It is almost a month ago that we were in the 'Von Gimborn Arboretum' for a nice afternoon walking, talking and making photographs.
One of the trees that inspired me to use the camera and make some reference pictures was this one, the Acer palmatum 'Hessei' (I did make a picture of its name tag) with its beautiful red leaves about to unfold. Only one of the pictures was good enough to use for reference and I had to think a lot about my approach of this one.
I have decided to experiment a bit and combine my art materials in a way that is not so familiar for me.
The last few paintings I have used masking fluid and painted in the background without having to hold back for the reservation of my whites - for the flowers of the magnolia of course.
This time I did not use masking fluid, because the removal of the fluid also means the removal of the pencil lines of my drawing. So this time I have painted my background, trying to reserve the areas of the fresh leaves and painted in the leaves after that. there was a second stage for the background around the leaves to fill up any 'gaps' that were inevitable in the first stage.
The background is made to suggest bushes and branches because this tree does not stand on its own in the Tree Museum.
The leaves are not exactly painted as I used watercolour pencils for them. I have been mixing up to five colours for the leaves before adding a shadow colour where that was necessary. The 'final touch' for the leaves was a fine brush point with clear water, to make the colours of the pencils stronger in some areas.
The results of this experiment with my materials is what I hoped it would be and I will certainly use this combination of techniques again in the future.
More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, colour scheme, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
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