What remains...

 

During our short stay in the Northern part of Germany we spent one day visiting the dolmens in that area and making several pictures of these ancient structures.

Most of the dolmens we saw were surrounded by trees, even though there was some open space - sometimes even a fence - around the stones, but I wanted to paint one of these dolmens without the nice springtime mood that these trees were bringing to my pictures. The inspiration to make a painting in a misty autumnal mood came during my painting vacation, but that week was too short to make all the paintings I wanted too.

So I imagined the dolmen standing alone, in an empty area as if the trees are yet to grow and I created a misty autumn day. The sky is grey, but not too dark - we have these days in autumn - and the ground is dark as well, only greys and earth colours.

While painting, I did not look at my reference picture any more (I had used it for my preliminary drawing) and worked from memory, creating dark and light areas on the stones, creating cracks that in reality are not there (yet) and suggesting some kind of structure in the ground the dolmen is standing on. That last bit was the most challenging, as I did not want to introduce any bushes or other greens. Finally I decided on the possibility of a circle around the dolmen and some indications of the small hill it sits on.

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.

Shadow Play

 

During our painting vacation, the weather was nice and dry, but really hot. Too hot to make two watercolour paintings a day, so some afternoons were used for other things, like drawing in the shadow.

This work is all about drawing the shadows. I took a place under a walnut tree and tried to draw the shadows of the leaves using my Conté Sketching Crayons. There was some wind, so it was not easy. After the first, dark layer I added a second and a third layer, each one a lighter shade. The final layer was just the outline of the shadows in white.

After I had done this drawing, I changed to another tree:

My colour scheme for this drawing was more simple, only one black and the final layer in grey.

With the first sketches on paper I asked our teacher and coach Ad van Aart how to continue because this was a first time for me. He advised me to add colour to the layers in the first drawing and to work on the composition of the second one.

The first shadow play is now stronger in colour, the shapes are better defined and the white lines are visible and a bit intriguing now.

The second shadow play is more balanced now the shapes are connected and the grey shapes are more scattered over the whole sheet of paper.

This was a first time for me, but I really wanted to do this at least once. In fact I love the result and knowing what to do to make the composition stronger / better I will certainly try this again, with different shadows and perhaps different drawing materials.

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

Misty landscape

 

For the last day of my painting vacation our teacher and coach Ad van Aart asked me to make another misty scene, this time with some reference pictures. After searching on the Internet, I found some nice misty landscapes that are not so close to where I live so I could not have seen these myself. 

It was still hot, so I started with a wet paper, painting a background colour and adding the structures in the background as soon as possible with a very thin mixture of a grey shade. Adding the rest of the landscape in darker shades of grey layer by layer was not easy as the paper dried very fast, but I managed to get a credible result. 

The next stage was the lake and the mist coming from the water, but I have painted the reflections as the landscape that is painted has to reflect in the water and the waves or ripples are also only suggested, not copied from any of the pictures I used for inspiration.

My landscape does not look like the references I have used as my inspiration any more. The high temperatures and the short drying time of my paint and paper forced me to improvise and create a landscape that could be existing somewhere.

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.

Tree roots - a charcoal drawing

 

The days of my painting vacation were not completely filled with my watercolour paintings, in the afternoons I occasionally had a few hours for something different. Of course I wanted to stay close to my chosen subject (the forest) so one afternoon our teacher and coach Ad van Aart  asked me to make a drawing of the complex roots of a large oak tree that was on the terrain of our residence.

With this drawing I had to fill the whole page as good as possible and create a work that was as close to abstract as the subject could get me. I did make a drawing as accurately as possible, filling the page with the roots of the tree and only the roots. So no little branches, no grasses in the background and even not the little mouse that came looking what I was doing in front of its home.

Making this drawing was nice, I could sit on a small chair in the shadows of the tree - it was a very hot day - and concentrate on what I did see and what I wanted to draw without having to worry about drying paint, colour choices and other difficulties. The result is even better than what I thought I could make, so I am very happy that Ad challenged me to do this.

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

The Forest Floor

 

After I had painted different seasonal moods using only one reference picture it was time for something different, still based on the 'forest' theme. 

Together with our teacher and coach Ad van Aart I selected a step-by-step tutorial about painting the forest floor in Pastel to use as my guideline for this watercolour painting. The result does not look much like the reference in the tutorial. What I have taken from the reference are a background, trees, a light spot and some growing plants on the forest floor. Making a watercolour painting is very different from making a pastel painting, so the step-by-step instructions could not be followed by me.

Because of the light spot. I had to decide the direction of the light to place my shadows and the dark sides of the trees. Some shadows are not included, these are behind the unevenness in the forest floor. 

The result is a mostly imaginary landscape and I am really happy with it. The experience of painting a landscape, using a reference only as a guideline was a nice one and I love to repeat this way of working in the future.

