Inspired by Rembrandt: The trees

This year is a special year as we remember that 350 years ago the great Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn died. The Rijksmuseum has started an online contest for (amateur) artists that are inspired by Rembrandt. We were asked to submit one work of art and write a short text about how we were inspired by Rembrandt to make this.

Rembrandt is famous for his self portraits and portraits of other people, groups and group scenes, like the Nachtwacht (Night Watch). As I am not good at painting people at all, I have thought for a long time that this contest was not for me.
But then I saw a - not so very good - reproduction of the etching 'the three trees' (De Drie Bomen) in a magazine and I decided to use that for my painting.

This scene is about everything I like to paint: a landscape, trees, clouds and a great atmosphere. I really thought I could make my own version of this  famous etching.

The prints that Rembrandt made of his etchings were black and white of course and I decided to paint a monochromatic watercolour using sepia. Rembrandt's oil paintings have a lot of brown colours, so this choice was easily made.
I have also thought to add reds, yellows and other browns to the monochromatic painting using watercolour pencils.

So I started my painting. First a sketch using the reproduction in the magazine as my reference and then painting in sepia. Before I knew it my painting was finished, nothing to be added by using pencils.
So a second version was started, I deliberately stopped painting much sooner, added the pencil colourings and this was the result:

I compared both versions and could not really decide. The first version seemed to be the best. So I asked the opinions of my husband, children and mother and they all thought the same. Version one was to be submitted.

Writing the text about why I painted this, how I was inspired by Rembrandt, was the next thing I had to do and my brother and sister-in-law reviewed my text for me.

The entry forms were filled with all the needed information, texts and the required pictures were added, the whole thing was submitted and the waiting started.

Yesterday the message came that out of 8390 entries I was unfortunately not chosen for the next round. Of course I regret this, but making this painting, trying the second version and writing about it (in a limited amount of words) was really a great learning experience.

The painting is framed and hanging in my home now and I am still proud of the result!

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