries was my biggest concern, but now I knew to start with Cobalt Blue, a colour I do not often choose. The berries were given their colour, shadows were suggested and I left it to dry to get an overall look of the painting.  
I decided that a second layer of colour would be too much, I also wanted to paint the atmosphere of an autumnal walk.

The details about paper, paint, size and availability of this painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

 

Sunday 22 September 2019

Viburnum in autumn colours


For this Viburnum painting I have used a sketch I made and painted from a year ago, but this time I added the lessons I learned last summer.
The colour scheme is yellow and brown and I have added a 'square of light' by leaving this part open when I applied the second, darker layer of my background.

This time the tape did not completely stop the paint from flowing into the square I wanted to create, but the lines are only slightly blurred and I think I like this even more than the sharp, straight lines that I created the first time I tried this technique.
Still I think there is a lot more to learn and practise - and I will enjoy every minute of it!

The leaves and berries were painted in end-of-autumn colours, when even the shades of red have faded from the leaves. The berries stay on the branches for a long time as they are slightly poisonous and the birds don't like them.

The composition was drawn on the paper before the dark background colours were added and I changed and adapted it while the painting was taking shape.


The details about the used materials ,the size of the painting and the availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Tuesday 17 September 2019

Autumn leaves - pencil drawing


The composition sketch I made for my last watercolour painting was used again in a mixed media experiment.
For this work I have used a study-quality watercolour paper that I chose for its texture. I have used three colours to paint a watercolour underpainting, finding that this paper would make me move around the paint with each new brushstroke, leaving white paper if I was not careful. That is why I decided to leave the diagonally striped pattern as it was at that moment and start my pencil work. 
Now I have created a background that is exiting and new to me.

This time I did not draw the whole composition at once, I started with a few leaves, gave them colour and added more leaves. Some leaves turned out a bit bigger than the original sketch but I did not want to use my eraser too much, the background painting might get damaged. 
That is why I have not all the leaves of my original composition in this drawing, but I have balanced the composition as I continued.

The (rough) texture of watercolour paper always is a part of the result and when that happens to a pencil drawing I am really happy with the results. This paper has a texture that is even more distinct than my usual paper and I wanted to see what would happen.

Because the background also contains a brown colour, it was hard to get any contrast with my pencils and I had to use all my supplies for this result. The pencils do blend on the paper of course and I have mixed colours until I had the shades I wanted, using both Watercolour Pencils and Graphitint Pencils. Because of these last pencils I had to wait after I had used fixative to get the final result - the Graphitint Pencil work changes colour when it is wet.

I have learned a lot again this day and I will certainly make pencil drawings on watercolour underpaintings again, I like the result of this experiment and I feel encouraged to continue in this technique.

The details about the paper, paint and pencils I have used can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Monday 16 September 2019

Autumn Leaves


These last weeks I have been painting leaves, branches, berries and acorns and I tried to make compositions that could be seen in nature. For those compositions I have looked at reference pictures and arranged my shapes in a way that suggest 'natural'.
When I am working like this for a while I keep doing the same thing - one painting with acorns, another might be about chestnuts and so on.
To break through this I decided to make a composition of autumn leaves as they might have fallen on the ground after a strong wind.

I have used the shapes of the leaves of the hawthorn, the oak leaves and the leaves of the sycamore tree that were in my last paintings. With these shapes I filled a page in my sketchbook, sometimes erasing, most of the times adding more until I was happy with the result.

For the watercolour painting I have made a single layer background with Raw Sienna and added the leaves, using a lot of different shades of yellow, brown and red.
This took me longer than usual, but it was worth the time I spent on this painting, I have enjoyed working on this composition and the result is better than I hoped it would be.

This month I have been working with red, orange and yellow because I wanted to explore these colours a bit more. A landscape painting often is in shades of blue and green with some brown added when there are trees and that became too much of a habit to me. Green and blue are 'calming' colour shades and I wanted a change. 
Red and orange are more 'uplifting' colours and yellow is like sunshine on my paper. I have started to work with these colours during my painting vacation and now I am still exploring the possibilities. My inspiration has not stopped, so there will be more red, orange or yellow paintings in the future.

