Wednesday 30 January 2019

After Sunset - watercolour


This is the second 'After Sunset' painting, this time a watercolour.
I have used the same reference picture that was made by my husband when he was having a celebration in the city of Rotterdam. (see my previous post)

Of course there are differences compared to the 'white on black' painting, the used technique is very different and I really like to compare watercolour to one of the other techniques I use for painting or drawing.

This time the white of the paper still shines through my layers of dark blue for the clouds and the river. The city is painted in very thick paint, so there will be not much of a background colour visible. 
The buildings were painted after I had made my clouds and river and I have been able to give them some more depth by adding some brushstrokes in another dark colour. The city lights are added between the layers of dark grey and sepia and the result is what I aimed for.
The differences in colour are not only explained by the difference in background, I also use a different set of watercolour paints when I am making a watercolour painting. 
For this I am using Professional grade watercolours and for my 'white on black' paintings I am using a different palette with the white gouache on it so I cannot contaminate my other paints.

More information about this watercolour painting and the 'white on black' I am referring to can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Saturday 26 January 2019

After sunset - white on black


A few months ago (last September) there was a celebration at my husband's work. The festivities lasted until late, very late at night and all took place in Rotterdam.
My husband had a great day of course, but he also found the time to make some beautiful pictures of the views he had from the Cruise Terminal, where the evening was spent.
He made pictures at the time of the sunset, some before and some after. The sky was beautiful and of course I had to paint this.

Usually I paint the night scenes on 'all black' paper using a mixture of white Gouache and watercolour paints and as much water as I think is possible. 
The black paper still shines through the painted scene, just like the white paper does when I am making a pure watercolour painting.
This quality is what I like about this technique and it really adds to the atmosphere I want to paint.
There are some limits to this, the paint will not flow as beautifully as watercolour does on watercolour paper, so I have to follow the direction of the 'movement' in the clouds with my brush. No vertical lines to define the buildings, these will always be visible and look very unnatural in the clouds. The buildings are not painted, only the light windows.

I have thought about painting this scene in pure watercolour (on a white background) and now I am already planning this in my mind. Painting it will come later.

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

Thursday 24 January 2019

Winter's light


These last few days we had a little bit of snow, grey skies and some days that are a bit brighter. There still is that lightly foggy atmosphere and everything seems to be back-lit. Most of the colours seem to have disappeared from the landscape, only the white and grey of the sky and the snow and dark colours for the trees, buildings and what is more to be seen in a landscape.
One of the brighter mornings I drove in my little car and noticed (the traffic of course, but also the views) the colours of the light in the sky, the reflections on the river and I was inspired to paint this. Of course I did not stop to do so at that very moment, but I can easily remember the atmosphere of such a  morning for a few days.

In my 'archives' I found a sketch I had made last summer and never used for a painting and  I started working from that view, making a new composition with the elements I had sketched.
The cranes, the houses, the pontoon are familiar sights at the river banks of the rivers Noord and Merwede that meet not far from the spot where I have made the first sketch.
And of course I found a spot with a view of trees to make my sketch.
All these were set in a winter's light as I had seen it a few days ago.

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



Monday 21 January 2019

Behind the Cathedral


Between Christmas and New Year's Eve my husband and me went for a short vacation to Saarburg (Germany). I have already painted the beautifully frosted world we walked in but we did do more than that.
The first day of our vacation we started very early and made a stop in the ancient town of Trier and walked in the old city centre for a few hours. That day was already foggy and frosted, but inside a city it is always a bit warmer so we had no frost there. 
Without frost Trier is still a beautiful old town with lots of buildings that have a special history. We enjoyed our walk and made many pictures that also show a lot of other tourists. These could not always be avoided. 
We visited the Cathedral and did not have the time to see everything in there, but outside it is also a very special building, as there were chapels and crypts added to the original building over the past centuries. That can be seen behind the Cathedral, where the different architectures meet.

I made the reference pictures for this painting because the bare tree attracted my attention. It's standing in an open spot in the pavement, completely surrounded by 'city elements' and no other tree in sight. 
The tree is bare because of the winter but that adds to the somewhat alienated atmosphere I felt in that little square.
It took me some time before I started painting this watercolour painting, I needed to have a plan for the Cathedral first. There is a lot of architecture to be seen (and painted) even in this very small part of the building, but the Cathedral is not my main subject so I had to simplify. I think I have simplified enough here, I wanted the Cathedral still recognisable without all the details.

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


Friday 18 January 2019

About me... (mixed media)


This is in answer to a challenge by 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken', the amateur art association of which I am a member. There will be a challenge each month this year and the January challenge is to depict 'yourself' as good as possible.

That is not an easy task, so I started thinking. The boiling kettle with things coming up that are important to me is a nice alternative to a self portrait.