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 - four different moods

 During my painting vacation our teacher and coach Ad van Aart invites us all to find a theme for the week and try to improve our skills in drawing or painting using that theme. My theme was painting the forest and I wanted to improve my skills in painting different moods. To achieve that a reference picture was selected with only a forest ground and trees in it. The trees are much taller than the paintings and the forest ground is not really that empty, but it is very close to the reference. The different moods are created using different colour schemes. 

The first painting was not the first made, but as there were more paintings, we started to create a sequence - without much success as there are many possibilities here.

So the seasonal sequence is used in this blog post and this one, with some dark greens where the branches might be and on the forest floor is the end of Summer.

This second painting, with shades of yellow where the branches might be and on the forest floor is Autumn. In fact, this one was painted without blue colours as I wanted to investigate that possibility. Brown and blue is a combination I have used before so I wanted to try something different. The result is a gentle Autumn mood.

The third painting of this blog post was to be a November mist day, as we have often in The Netherlands. This was quite a challenge as I painted trees, made them fade with water, dried this all and repeated this two more times before painting the big dark (wet trees are very dark) trees in the foreground. I noticed that I have lost the trees of the background, the first layer, in the process. Then I realised that during one of these misty days this is exactly what happens - the trees that are a bit further away ar not visible any more. So I think this is what had to happen in the painting too.

The fourth painting is Winter, the dark shade of blue that is chosen for the background does suggest that time of the year.

Painting this series of four moods was a nice challenge. It was great to see the difference a shade of blue or yellow could make and these four paintings are an important part of my learning process of the painting week.

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

Now and later, waiting...

 

My painting vacation was great fun again and I have learned a lot. My subject this time was all about painting a forest landscape and I have been working hard all week.

The first day however was more about the direct surroundings of our location in Berg en Dal (Netherlands) with 'blind contour drawing' in the morning and painting in the afternoon. After I had found my work spot for the week - under trees, lots of shadow and a cool wind from time to time - I painted the view from that spot, a tree trunk, a bench and a tree. The foreground was a typical forest floor: grasses, leaves, acorns (there were oak trees), all dry because of the lack of rain in the past month.

At first the painting was higher, a portrait format, but the background was too empty. Our teacher and coach Ad van Aart had advised me to keep the background empty and fill it in later. So I added some branches and foliage above in the painting and that was too much. So the best solution to the problem was to cut off the upper part of the paper and create an almost square painting, as it is now. 

For this painting we picked the subject and composition, I made the painting and then we investigated how we could improve the result. In this case we just needed to cut off the excess empty space to get a good painting.

These first days on location are always an investigation of 'what shall we do this week and how shall we do it' so I did not expect much of this watercolour painting. The road towards  the final result of this day is more important than the painting itself. I have learned a lot in that short afternoon and used that the rest of the week.

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.

Sunset in Hoek van Holland (Netherlands)

 

Summer is the time to go to the beach and when the weather is good, it is nice to stay until sunset (or later) and drive back home in times of 'not much traffic on the road'. My husband took our two young guests to the beach of Hoek van Holland and made me some reference pictures of the sunset while the young ones were enjoying themselves with beach things.

The reference picture only had shades of yellow, gold, orange and brown so I wanted to make a painting using only those colours. The result is a nice sunset scene with colours that are not often seen in The Netherlands - usually there is some grey or blue visible in the sky and sea.

As this was in Hoek van Holland, the Pier and the radar post at the end of the Pier are also included and far away there is a large ship, barely visible.

Painting a realistic seascape using this limited palette was new for me, but I am really pleased with the result.

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.

Small mushroom in summer - a pencil drawing

 

During our latest walk in the forests near Rucphen (Netherlands) we noticed a small brown mushroom and of course I made some reference pictures. The little brown mushroom was standing on the dry forest floor, between pine needles, broken branches and old mosses. Some fallen leaves were there as well, they did give some colour to the forest floor at that spot.

The single mushroom was a bit too small for a watercolour painting, so I took my pencils and made a drawing on a small size sheet of paper.

For my birthday I was given a full box (a beautiful wooden box) with all 72 colours of the watercolour pencils I usually use for my drawings and I enjoyed the new colours I could use now. 

Again I have not used any water to bring out the watercolour qualities of my pencils because I love the way my paper still shows in the areas where I have not applied many layers of pencil. The hood and stem of the mushroom are saturated with colour, mixing my colours on the paper to get the result I am after.

Buying another set of pencils just for dry drawing seems to me a waste of money and materials, I know exactly what I can do with these pencils and I like the results I get. As an extra I can also use them wet if the drawing I am working on needs it.

The type of mushroom is unknown to me and determination is difficult (I tried and failed), so it's just a small mushroom this time.

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