The details about paper, paint, size and availability of this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Tuesday 10 September 2019

Acorns again - as foretold


In my previous post I already foretold that I would be using the same composition sketch again, now using different background colours. This is what I had in mind, a painting with the leaves standing out against a background with more dark browns.

For this watercolour painting I have made a single layer background in light ochre colours and made a drawing of my sketch on that background. Then I started to darken the areas around the leaves and acorns with a dark brown and strengthened the Burnt Sianna in the background.

The shapes of the leaves were now accentuated by adding shadows and the branches and acorns were painted.

At this point I decided I was happy with the result.

The last few paintings I did were using a much more 'complicated' background and the subject was added with darker shades of the colours I had used. 
This time the background was darkened around the subject, resulting  in light coloured leaves that still have the colour scheme of the initial ochre background. 
When this painting is compared to the previous one there is a big difference in the resulting atmosphere. I really like to be experimenting like this with all the colours I have gathered over the years and I am still learning with every painting I make.

The details about paper, paint, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 


Friday 6 September 2019

Acorns


This is another watercolour painting in which I am experimenting with composition and a colour schemes that is mostly yellow.
I have been adding darker colours for contrast from the beginning and I am expanding the palette I am using - the first paintings had only four colours, this one has six colours of which four shades of yellow or ochre.

Last painting vacation I have started painting like this because I wanted to find 'my way' of painting flowers and our teacher Ad van Aart guided me in this direction. Back at home I have continued painting in this style as much as possible. 
This really feels like 'my way' and I am really happy with these paintings.

For this painting I knew I wanted to paint acorns so I made some reference pictures of branches with leaves and acorns during the last walk in the park. My husband Peter held the branches for me, to help me making the pictures I needed. (No tree was hurt or damaged in the process)

Using these pictures I sketched some acorns and leaves, giving me references for the shapes I wanted to combine for my composition.
The composition sketch was made with great care, thinking, looking and adding or erasing shapes until I was satisfied.
The yellow background was painted first in two layers that did have time to dry completely. I have used three shades of yellow for the background. After this was completed - or I did not what to make any more changes and just work with the result I already had - I decided which side was top and which would be bottom and started drawing the composition using a watercolour pencil.
And then the leaves, acorns and branches were painted. I wanted the leaves to be visible, but they should not stand out too much as the acorns were to be the subject of the painting.
At this point I asked for a second opinion (my daughter this time) and we both declared the painting finished.

In the near future I may use the composition sketch for another painting, making variations in the background colours and values.

The details about this painting (paper and colours used, size, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Tuesday 3 September 2019

Storm - a september challenge


September has begun and with that comes not only the end of the summer vacation for our schools (my husband is a teacher) but also the new challenge of Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken. In January I had decided that I would participate in every (monthly) challenge so this is my contribution for September.
The theme is 'Storm' and I had to think of something new. I have painted lots of stormy skies but I want to make something new for every challenge.

As I am still in the mood for leaves, fruits and flowers this is a combination of a stormy sky and a composition of leaves and some fruits of one of the sycamore trees (Acer pseudoplatanus) that are growing in a park area near our home.

The landscape is imaginary, in the sense that I have not really seen this, but the line of trees, the bushes and the field are something that really can be found in our landscape. The leaves and little 'helicopter' fruits that are blowing in the wind are a sight that can be seen here also - when the winds are strong enough.

This was fun again, painting an imaginary landscape combined with things I learned about composition during my painting vacation and I am really happy with the result.