What is coming up in the bubbles are a palette and brushes of course and a book with a cup of coffee (or tea) are also included. My walking boots and a compass which stands for the signposted walks I like to do with my husband are also visible, as well as a shawl (I almost always wear one outside the house and sometimes even inside). And my baking and cooking passion is depicted with a cake. In some of the smaller bubbles are stars.
The kettle is placed in a forest landscape, the trees are also essential to me.

I have used watercolour, of course, but I have also used a lot of my pencils and charcoal for the underside of the kettle, where it is blackened by the fire.

In this painting I have used the kettle with all the different bubbles as an image for my various hobbies and passions and I have used the landscape setting because that is my most important subject when I am painting.

It really was fun making this up, sketching and painting/drawing this, but I don't think I will do this very often.

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

Saturday 12 January 2019

Pathway of Dreams


This watercolour painting was made for a challenge in one of my Facebook groups. 
The January challenge in that group was "Mountains" and for a long time I thought I could not enter, because there are no mountains in my country and I do not visit mountainous landscapes during my vacations. This means that mountains are something I will have to study first, before being able to make a good painting, worthy of entering in a challenge.

But then I thought of the many 'views of Mt. Fuji' (by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai)  and decided to do something inspired by that theme, executed in my own way.
I made up a nice composition, with some trees and bushes, a road or path, a gate, some stone markers and of course the mountain.
This I painted in my own style, using a colour scheme that suggests the end of autumn or the beginning of winter.

The title of this painting refers to the gate which is a marker between the normal world and the spirit world and to the mountain itself because that is a holy mountain and an object of pilgrimage. 
Dreams or wishes are connected with the spirit world and I think that those who undertake a pilgrimage also have a dream or wish they want to be fulfilled.

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

Monday 7 January 2019

White world - 5


Although I keep naming the paintings 'White World', there is a lot of colour to be seen in the landscape I am painting. That is of course because the white colour in the landscape is frost, frozen fog that forms ice crystals on the branches, grasses and tops of the humps of clay in the fields. There has been no snow in this landscape.

All the reference pictures I have used so far were taken during one walk of five kilometres in the hills above Saarburg, as we walked from our vacation home to the village of Ayl and back. Down in the valley there was no white at all, the temperatures were just above freezing point there.
The views were great in spite of or maybe because of the light fog we had in the beginning of the day. Taking good pictures was not easy, the camera saw too little contrast between the foggy, grey sky and the white bushes. 
This contrast could be seen with the eye so I have added my memory to the pictures when I was painting the watercolours that I named 'White World'.

Once again I have chosen a small size paper and I have used a limited palette of three colours. When we were walking the world seemed to have only two colours, white and gray but closer observation revealed browns and greens as well. I have tried to reproduce the atmosphere of that lightly foggy, cold white landscape without losing the colours that were really there.

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

Friday 4 January 2019

White world - 4


The many pictures we made last week, walking through a wonderfully white world are not to be wasted. Of course a selection of these pictures will appear in our albums, but they are also made to be my reference for painting.

This foggy landscape is made to be painted with watercolour. At this point of our walk we were having a bit of back light so the white branches are a bit darker than the sky. There was a bit more fog here, that did change according to our location as we were walking into the valley where the village of Ayl is situated.

Once again I have made a small size painting, mostly because it matches the first three I have painted in our vacation home. The scene is not very complicated and due to the fog there is not a broad view to be painted so a small size 'fits' the subject. 

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

Wednesday 2 January 2019

White world - 3


This is the third and last painting I made during our short vacation in Saarburg (Germany).
After the first two I was gaining confidence and I have chosen a more detailed scene for this one. 
The other two watercolour paintings were made in the afternoons and there was some light coming from the windows, helping me to see my work-in-progress better. This one was made in the evening so my only light source was a lamp and I have been struggling with the light that reflected in the wet parts of my work. 

This scene is in between the frosted trees and the leaves that are still on the beech trees are adding colour to the scene. 
The path is almost black but I have softened that a little so it does not stand out so much. 
We had to walk down that path to reach our vacation home again, behind us was a point of view that overlooked the valley of the river Saar - in clear conditions, we had not much view in the foggy weather of that day. I am not complaining here, the foggy weather and low temperatures gave that wonderful frost I have been painting.

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





Tuesday 1 January 2019

White world - 2


Last weekend we were near Saarburg (Germany) and we found ourselves in a beautiful  white world. This was because the temperatures were low and the fog had made ice needles on all the branches, humps of clay, grasses, wires, and many more things.

My husband and I were walking in the hills surrounding our vacation home and made many pictures of this beautiful white world. The day after this the weather was warmer and all the ice had gone.

In the afternoons I painted in our vacation home and these pictures were my inspiration. After the first painting I had chosen another beautiful scene, with some pine trees in it. Their darker shapes make the white trees and bushes in the foreground stand out even more.
The tree trunks were dark against all that white and that gives depth to this scene, together with the hilltop in the background.

In this painting I have used paint from one of my watercolour sticks. The result is of course exactly the same as the results from paint in pans or from tubes, it is an extra that the sticks can also be applied like crayons. 

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