Sallandse Heuvelrug - Coniferous trees in backlight

 

  

This time of the year, the sun is not as high in the sky as it is in summer, so it is possible to make a picture of a tree in backlight early in the afternoon. My husband Peter was inspired by the scene and made several pictures - that inspired me to paint. Of course my watercolour painting is not meant to be an exact copy of the beautiful pictures my husband made.

The reference pictures were made during one of our walks in the Natural reserve 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' in the eastern part of our country.

The picture I made from my watercolour painting is not perfect, in this season it is really  hard to get the colours right. The picture does give a good impression though and maybe the one I uploaded to my Flickr page is a bit better. 

For this painting I chose a large size paper so I had all the space I needed for a nice clouded sky, a landscape with moorland, woodland in the background and the trees of course.

The picture I used for reference had the sun exactly behind the trees, so there was as good as nothing of the needles and branches 'lost' in the light. The moorland is very dark in the picture because of it being in backlight, I wanted to change that to how the landscape looks when you see it with your own eyes.

I did use brighter colours for the sky and landscape than the reference picture had, the trees are painted in very dark colours, as close to black as I could mix them.

The result of my efforts is what I hoped for, a watercolour that suggests the atmosphere of a sunny autumn day in a beautiful landscape.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size of this work and its availability can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Holterberg (Netherlands) - a charcoal drawing

 

When we were making walks the walks during our short stay on the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' - one of our beautiful Natural Reserves - we did not only make pictures of the mushrooms we found, there were also some landscape pictures, because the landscape really is gorgeous.

One of the walks passed by the Holterberg, not really a mountain, but a hill, like the other hills of this area it was left behind in the landscape after the last Ice Age. In this area the moorland is reconstructed, so trees have been felled, the soil that had become too nutrient-rich is scraped off in order to give the heather plants a chance to grow and prosper again.

The reconstruction was not recent at this particular spot, so there are some trees left and a lot of heather is growing already, but in autumn, after the flowers have gone, these plants are very brown. Next spring there will be fresh green leaves and in the end of summer beautiful purple flowers, but now the plants are not so exciting. 

The structure of the landscape, with hillsides, a road and the trees still did inspire me, so I took a reference picture and the next day I made this drawing.  I was really happy to find out that the people who made the walk with me (my husband, my daughter and her friend) recognised the spot when they saw the drawing.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this charcoal drawing can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Autumn Leaves - mixed media drawing

During the last week - our short vacation in one of our Natural Reserves - the colours of the trees were changing from green to autumn. We passed by a lot of beautiful trees during our walks and the area where we had our vacation home also had lots of trees that were in autumn colours. The most beautiful ones were those of the northern red oak (Quercus rubra) that was introduced in Europe about two hundred years ago as a decorative species.

Of course I wanted to paint in these colours, but I did not bring all my paper with me, so I decided to make an orange underpainting with watercolour and make a nice drawing of some of the leaves with my water soluble pencils. 

The composition was made using more than one reference picture and I have used the watercolour quality of my pencils to make the leaves even more colourful. After the first layer of pencil, I used a bit of water to intensify the colours used. 

After that had dried, I added more layers of pencil until I was happy with the result.

The information about the paper, paints and pencils I have used for this mixed media work as well as the size and availability can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Squirrel with peanuts

 

Our vacation home on the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' was surrounded by bushes and trees, one oak tree that had already dropped lots and lots of acorns.

I had brought a bag of peanuts, to attract birds and of course I hoped for a squirrel. 

The peanuts were scattered on the table that was on the small terrace next to the vacation home and the waiting started...  

There were birds, robins, blue tits, great tits, blackbirds and there were squirrels. 

At least two different red squirrels (as could be seen in the colours of the tail) visited our table. They came separated from each other, they did chase each other in the trees, so I think they weren't the best of friends at that moment. On at least three occasions my husband took the camera in his hands, got seated on a chair inside the house and started making pictures.

As this was my second attempt at a squirrel (the first was made almost fifteen years ago), I started with my Sketching Crayons on a nice dark brown heavy paper.  The sketching crayons don't have a nice sharp point, like a pencil and that made my task a little harder than expected. So this is another lesson learned.

This squirrel really had a tail that was as good as black and I tried to reproduce the changes in the colours of his (or her) fur with the use of the different browns I have in my box of sketching crayons. The nose was a reddish brown and the colour changed to black at the tail. The other squirrel was not only smaller, but also had a nice red tail. 

On the back of this squirrel was some reflected light and I used my grey crayon for that. Of course this was not really easy and the result is far from brilliant, but there are more pictures to work from in the next weeks (or months) to improve myself. 