Details about the materials I have used for this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Tuesday 27 August 2019

Hawthorn berries


After I have been painting flowers last week and one more after returning home I was looking for inspiration again while we were walking in a park. There were not many flowers left and the berries on the bushes were attracting my attention. That is why I made some reference pictures of the fruits of the hawthorn bushes we were passing.
I like the hawthorn bushes, in springtime they have wonderful flowers, the whole bush seems to turn white and their fruits are early as well, now is the end of summer in our country (Netherlands) and the bushes and trees of the hawthorn are already showing more red fruits than green leaves in some places.

Using my reference pictures I have been making a composition of the shapes of some of the leaves and some groups of berries. For my colour scheme I decided on a mixture of reds and browns to make it look like an autumn painting.

The background was painted first in a few layers and I already took care to leave a light spot where the group of berries would be painted.
The composition was drawn on my background - I really do draw this again, so mistakes and corrections are possible and I can adapt my composition to the size of my paper when that is necessary.
Using the colours of my background and one extra shade of red I painted all the leaves, berries, bits of branches and of course I added shadows and saved the highlights.

These last few weeks I am exploring the colour combinations I can make with the paints that are in my collection. I like to paint using harmonious colour schemes and though these kind of paintings often need a contrasting colour for depth, shadows or defining shapes I am happy that most of the paintings I have made these last weeks are what I hoped them to be or sometimes even better.

The details about paper, paints and size of this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Saturday 24 August 2019

In my garden - my cucumber plant


Back home again after a week of painting and learning means driving home in the first place, washing clothes, putting all painting stuff in their places in the little studio and posting my artwork on my website, blog and Instagram.
In short,  there is a bit of a distance between the vacation and where I am now, not only because of the three hours drive home. I have returned to normal life again.

I still want to continue painting like I have done last week under the guidance of Ad van Aart and there is a deadline for a challenge. 
The August challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' (the amateur art association of which I am a member) is all about coming home after a vacation or any other trip.

So what do I come home to? 
Lots of things, but in this case I found a very patient model in the cucumber plant in my garden. I have sketched flowers, leaves and one cucumber and made a composition out of these shapes that would fit on the sheet of paper I have chosen for this painting.
There were some more shades of yellow to experiment with and I have chosen to paint the leaves in the green shades that appear when a grayish blue is mixed with one of my yellow colours. 
The yellow background did interfere with the mixtures of green, as was to be expected. That is one of the nice challenges of watercolour, the background colour will always be part of the result. 

I have tried to return to that 'state of mind' I was in during that wonderful week in Milonga and I think I could do that quite well. Now I have to make my decisions (about composition, these are the ones that still make me feel insecure) all on my own, without any help from a teacher, but I just want to be able to do this, so I have to practise!

Last Saturday I left France with a lot of ideas so I will continue painting in the weeks to come and I hope I will lose my insecurities about composition while painting.

The details about the materials I used and other information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Friday 23 August 2019

Hedge bindweed, shades of orange


This is the last painting I made while I was in Milonga, taking lessons from Ad van Aart.
For my yellow painting I prepared a composition with the shapes of leaves, flowers and buds of the hedge bindweed and selected a section for that painting.
During a few moments spare time I coloured the leaves outside that section of my sketch and that inspired my teacher to suggest that I should paint the whole sketch in this fashion.

So I made a drawing of the whole sketch on my watercolour paper and taped the inner section before making an orange background. I used three layers of paint to achieve a nice background. Then I started painting the shapes of the leaves, buds and flowers that were in the orange section of my paper, using dark brown colours that were also in the background.
After this was dry, I removed the tape and started to draw the lines of the shapes inside the 'white' section with Graphitint pencils. When water is applied to those lines they change colours and the pencil lines can flow out a little. I have used that for the leaves and buds inside the white section. For the flowers I added another colour of Graphitint pencil and I have applied water here as well.
The lines that give the flowers their shape were put in last, on completely dry paper.

While working on this one, I closely looked at my composition, some lines and marks that were not planned initially were added to make the painting as perfect as possible.

This one was hard work, mostly on the composition part but again I have learned a lot and I will be doing more like this at home, in my own studio.
There are more variations on this theme to be explored and I am really looking forward to all the possibilities that lie in front of me.

