Amaryllis - a pencil drawing

 

Each winter we buy an Amaryllis bulb so we can have (with some luck) a beautiful flower at Christmas. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later and sometimes not at all, when there are no flowers growing from the bulb. This winter we were lucky, the bulb had some beautiful flowers in white with some pink lines and I made some reference pictures.

Now, two months later, I made this drawing, using one of the reference pictures. As the flower was white, I selected a sheet of tinted cardboard in a beautiful colour and started drawing, using the white pencil for the outlines ant the first details. 

Where the petals overlap, I used less white, allowing the colour of the cardboard to shine through for the shadow colour. The green in the heart of the flower was added, the shades of pink were drawn in and I started to create the right shades of white, pink, green and the shadows to create the flower. Of course the stamens and pistil were added as well.

The second flower was drawn after that, but I did not add all details to make it less important than the first. The stem and some leaves also had to be there to prevent the flowers from 'floating'. These are also not as detailed as the flower facing the viewer.

To protect it all a light spray of fixative was used.

Making a picture of the drawing was a challenge this time. The dark background reflects all light sources so I had to find a place in my home without a dominant light source (not close to a window that meant for me). This picture of my drawing is the best I could get today.

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

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

In the 'Soester Duinen' - 2 (Netherlands)

 

The first week of January my husband and me were free from work, so we had a very short vacation dedicated to walking in our beautiful nature. The first walk we made was in the 'Soester Duinen' and I have posted some works inspired by that walk in the past few weeks. This is another beautiful view we had during the signposted walk around the area of shifting sand. This area is a Geological Monument because of that shifting sand.

During our walk, the weather changed a bit and instead of the clear blue sky we started with our walk ended under clouds. This view is towards the East, away from the sun so the trees are not back lit. They still are dark, as winter trees often are. The sand was almost grey and  a bit more brownish under the birch trees, where the remains of fallen leaves and small branches were still visible. 

This view inspired me to make a picture to be used as reference for a painting. This time the colour of the sand was the biggest challenge, but I managed to get it right very soon - mixing a brown and a blue did the trick here. The sand is not an evenly spread surface, there really are small dunes or differences in height and that was one of the things that inspired me. Painting this was nice, keeping the sand light where no shadow was found and suggesting the smaller dunes.

The result is what I hoped it would be.

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 do contact me if you are interested in my work.

Shoes - for a challenge

 

The February challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about Shoe happiness. Are we happy with our shoes or do we buy new ones in pursuit of that elusive happiness? That is what the challenge is about and we (many of us are women) have to make it visible.

Personally I love beautiful shoes, like the red one, but sometimes you just need something a bit more robust like the blue ones. Of course there is a superlative degree, even in shoes but I do not go hiking in mountains, so I do not have an example for my drawing.

For this mixed media work I first made the watercolour under painting and after that had dried I drew the outline of the red shoe, the drawing is life-size. Using watercolour markers, pencils and a fine liner I tried to show the different materials used for the red shoe. After that the blue shoe was added - again life size and the same materials were used to draw it. The results are not doing justice to the originals, but this was the best I could do with the materials I decided to use.

Who cares? If I do not show the reference shoes, this is a nice mixed media drawing of two very different shoes that can make the wearer very happy on different occasions. 

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