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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
