Holly

 

Last weekend we (my husband and me) went for a nice signposted walk in the 'Kalmthoutse Heide', a beautiful Natural Reserve on the border between Belgium and The Netherlands, not too far from where we live. 

Very soon after I left the car, my attention was caught by a nice holly bush with lots of red berries. Of course I made some reference pictures and added some more holly reference pictures during our walk.

The holly inspired me to paint, so that is what I did. Mixing greens for a background, adding violet for contrast was the first step. After that had dried I used a watercolour pencil for the drawing of the holly branches and then I had to paint them.

At first, I wanted to add a special effect I had seen in an online short video, but after the background was made I decided otherwise. That special effect will be used once, in another painting. The green of the leaves was mixed with a blue, a yellow and sometimes a touch of violet for the darker areas. It was fun to create all these colours and to let the leaves at the edges of the painting fade away into the background.

The red berries were the finishing touch, a nice contrast with the green of the leaves and background, just as they were when they caught my attention.

This watercolour will not be used for a Christmas card this year - I already have them waiting for the right moment to send - but painting these leaves and berries did get me in a nice festive mood, forgetting the grey weather for a few hours.

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

If you are interested in my work, please contact me.

Shards bring good luck...

 

The November challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is 'Scherven brengen geluk' which translates as 'Shards bring good luck' - a saying that means that after bad moments (shards) always better ones will come (good luck).

Inspiration did not come at once, but after some thinking I remembered the Japanese 'Kintsugi' tradition of repairing broken cups, plates, saucers, bowls etc with gold.

So I searched for a nice reference picture of a saucer - mostly to help me find the right places for the shadows - and used that for my work.

The saucer is painted in watercolour and the cracks are a combination of watercolour paint and a metallic pencil. After having finished this, I made a photocopy, cut out the shards I had indicated and placed these around the painted saucer. Using a pencil I marked the outlines of these paper shards. I used my pencils for the shards, so the difference is visible.

This still life was a change for me, I usually paint or draw landscape related subjects, but  did enjoy the challenge.

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

If you are interested in my work, please contact me.

'Les Hautes Fagnes' - Fagne de Poleur

 

During our short vacation in The Ardennes (Belgium) we made a signposted walk in the Natural Reserve area "Hautes Fagnes" that led us past the various views that area has to offer. From our starting point at the Baraque Michel we first walked to the 'Fagne de Poleur' named after one of the many rivers that spring in this moor. 

This part of the walk had some trees and bushes and a nice treeline on the horizon and I made several pictures so I will stay inspired to paint for weeks to come. This is one of the views we had, a bit of the moor can be seen behind the trees and bushes in the foreground. As this Natural Reserve is very wet and partly re-flooded for conservation of the peat moor there are only small trees and bushes that may die early because of all the water. 

For my painting I have used my reference picture as my inspiration. The horizon and trees are placed almost according to the reference and I have tried to show the variation in grasses and reeds that attracted me to this view in the first place. Because of the damp atmosphere (it had been raining the day before) the trees look almost black. In this time of the year there are some leaves left on the trees, but most of them have fallen yet and cannot easily be seen between the grasses and reeds.

The result of my work is what I had hoped for, a nice autumn scene in a very unique piece of nature.

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

Please contact me if you are interested in my work.

Winter fantasy - Ondenval

 

During our short vacation in the small village of Ondenval (Ardennes, Belgium) I was looking for inspiration for the Christmas card for this year and I asked my husband for a picture of the church of the village, taken from a path we were walking at that time.

The picture was made with the camera, so the focus was on the village - not on the surrounding hills, forest areas and fields as my phone-camera would have done. 

The church had to be the subject for the card, so I selected a nice part of the reference picture for my painting. For a Christmas card the season had to be changed, so I added some snow, dropped the foliage of the trees and bushes and added light to the church windows.

The browns for the trees are chosen because there are no evergreen trees in this part of the village so there will be no green in winter time. In this village the roofs of the buildings are made with slate and the buildings are made using bricks and natural stones, all in shades of brown. That gives me a nice limited palette to work with, which I really like very much.

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.

Please contact me if you are interested in my work.