Our Christmas Cactus

 

The new challenge of Artists&Illustrators Magazine is 'Plants & Flowers' and we are challenged to paint the plants on our window sill, the flowers in our gardens and if there is a bouquet of flowers on the table, to paint that.

At this moment there is no bouquet of flowers in my home and in my garden there are only some small daffodils and a Hellebore left. All other flowers are still thinking about showing themselves. Last year I have already painted the daffodils and the hellebore, so I thought to paint the Christmas cactus that lives in our home on the window sill.

This plant is a very old one and it belonged to my husband before we met. It does not grow very much anymore but most years there are some flowers at Christmas.

For this watercolour I have made my pencil drawing directly on my watercolour paper, without stretching it. Later I taped it to my board, to keep it in place while I was painting. I expected to work with just a little bit of water so I thought stretching was not needed for this one. I was right about that, I did not use a lot of water and the paper did not buckle at all. 

For the green segments of the plant I have layered mixes of green, composed with more blues, yellows and sometimes even a shade of red. Each segment has at least three layers of different green mixtures, to get the colours in the painting resembling those of the real plant as good as possible.

Painting this familiar plant was nice and I am happy with the results.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of the painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Pollard Willows

 

Very close to our home - within walking distance - are two patches of woodland, both called the 'Alblasserbos'. One patch is close to our home and we walk there most of the times, but the other patch is also worth a visit. It is a small area and somewhere in the middle there is a very wet land, with lots of pollard willows very close to one another. I think these trees are still used to harvest the young branches for baskets and other things.

The trunks of these trees are all short and have these typical shapes that you see only with pollard willows. Because of the wetness of the land the trees are covered with mosses and there are ferns and other plants growing in the treetops.

When we were passing that area I had to stop and make some reference pictures.

Because I have been painting for challenges these past weeks, the pollard willows had to wait a bit but now I have found time and inspiration to make the drawing I wanted to make.

The paper is a light grey tinted piece of cardboard and I have used willow charcoal and some watercolour pencils for the mosses, the ferns, a bit of the first tree trunk and the pool of water. These pencil colours became a bit stronger after I had used my fixative - and I had planned for this to happen and the result is what I hoped for.

The complete information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this mixed media drawing can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

These are mine now!

 

For the 'Animals' challenge I wanted to paint one of the cats in our family as well and I found inspiration in a picture I made very recently, at my daughter's birthday.

We had placed her presents on the table and one of her cats made himself comfortable on the one on top. He thinks everything in my daughter's house is to sit on (or in) including the visitors.

He had that 'This is mine now' - look on his face so that had to be the title of my watercolour painting. 

For this small scene I used a small size paper and I have changed the background to something less crowded (with books, furniture and my daughter) and the gift wrap is also less colourful in my painting. 

It is hard to get the colour of this cat's fur right, he is a tabby cat with a hint of grey in his hairs that is hard to get. Especially when the surrounding light is dim the hint of grey that is visible in broad daylight becomes mud-coloured. And then there is the influence of the camera that was used. This means that the results of my mixes are either too grey or not grey enough. This time I have started my mixture with some warm earth colours and greyed them a little bit with the light blue that I have used for the background.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and the availability of this painting can all be found in my Tumblr blog

Bear

 

This week the Lockdown Challenge is about animals, all kind of animals.

Of course I can find another cat picture in my albums - the pictures are mostly made by my daughter - but there are more possibilities.

Many years ago I made a sketch of one of the bears that live in the Bear Forest in Ouwehands Dierenpark (The Netherlands). Of course I asked politely for permission to draw a portrait. He or she stayed in one place, in one pose during the time I needed to make the sketch and after I had finished, the bear stood up and walked away. 

When I made that sketch, I was just beginning to draw from life and I was very insecure about drawing animals. The sketch turned out very well and I have been planning to turn it into a bigger work for years, but it stayed as it was.

So now I have looked for the sketch, used it as my reference and made a drawing with my Conté Sketching Crayons on white cardboard. I was a bit disappointed that some of the lines I made - and I thought I had blended the whole surface - appeared again when I used my spray fixative. But that may be a lesson learned for the next time.

I will submit this drawing for the challenge and there is another one I will add to this one (it is possible to enter up to three works each week) and maybe I will have time to make another cat drawing - or painting.

The information about the materials I have used for this drawing, its size and availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog 

Lit by the moon

 

In one of the Facebook groups I am in the February challenge is Moon (light) and I have been waiting to see the moon this month, but it stays hidden at night.

This forced me to make an imaginary landscape in moonlight. Of course an imaginary landscape is not really a challenge for me, but the moonlight is something new.

For this watercolour painting I have chosen the imaginary landscape I have used for a snow scene with the little German chapel in it and made a snow scene lit by the moon.

The paper size is small and I have used mostly Indigo and added some colours for the details and some highlights where the moonlight touches the trees, chapel and bushes.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can all be found in my Tumblr blog

Time for coffee

 

In the weekly Lockdown Challenge there is room to submit three artworks and I usually have two works for my entry, a new one and an older one. The last challenge about hands was totally new for me, so I made two new drawings. 

This weeks 'Favourite things' is also a new subject for me, because the description made it clear, that I had to draw or paint things, a still life. Usually I have a relatively new landscape at hand but that is not what I have to submit now.

