Fields and a forest edge

 

This scene is what I wanted to paint when I made some reference pictures during our nice signposted walk near Bathmen. The second reference picture, about the details of the building has already been used for a drawing and this was meant to be a watercolour.

The building is still visible in the forest edge but as this is 'the whole landscape' and not a detail, the atmosphere is more open, with the fields in the foreground. At the end of winter, there are not many details in a field of grass, so the fields are mostly green with a few shadows. Later in the year there will be grasses that are higher, other herbs growing and some bumps in the field where animals have been rooting the ground.

The large trees are still bare, just like the little bush in the foreground. The whole fence is visible now, not much more than I had in my drawing.

Making this watercolour was as pleasant as the walk itself and did bring back the memory of this nice, open landscape not very far from the river IJssel.

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.

In the forest edge

 

A few weeks ago we were on a very short vacation and made a nice signposted walk near Bathmen. During that walk I have made several reference pictures and this is the second one I am using for a drawing. In fact, the picture used for this drawing was an extra reference, zoomed in on the building in the forest edge. I planned to make a watercolour painting with the sky and much more of the surrounding landscape visible and thought I might need some extra information on the building.

Today I had some free hours and wanted to make a drawing, using my Conté and a sheet of coloured cardboard. There was a nice green colour for the background so I decided to use the 'zoomed in' picture with only trees, grass, the building and a bit of the fence.

Like I did in an earlier drawing, I limited myself to three colours of Conté with the shade of the paper as my fourth colour.

These drawings are a bit of an experiment, as I am still learning how to use the Conté Crayons on different surfaces. Of course I want to end with a nice drawing with a good colour scheme even though the colour of the paper is an important part of the result. Or is it 'because' the colour of the paper is so very important instead of 'even though'? Maybe the last, because I am a watercolour painter and we watercolourists are used to let the white of the paper be an important part of the result.

About this drawing I can only say that it was fun to make and the result is what I hoped for.

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

Lily

 

Last week some beautiful flower bouquets were given to me (for my birthday) and after a few days an orange lily in one of these bouquets opened its first flower. 

Looking at the lily from behind, with light shining through the petals I decided to make a reference picture and paint this beautiful flower. Of course there are more buds and some leaves in the picture and I just liked painting these.

The buds are turning orange from green and the leaves have the orange colour of the petals reflected on them. I have set myself a challenge but I wanted to do this as good as possible.

For this composition I chose only the top part of the flower, where it comes out of the vase. Both flower buds in the upper part of the painting are growing from the stem I have painted, but the spot where they get a separate stem is hidden behind the leaves. I was looking for that spot, until I realised where it was.

After I decided on the composition I made a line drawing, using the picture as my reference and started painting, layering the colours of both the flowers and the leaves and saving the highlights by not painting these areas. In the end I just pulled over a bit of clean water, so the colour of the buds or leaves would be visible on the highlighted area.

The background is not painted at all, mostly because the lily almost fills the whole paper.

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

When I smell spring...

 

New month, new challenge by 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' with a nice spring theme . 

As there are several writers in our amateur art association, that do not paint or draw,  in this challenge we had to include some text so the writers could also participate in one of the challenges.

My text is in Dutch of course, but the English translation (according to Google Translate) is:

When I smell spring...

Do I want to go out

looking for the flowers

the tender leaves on the trees

and shrubs.

Back home I go to my studio

drawing and painting

delicate shapes   delicate colours

It's a party outside and inside.

Of course I had to draw and paint, so I added some daffodils, using white gouache, watercolour paints and some watercolour pencils. The text is written with a Calli Brush pen and the flowers are added later, hiding some of the writing. This is what I wanted to achieve, so the result is my submission for this challenge.

Maybe I will experiment more with written text and painting in the future, I really liked working on this one.

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

Forest Edge

 

During our short stay in the Eastern part of our country, we also found a nice signposted walk near Bathmen. The walk was very informative about the history of this area as we passed several old buildings, some former barnyards and the stream that was used for transportation. There also were patches of what once were forest areas and near one of these forest edges we stopped for our lunch and to make some reference pictures.

For this work I have made a graduated watercolour under painting on smooth paper. Once this had dried, I started drawing the trees and the shadows on the ground with charcoal. After that I used my Graphitint pencils for the green grasses and mosses on the ground. A white Graphitint pencil was used for the sunlit sides of the trees. Some extra white was created with an eraser. 

The bright colours of the Graphitint Pencils only showed after I had used the fixative that is needed to keep the charcoal in place, so the amount of pencil colour applied was an uncertain element, but the result is what I hoped it would be.

When I saw this forest edge, I knew that I wanted to make a mixed media work with charcoal and pencils. The scene is not really very exciting in itself, but I did see possibilities in the shadows and the patches of green moss under the large trees to make my work a bit more interesting.

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

High water near Deventer - a pencil drawing

 

We were on a short mini vacation (two nights in a hotel) in the beautiful old town of Deventer and as it is the end of winter, the water in the river IJssel was high. Some quays were flooded and on the other river bank a lot of land was flooded as well. These areas of land are designed to flood when the water is high so the towns and villages are protected.

We did go for a walk in the town, looking at wonderful old buildings and churches, but the narrow streets are not a great spot to make reference pictures. I wanted to paint or draw the skyline from the other side of the river so we went to make some reference pictures in the afternoon and I started drawing almost as soon as we got back in the hotel. On these very short trips I only bring my drawing materials, these are easy to work with and I can stop and start again when that is most convenient.

For this skyline drawing I decided to use graphite pencils for the buildings and my watercolour pencils for the nature that is in the scene. So the water, the trees in the town and in the foreground, the reeds and the strip of grassland that was not flooded are all in colour. 

The water reflected a very clear blue sky, but I have not made the sky blue in this drawing. The difference in the shades of blue are caused by the strong current of the river. The foreground is flooded grassland and there is not much current there. Many of the trees are standing in the water now, but that is not unusual in winter time, so they are expected to survive this. In fact the smallest branches were already changing colour to show that they are getting in springtime mood.

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