Along the river Waal - Conté drawing

 

Over the years I have collected a lot of different drawing materials and I don't use these as often as I should. So this year I intend to experiment with these materials a bit more, using free hours during the week to make a quick drawing or sketch or...  Making a drawing or sketch does not take the preparations that have to be made for a watercolour painting, so I can decide I want to work on my drawing skills when I have an unexpected hour for myself.

This scene is along the river Waal (Netherlands) at the spot where we came for inspiration during the painting vacation last summer. As I have written before, I have made several sketches during the time we were there and I am using these sketches now, months later for watercolour paintings or experiments with my materials.

For this drawing I have selected a nice blue sheet of tinted cardboard and used a white, a grey and a black Conté Crayon as my drawing materials. The blue cardboard is not exactly the right colour so I had to add some grey and white for ta better depiction of the summer sky and I used all three colours for the river, as the waves have a darker shadow. The riverbanks are done with all three colours and I hope I have been able to show some of the shadows in the bushes and trees. I know I need more practice before these shadows are what I want them to be.

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

View in Zwijndrecht (Netherlands)

 

This week I decided to make another reference picture for the contest of Project Rembrandt, this time from my mother's home. She lives on the eighth floor so the views usually are great. The Great Church of Dordrecht is in the painting, but there are a lot of buildings in front of it, both in Dordrecht and in Zwijndrecht.

The subject of the contest was a skyline or street view in black and white, emphasizing the dark-and-light contrast. That is what I have tried here, using only a black watercolour paint and the white of my paper. 

The Great Church is the most distant building. It is made in bricks and relatively dark against the sky, as the buildings in front of it are made of concrete, so they have a lighter colour. There are some more rows of buildings, mostly houses that are too far away for details. More near the standing point of the viewer is a line of (bare, it still is winter) trees and in front of those are rows of houses and some detached houses in the foreground. These have the darkest shades, the rooftops are almost black. There was a bit of sunlight reflected in the rooftop windows, giving a nice contrast. I have also indicated the fields, hedgerows and a small pathway on the left. 

The result is what I hoped it would be and I made this painting my second entry for the contest.

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.

Skyline of Dordrecht - charcoal drawing

 

Not every weekly challenge in the 'Project Rembrandt Thuisopdracht' program is suitable for me. Sometimes it is about the paint that has to be used, sometimes the subject does not inspire me. This time I am inspired and I set out as soon as possible to make a reference picture of a skyline and make a tonal drawing. 

As Rembrandt himself was a master in dark-and-light, we are also challenged to make a dark-and-light drawing of a skyline (or city view, village view, even a farm view if nothing else is near) near the place we live using pencils, charcoal or Indian Ink. My choice is charcoal. 

The skyline of my own home village is not so exiting, mostly trees and low buildings, so I went to the river to make reference pictures of Dordrecht in the morning sun. Later that day it would turn grey and rainy, a good time to be indoors and make my charcoal drawing.

To find a spot with some depth was not so easy, most of the view of Dordrecht is from the other side of the river and that results in a very straight line, except  where the small harbours are situated. For this contest I selected the more modern part of the skyline of Dordrecht, as the Great Church has been painted by better painters than I am.

Keeping my paper white was a challenge and I cheated a bit with an eraser at some points, but I managed to get very light, very dark and several middle tones. The sky was blue, but darker than some parts of the concrete buildings and the river was in the shadows, so it was darker than the sky and several of the buildings. The darkest buildings have outer walls made of bricks (the inner walls are concrete in our country and between these two walls is a thin layer of insulation).

This drawing may not be what I intended to make, but I really am happy with it. It's 'a real Janneke' and I just have to keep in mind that this is how I draw landscapes. 

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

A Leporello booklet

 

This time, Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken had found a new way to challenge us.
In the last weeks of January we all received a parcel with some watercolour paper, some materials, two art cards and an instruction. 

We had to try the materials ( a pencil, a line marker and a brush marker) first on the smallest piece of paper. There were also a folded card and a leporello of six pages in the parcel.

Next we had to pick one of the art cards, look at it for about a minute, put it away and start drawing on the first page of the leporello, inspired by the art card. The second day we had to use the second art card in the same way for inspiration and the other four pages of the leporello booklet had to be filled in four other days and we were free to choose our subjects. We only had to add something every day, that could be some materials, colours or addition to the image.

With these instructions I started working, but I did not spread the work over six days... It took me two days to finish this.

The first art card in my parcel was a picture of a flower, I made the flower and the bee - mostly because of the colour of the brush marker that was in my parcel. The second art card was a drawing of a church organ and that made me think of music or sound. So more bees were added, as many bees make a nice buzzing sound. The third had to be the honey - the words are in Dutch: 'bloemen honing' means 'flower honey'. As I used only half the space of the label, only half the words are visible.

Using the pencil I connected the images on all three pages.

The other side was for a tree branch - no surprise here - and again I used the pencil to connect the pages, even though I have made only one image. From left to right I have added more colours and some of my own materials (another liner marker and more brush markers) so what started as a black and grey drawing ends in colour. To connect both sides there are some very small bees that are interested in the blossoms. The bees also have a bit of the colour of the brush marker from the parcel.

I have not yet used the folded card, we are to make our own art card to send to a special person and for that I have not yet found the inspiration. That will come, sooner or later. The challenge was about the leporello book and that is finished.

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

My left hand - a charcoal sketch

 

For the third year now there is a contest on television called 'Project Rembrandt' to find the best amateur painters in The Netherlands. This year I want to try to work on the side contest for those that are not in the program but like to paint at home, the Project Rembrandt Thuisopdracht. Not all home contests are suitable for me, I do not paint with oils or acrylics, so I will only try those that need pencils, charcoal or other media that I can use.

This week the subject was 'hands' and we are instructed to sketch our own hand using pencils or charcoal. As I am right-handed, I sketched my left hand.

In the television program the contestants had to sketch a model in fifteen minutes, concentrating on proportions. Looking at the proportions was also part of the instruction for the painters at home. We were encouraged to lay one hand on the paper and draw around it for a start and then add shadows and lines where these are visible.

That is what I did, using a charcoal pencil. I made an outline of my hand and then started to add the lines of the joints and some shadows. The lines in the open hand are added as well and on the left I added the blood vessels and tendons that are visible on the back of my hand. Both sketches took about fifteen minutes.

This drawing is also submitted for the contest, but as I am one of many contestants  participating is the most important thing in this contest.

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