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

Thursday 22 August 2019

Hydrangea - shades of red


These Hydrangea flowers are also in the garden of Milonga, where I was last week for a painting vacation. These flowers intrigue me very much, mostly because the large four leaf shapes on the outside are not flowers at all. They are there to seduce the insects to come to the plant and the five pointed shapes in the middle are the real flowers, waiting to be fertilised by those insects. 

I have sketched some of the 'fake flowers' ans some of the shapes in the heart of the structure, the flower buds and some of the star shaped 'real flowers' to make a nice composition for a red painting.
This time I made the background in shades of red and I had to use three layers of watercolour paint before it was to my liking. In the middle was to be a source of light, this is different from the paintings I made earlier this week, where the light came from one of the corners.

Our teacher Ad van Aart helped me find the right composition for this background and advised during the making of the painting. I had to add some more flower shapes on the edges of my painting and added a light wash of yellow to make the light source warm.

Even if this is only one week, I am learning fast and I really am happy with the result of this experiment. I never thought I would be painting flowers every day and enjoying it but this is what happened to me during this painting vacation. 
There is one more painting to come that I made in Milonga, but at home I will have to explore this theme a bit more, there are a lot of nice colour combinations and compositions that have not been tried yet.

More information about this watercolour painting (size, colours and paper used, availability, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Wednesday 21 August 2019

Hedge bindweed, painted in shades of yellow


After I had painted in red and orange, I wanted to paint in shades of yellow. The hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium) flowers grow in the garden of Milonga, so it was easy to sketch a few and make a composition using the shapes of the flowers, leaves and buds.
Our teacher Ad van Aart suggested that I should try to make my background first and add the flower composition later. For the background I painted three layers of shades of yellow, taking care to leave one corner almost white and to make another corner as dark as possible with yellow as my chosen colour.

From the prepared composition the best cut out (for the background that was created) was selected - with a little help from our teacher - and drawed on the dry watercolour paper using a watercolour pencil.
Using watercolour paint in an ochre colour I accentuated the leaves and the buds, the flowers were given an extra 'shadow' with my darkest shade of yellow. Finally the flowers were given their true shape by adding fine lines of a dark earthly red colour.

This technique - painting my background first and then adding some flower shapes - is different from the Umbels paintings I made before and I like the result even more. 
In fact I have made some more paintings 'like this' during my stay in Milonga and I have plans to make more of them now that I am back home.

More information about this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 



Tuesday 20 August 2019

Umbels, painted in shades of red and orange


During my painting vacation in Milonga I wanted to paint flowers and I wanted to use the colours red, orange and yellow. 
The first morning our teacher Ad van Aart asked all of us what we wanted to do during that week and I indicated my wishes. So most of the time I have been sketching, drawing and painting flowers.
My first paintings are based on a 'blind contour' sketch of some umbels that were in the garden of Milonga. I have made a background using shades of red, added the flowers and strengthened the background with the shades I had already used and added a Gray for the shadows and stems of the flowers. This red painting followed the composition of the initial sketch.



After this first painting I was eager to do a second one with shades of orange. This painting is on a much larger sheet of paper and I deliberately changed the composition (advised by Ad, our teacher) so there is much more open space above the flowers. The shadows are made with sepia which is much more harmonious with the orange shades of the background.
Using a much larger sheet of paper was a bit more challenging, but I still had lots of fun painting this one.

Both paintings are what I thought they would be and I am happy that I did choose to paint this subject, using a very limited palette. I have explored the shades of red and orange and I have experimented with the composition these flowers offered me.

Of course this was not the end of my week in Milonga, so there is more to follow!

More information about these watercolour paintings (size, colours used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Monday 19 August 2019

Landscape with elements of surprise


Last week in Milonga I painted the landscape only once, in a workshop about surprises in our paintings.
Our teacher Ad van Aart had prepared this lesson and I was eager to join (these lessons are voluntary, we are not required to attend).

