In our country we have a long history, going back to the Stone Age or even sooner. Many objects were found in the earth and in old river beds and even in places where there used to be a sea. The real archaeological objects are kept in museum conditions, but in several places, most of them easy or even freely accessible some of the buildings are reconstructed.
These reconstructions are life size and very picturesque.
For this watercolour I was inspired by the reconstruction of a Medieval barn. This barn has windows that can be closed by shutters that are held by ropes to make them shelves that can display goods for sale or... I was not there in the Medieval times so I cannot be sure of the purpose of this structure. It did look nice and I have tried to sketch and paint it.
The barn was made of unpainted wood which had already turned grayish with time. The thatched roofing also turned dark and grayish, so the roof and the walls were almost the same colour. The overall impression was that of a weather beaten structure and I have tried to depict that atmosphere.
Because the Medieval times are also called the Dark Ages, I have given the sky a stormy appearance. The trees, bushes and grasses are only suggested to create an imaginary landscape for my barn.
Again I enjoyed painting this scene and I am happy with the result.
More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Years ago I decided that I am not a 'flower watercolourist' because the technique I was shown to paint flowers in watercolour did not at all appeal to me. Now that I am painting flowers, I still am not using that technique, but I have found my own way of painting plants - and flowers are just parts of plants.
I have tried this when I painted the corn flower and I was happy with the result, so I have decided to paint more flowers in the future.
I have made some flower pictures recently, just because I liked them and now I can use these as references for my experiments with flower painting.
For this beautiful hollyhock I chose a green background and because I mix my greens from blue and yellow this means I have a lot of different shades of green - exactly what I wanted. The flowers are almost black and there is very little contrast or shadow to find out where one flower begins and the other ends, so I have given it my best.
Of course the whole plant is much taller, but while sketching the plant using the picture as my reference I decided this to be my composition. This way I ended up with the challenge to make a green plant stand out against a green background. Of course I had a bit of a struggle here, but the result is very much like what I hoped for.
Please remember, this is only the second flower painting I am doing in this style.
(there will be more, I like this too much now)
More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The weather in The Netherlands can be challenging. Today we planned a day of plein-air painting in the beautiful landscape of the 'Alblasserwaard' (where I live) and every time I set up my field easel it really started to rain a little. After a few attempts I gave up completely and went home. Another member of the group also gave up and most of the others were still inside the restaurant talking. Of course the sun started to shine and the rain stopped completely after I started painting in my studio.
If we had stayed on the spot, my painting probably would have been an interesting experiment in wet-on-very wet painting. Of course I was also getting wet and I quickly lost the inspiration needed for such an experiment.
The title is all about the July challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken', the regional amateur art association of which I am a member. The coincidence that our day of plein-air painting had exact the kind of weather that we had to depict for the challenge made me decide to submit this painting.
The landscape is imaginary, but based on a scene near the restaurant where our group planned to meet. In the middle of the 'polder' so there are fields, paths, trees, bushes and several ditches. There were some windmills at walking distance (even with my painting stuff to transport) and cows and sheep were visible from our standing point.
I decided to paint a scene with a tree (no surprise here), some fields and the dark clouds that were over the landscape all morning. Because my paper had been wet from the rain, I had a bit of a struggle to get my dark shades in place but in my studio I can speed up the drying process when needed so this turned out the way I wanted it.
More information about this painting (materials used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Looking for inspiration I saw blue spots in the grass beside the roads in our village and the villages close to ours. The idea of painting Cornflowers was born, but now I had to think of a way to make this 'my painting'.
Working on a background painting that is made by colours flowing over my paper is something I do not do often, but I always enjoy it. This kind of background is always a surprise and can be used in many ways.
So I decided to make a background with the blue colours of the flowers and paint the cornflowers in that background. I did not leave the shapes of the flowers open and decided where to make them look light blue against a dark background and dark against a light spot in the background after I had been painting for a while.
Because of that I also made some adjustments to the initial background painting, but that was only to make the flowers stand out as much as I wanted - not much, but just enough to give this watercolour painting a nice atmosphere.
More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, availability, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