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this drawing can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Birch bracket - another one for my mushroom collection

 

Last week we had a short vacation in one of our most beautiful Natural Reserves, the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' and we had the right weather for a signposted walk every day.

This time 'we' also included our children, children-in-law and grandchild so there were a lot of cameras active during the walks. We had a very safe arrangement, with every family in a separate vacation home and the walks were made with a maximum of four adults.

During that short vacation I also brought my 'mobile studio' so I have made some paintings and drawings. This is the first one, a watercolour painting of a beautiful mushroom, a birch bracket or Fomitopsis betulina. My husband made the reference picture. There are also lots of pictures of other mushrooms, but I wanted to do something different and chose this one, growing on a birch tree.

Because I had to find out what the conditions were in our vacation home (drying time, light etc.) I started with a small painting and I simplified the scene as much as possible. This part of the tree was very dark and rough with some moss growing on it and the bushes in the background were too far away to be painted with lots of details. I still have trouble with painting moss - this time it is a green spot on the bark of the tree. The dark colours of the tree were not so much of a problem, when the layers had dried I have added some structure to it, to make clear this is not a pine tree.

For a first painting in a new place (the vacation home) it is really not a bad one. But when I am at home again I will definitely make better paintings in my own, familiar studio.

The information about the paper and paint I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can all be found in the link on the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

In the woods

 

This year is a year for mushrooms, they appear everywhere and most of all in beautiful pictures on tv shows. So of course I am inspired to paint and draw mushrooms and this time I have been looking in my archives of reference pictures.

The picture for this mixed media drawing was made several years ago and I still did not paint from it, because the mushroom (I have been looking for its name, but I still have no idea what kind of mushroom it is) is grey, almost translucent. It reminds me a bit of a jellyfish with the lines going to the middle and the semi-transparent quality of the hood.

Then I remembered I could do a drawing with my Conté Sketching Crayons, as there is a grey one in my set. I have added some more colours from the set to this drawing and I tried to add some more colours with my Graphitint pencils and a Tinted Charcoal pencil. After spraying fixative, the colours of the pencils dominated the grey hood, so I added more Conté to it, fixative again and repeated these steps one more time. The Graphitint is more dominant than I expected,  I have learned a lesson for the next time. 

The forest floor, with branches, some feathers and pine needles is only suggested here by layering Conté Crayons (smudging them with my fingers) and pencils until I had the desired result. 

This time I worked on coloured cardboard, this is a heavy paper and I have chosen a small size, because I had only one mushroom as my subject. For a group of mushrooms I would have chosen a larger sheet of paper of course.

The information about the paper, pencils and crayons I worked with, and the availability of this drawing can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Autumn in mixed media

 

The October challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is 'Against the rules' and the Dutch word for rules can also be read as lines.

So I had a choice for my work, because against the rules (of anything) has already been done, so I could not do anything original at all. 

I discussed this with my mother and daughter for inspiration and I combined the ideas they gave me with some inspiration that grows in my garden.

Against or crossing the lines is a nice option so I made a drawing of chestnuts and dried grape leaves, both from my own garden but not in the same spot and added lines from Autumn - related songs.

The text lines are not complete, I made them 'fall of the paper' and of course they are not written on the lines that are made to write on. I copied the idea of an exercise book used in school to learn writing and made lines using blue and red pencils - just like there are blue and red lines in the school notebooks I am referring to.

Unfortunately it was not possible to make the perfect picture - the lines I made are straight, as I used a good ruler and the paper is white. There is some change in colour and deformation in the picture that I cannot correct without losing the colours of the drawing.

The information about the paper, ink and pencils I have used, the size of the work and its availability can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

A box of floof

 

Some months ago I decided I wanted to start improving my skills in painting cats and I asked my daughter Mariska for some pictures of her two furry companions. She shares her home with a European shorthaired cat and a Ragdoll cat. 

This picture, of her Ragdoll cat inside a big brown box is my first attempt at painting him.

Of course I started making a sketch after the reference picture and with some corrections that went well. The real challenge is to make the drawing again on watercolour paper, in a slightly different size. That could have gone better, but using a soft pencil and a soft eraser the corrections do not damage my paper.

Painting the fluffy fur was also a bit of a challenge, but in this case is was sufficient to make a very soft edge where the fur ends and the box becomes visible. Because his face is so dark and in the shadows, the nose and cheeks cannot be distinguished by a change in colour. 

The whiskers are painted with white watercolour paint. Maybe a white pencil would have had better, whiter results, that is an idea for the next painting.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com