After my books I had to think of other favourite things and my coffee machine is a good one. I put it on the table - to have more room to make my drawing - and I started to draw, using only graphite pencils. I have added a touch of red, for the on-off button.

Of course this is not an easy subject, with all those round or oval shapes, black plastic reflecting almost everything and not showing the shadows correctly. To draw a perfect coffee machine, I will have to practise much more but this will have to do for now.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this pencil drawing can all be found in my Tumblr blog

Books!

 

This week the theme of Artists&Illustrators Magazine's weekly Lockdown challenge is 'Favourite things' and of course I had to think about that. It should not be the walks in nature I enjoy so much, but things, so I had to draw or paint another still life.

There are many favourites in my home, but I like books the best. Real books, I do not use e-readers and my magazines arrive in my home when the postman brings them.

For this painting I have imagined a library room (I wish I had one) and on the table I have placed some art books about some of my favourite painters and some instructive books with favourite themes. I also added some watercolour brushes for the composition.

Painting this one took a long time, as I wanted variation in the books on the shelves and some more detail in the books on the table. It was fun to do and I am happy with the result.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can all be found in my Tumblr blog

Masquerade

 

The February challenge of 'Goed Gezien-Goed Bekeken' is 'Maskerade' or masquerade in English. The theme is inspired by the Carnival that always happens in February.

Of course I did not want to paint masks and I chose another kind of masquerade. I found my inspiration in the way we can hide our faces behind makeup like lipstick, mascara, eyeshadow, powder etc. 

I had hoped to make a collage from advertisements in folders and magazines, but these past week there were no ads for makeup. So I have gathered some of the things I own and made a still life with eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick. I have changed most of the  colours because it is hard to get the right shades of pink, the skin tones that are in the modern eyeshadow palette (for the 'nude' look) and the soft shimmer of my lipstick when painting with watercolour. 

The theme is added with a watercolour marker (in Dutch) and the background has got a very light shade of blue. 

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can all be found in my Tumblr blog

Hand and paw

 

For this week's 'Hands' challenge I asked my daughter for pictures of her hand and a forepaw of one of her cats. Or both, but one of the 'brothers' is not so very cuddly.

She made pictures of her hand holding a forepaw while the cat was sleeping on her lap and I think he did not even notice it.

From those pictures I have tried to draw two versions with my Conté Pencils, only one of them was acceptable. She was holding her hand in a curved position and that was hard to draw. It might have been easier with black pencils, that is a lesson for next time.

This drawing, with the cat's hand curved in my daughter's hand was the best and I think it's also better than the drawing in my previous post. Of course I have submitted this one as my first entry for the challenge.

This drawing and the one in my previous post are my very first attempts at drawing hands so I am really happy that I could make recognizable drawings of such a difficult subject.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of my work can all be found in my Tumblr blog

Helping mom

 

For the new weekly challenge of Artists&Illustrators Magazine I had to draw (or paint) hands.

I have never before tried this so this really was a challenge. From a short video of a little baby girl helping her mother to clean out the dishwasher I made a screenshot with both hands visible and holding a plate. Both the mother and the daughter are related to me.

This screenshot was my example and I have made a drawing using Conté pencils on a large sheet of paper.

For a first try this is not as bad as I feared it would be and I have submitted this one for the challenge.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this drawing can all be found in my Tumblr blog

Stormy sky

 

A new month brings new challenges and one of the Facebook groups I am in had 'Stormy Sky' as its theme for the February challenge.

For this challenge I have to paint in watercolours only and I have chosen to paint an imaginary landscape, based on our own nature. Some fields, a path and some distant trees.

The stormy sky has dark clouds of course and for this occasion I have added lightning. I have studied some reference pictures for the shapes of lightning bolts and I have made an imaginary path for the one in my painting. For the stormy mood I have included some windswept leaves.

This time I have used rough paper and the fact that this paper holds the water longer was used to create the landscape with just a few details (but the suggestion of more) because it usually is very dark under clouds like these. Adding more and more darkness and depth to the clouds was also easier on this paper.

The information about all the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can all be found in my Tumblr blog

First snow

 

The weekly 'Lockdown challenge' continues and this week's theme is 'snow', inspired by the snow that had fallen in the United Kingdom last week.

We did not have any snow last week, but two weeks earlier there was a little bit of snow, only during the night and my husband quickly made some pictures of our cars covered with snow. The next morning it was already gone.

Other parts of The Netherlands did get more snow over the last weeks, but we live surrounded by large amounts of water and close to the North Sea, so the temperature does not drop so easily to freezing temperatures for the whole day. 

Because of this, I could not paint a nice snow-covered landscape from a recent picture and I decided to challenge myself by painting my car, covered with some snow.  

The children that live in our street had already been gathering snow from the hood for throwing snowballs but the window and the roof were yet untouched. It was a night picture, so there was not much to be seen of the parking place and the plants and fence behind my little car. As the snow and my car are my subjects, I have added an imaginary background, suggesting a fence.

My car is really new, I got it last December and I have added the characters and numbers of the plate to make clear that I have tried to paint my own little car. This is the first time that I have painted a car and I am not unhappy with the results, given the not-so-perfect reference picture (colours, shadows and perspective were not ideal).

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can all be found in my Tumblr blog