Our amateur art association 'Goed Gezien-Goed Bekeken' does not only have monthly challenges, in the summer months there is also a plein air painting day. This time we were in Groot-Ammers, in the garden of one of our members and we were encouraged to find inspiration either in that beautiful garden or in the surrounding landscape.
The surrounding landscape has the river Lek, the 'Ammerse Kaai' and a small road between two large ditches, a 'Tiendweg'. At one point along that 'Tiendweg' we (one of my fellow members of the association and me) had a great view over the polder landscape, dark clouds and some smaller ditches and we decided to paint that view. My friend used oil paint and I used my watercolours.
After we had set up and made our first sketches and painted the sky it started to rain. Not much, but enough to decide to return to the garden, where we could find shelter. Of course there was no more rain that afternoon, but we had the information we needed to paint on and so we did.
As that little old bridge was the inspiration for the painting, it had to be at a 'good' place in the composition, so I positioned the bridge where I wanted it to be and added the rest of the landscape around it. Despite the dark clouds above there was a lot of light coming from behind us so the bridge had a nice dark reflection in the water. The old fence in the foreground was included in the composition as there was a lot of grassland without much structure or details. The fence and the flowers were really there but I left them out at first, waiting for the results before I decided to add both fence and flowers. The painting needed this addition so I made it.
The result is what I hoped it would be and it is better than I expected especially after the rain had started.
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.
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