Sandpipers at the North Sea Coast

 

Last winter we walked along the North Sea Coast as part of a long walk at 'De Kwade Hoek' (Netherlands) and on the shallow mud flats close to the tide line we saw some sandpipers looking for food in the mud. My husband made several reference pictures, but as we could not come very close to them  we are not sure which kind of sandpiper we did see.

Most of them only visit our coast line in winter and they have the same 'winter coat' so I could not find the exact species of sandpiper that visited that stretch of our coast line that day. Maybe there was more than one kind of bird, that is also possible. 

The reference pictures have been waiting a few months before I found the time and inspiration to use them. 

I tried to differentiate the colours of their feathers by zooming in on the picture. There are differences between the heads and the wings and that is all I could find, so that is how I have painted them. The natural light of that day did not help either, we had lots of clouds and some hours of rain during that walk so the landscape was sombre and the little birds were streaks of grey and white with legs and a bill. 

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

Blueberries in the springtime sunshine

 

This time of lockdown, closed museums and other restrictions is a great opportunity to go for a walk in our nature - as if we need to find an excuse for such a walk.

Last week we went for a signposted walk in the beautiful nature near Rucphen (Netherlands) and we chose the only walk we had not done before. There were forest areas, fields with horses or cows, a bit of moorland and we had nice views towards the small villages that surround this bit of nature.

As it is Springtime now, the trees and plants were just starting to show their first leaves and in a spot of sunlight I saw these blueberries. Making some reference pictures was only natural and I made a watercolour as soon as I had the time to do so.

For this watercolour I have used my masking fluid to preserve the light leaves against the dark background. Both the forest floor and the backlit bushes behind the small plants were much darker and I wanted to show the fresh green of the plants in springtime.

The background and forest floor were painted first, the masking fluid removed and then I painted the blueberries. After I had finished them, I added more detail to the forest floor, which was full of dried autumn leaves, small branches and other 'forest debris'.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size of this watercolour painting, its availability and price are all in my Tumblr blog.

Zondags gaat zij naar de kerk...

 

The April challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about a book with silverwork on it. The inspiration for the challenge was an exposition about silver in the museum in Schoonhoven, our centre of Silver industry (jewellers etc)

There is also a nursery rhyme with that book with silverwork on it about a young woman who always feels ill, but never on a Sunday, then she will go to church with the book full of silver.

So I painted that book - probably a book with both the Bible and some Hymns in it - with an old-fashioned purse with a silver clasp and for the modern touch I added a disposable mouth mask. All of that is on a table waiting for the walk to church.

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

Sonic Screwdrivers, assorted

 

The last Weekly Challenge of this season is all about 'Britain' so I had to think of something original to inspire me. I do definitely not want to make the same kind of painting most other contestants will submit so I did not paint Stonehenge, Big Ben, the Monster of Loch Ness or any other obvious subject. 

Of course, there is no guarantee at all that I came up with an original idea for this painting, that will show in a week, when the results are published.

There are and have been lots of things British in my life and one of my childhood memories is the Fourth Doctor. When Doctor Who was reintroduced several years ago my children and me were watching every Sunday evening. We stopped that after my children moved out.

Searching for reference images on the internet I have chosen to paint the Sonic Screwdrivers of the Fourth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctor as they are the ones I remember the most.

This is a very simple still life, I started painting on the left side of my paper and added the other two screwdrivers one by one. I decided to stop there and the way they are distributed over the paper plane made me decide on the title which suggests an advertisement for sale the items.

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

Dreaming of... visiting a museum

 

What would I do first after our lockdown restrictions are over? I think I would love to visit a museum, there is a nice exposition about trees in the museum nearby and I want to see those paintings. 

The twelfth week of the Weekly Lockdown Challenge (Artists&Illustrators Magazine) with the theme 'Going Out' inspired me to think about the subject and paint this watercolour.

Because we still have a lockdown and the museums are closed, I chose to paint a dream-like scene about a visit to the museum. 

The visitors are not really there, they are only dreaming. Or are they ghost-visitors, and is the museum itself dreaming about better days? I don't know, I only painted it.

The visitors were added after I painted the museum wall with the paintings that are in the exposition using white watercolour paint. White watercolour paint is not very opaque, so the original painting is still visible - as I wanted it to be. The pencil lines of the sketch could not be erased completely, so these have become part of the 'ghost' images of the visitors.

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

North Sea Coast, Ouddorp

 

This week we had really warm days - when we had to work - and some cooler days - when we were free from work. On one of those cooler days this weekend we (my husband and me) went for a walk in the dunes and along the beach near Ouddorp (Netherlands).

It was a grey day, lots of clouds, a cold wind but no rain and not many other people around so walking was nice. The landscape is also great as we passed by some creeks just behind the dunes, the dunes themselves with their specific vegetation and walking back along the beach. There were no large waves as the wind did not come from the west and we think it was near low tide.

The only birds we saw at the waterline were oystercatchers and some seagulls, most birds were at the creek we passed earlier during our walk - more sheltered from the winds by the dunes and some trees.

There were some irregular spots at the waterline, as if there had been dunes a long time ago. A bit further on the beach there were reconstruction works going on, adding sand to the beach so we will stay protected from the sea as good as possible.

I made some reference pictures with that irregular spot as my subject and used these for a large watercolour painting. There is only sea and shore in my painting - and two very very small oystercatchers at the end of the small stretch of land that had some grasses growing on top (only to be seen with the camera zoomed in to the maximum). Unfortunately the beach was too wet to walk out there and see the details so I made the best of the reference pictures and my memory.

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