The aim was to paint a scene and to add an element of surprise to the painting. 
My plan was to paint a landscape (this is the view from my bedroom that week) and add checkerboard - like marks on top of it for my first 'surprise' and do something with a flower shape for the second 'surprise'. It was easy to paint the landscape so I have made three versions that are almost identical and gave two of them a 'paint over'.

This was fun and I liked doing this. 
The flower shape was the hardest, mostly because I had tried to hide the underlying landscape completely and that could not be done with watercolour paint. 
So I washed away some of the paint but the result is not really beautiful. 
That is a lesson learned.

More information about these watercolour paintings can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 


Sunday 18 August 2019

Leaves


Last week I was in Milonga again, a week full with painting, drawing and learning organised by Ad van Aart.
I have learned a lot this week and now I am trying to write coherent blog posts about the paintings and drawings I came home with.

This charcoal drawing is the result of an instruction about composition. We were to fill the sheet with our subject, make a cut out and find a good composition.

I had sketched some leaves and decided on this the best cut out. 
Charcoal is my preferred medium for this drawing and I really am happy with the result.


A few days later, the last day of the week I had some spare time and I decided to try a mixed media experiment.
I made a watercolour background in shades of blue and wanted to make a drawing on top of that. The sketch with the leaves deserved some more attention and this time I made a drawing with all three leaves in it, using watercolour pencils in some shades of green.
The structure of the watercolour paper is still visible and I really like that.

More information about these two drawings can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Tuesday 6 August 2019

Mushroom - if I only knew which one this is....


We are having a nice summer here, not as hot as last year and some days, even weeks with rain to keep our nature hydrated.
Last weekend we went for some signposted walks near the Visitors Centre in Oisterwijk (Netherlands) and made some nice pictures while we were walking. Those will be used as reference pictures later.

Near the entrance of the Visitors Centre were some logs of dead wood, nor even the bark was left on it, so I have no idea what trees these used to be. Growing from one of these logs there was  a nice group of mushrooms, white, light yellow and a bit of orange. (I have not been able to find the name of the mushrooms) I did make some reference pictures and decided to paint these in my 'white on black' technique, with the use of some watercolour pencils for the details that don't want to be painted.

Of course that needs to be explained: the black paper I am using is not watercolour paper, it absorbs a lot of water and paint before the white stands out. This really takes five or more layers. The log of dead wood that provides the food for the mushroom is very dark and does not need so many layers of paint, but the few details of the log I did want to show would 'sink into the paper' if I used my paint for them. So here is where my pencils come into the process and the details are there where I want them to be.

I really like the results I get with this technique. At first, I only mixed gouache and watercolour, but the pencils really add that something I missed in some of my first 'white on black' paintings.

More information about this painting (materials and colours used, size, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Thursday 1 August 2019

Medieval sheds - another summer storm scene



In my previous post I have painted a reconstruction of a Medieval barn that has been found somewhere in our country. More buildings have been rebuilt and are to be visited for the public and I have been sketching these sheds too. These are dated a few centuries earlier than the barn I have already painted,they are from the Early Middle Ages and the remains of these buildings have also been found in our country.

Again I have painted a cloudy sky, like an approaching storm and I have added some trees to the scene. The reconstruction sites also have trees, but these are not always near the buildings I have sketched. These reconstructed buildings have to be visited by a lot more people than originally lived there in the Middle Ages. 
So for my paintings I 'replace' the trees a bit.

The shed in the back is completely constructed from wood, which has obtained a nice grayish shade over time. The shed in front has a thatched roofing with a lot of mosses growing on top of that. 
The entrances of the sheds were not to be seen from the spot where I found a place to sit and sketch, but that did not really matter to me. I did like the view from that point so I sketched what I could see and painted this scene with the sketch as my reference.

I wanted to give this scene a rural (Medieval) atmosphere and I really like the result.

More information about this painting (materials,size,availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com