Dolmen, evening mood

 

The prompt in the Sketch A Day app was 'evening' so I planned to make a nice watercolour as it was weekend, so I would have time for a painting.

Of course it had to be a landscape and looking through my reference pictures for a scene that could be changed to an evening mood painting I saw the pictures I made of the Dolmens in North Germany. I decided to use one of these.

Using only the dolmen and the horizon line to begin with I made a nice evening sky and when that had dried I painted the ground and let that dry naturally like I did with the sky.

Then the stones, leaving a small area unpainted for the evening light on the top stones. That small line was filled later with the oranges I have also used for the sky.

The 'to begin with' was in fact enough, the result really pleased me and I decided not to add any other landscape elements like trees or a path.

So this is the result: Dolmen, evening mood.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this work and - if you are interested in my original artwork -my contact information can all be found in my Flickr account.

Dolmen - five works

 

The second project in my painting vacation was a dolmen, capstone and supporting stones or at least what is left of the structure.

The first thing I made was the pencil drawing as a study for the composition and to get an idea of the structure of the different stones. After that came the Conté drawing on Terracotta paper as a 'mood' study.

Then out teacher and coach Ad van Aart suggested a second Conté drawing, with less stones for a better composition. That is the one on the grey paper.

After that study I reduced the amount of smaller stones to three and made a watercolour painting in natural colours. The grey-blue and the earth colours ate what is to be expected in a landscape.

There was more to be tried with this scene so I reduced the supporting stones to the absolute minimum of two - as suggested by Ad - changed the direction of the paper from 'landscape' to 'portrait' and used colours from the 'Twilight series' of my palette.

The results are what I hoped for. As mentioned in my previous post, this week I intended to paint the spiritual feeling that a dolmen is holy ground and my watercolours really reflect that feeling.

The information about the materials I have used, the sizes and availabilities of these works and - if you are interested in my original artworks - my contact information can all be found in my Flickr account.

Capstone - three works

 

This painting vacation I wanted to explore the spiritual aspect of some ancient sites. Dolmens are burial grounds and can thus be considered holy ground. Sometimes I can feel that, especially when there are no other people around.

The first reference I have used is a picture of the unbroken capstone of the Ahlhorner Kellersteine II that I made about four years ago. I have not used that reference before.

Our teacher and coach Ad van Aart advised me to start with a pencil drawing to 'explore' the structure of the stone, its shadows and light spots. That pencil drawing is the third picture from above.

I continued with dark charcoal, now exploring that spiritual energy of the site and ended with a light within the stone. Another light is above the stone in the clouded sky, as if the sun shines through very dark clouds.

The third work is a watercolour where I was challenged to let the light radiate from the stone. 

The stone was simplified more and more in each step.

The information about the materials I used for each work, their sizes and availabilities and - if you are interested in my original artwork - my contact information can all be found in my Flickr account.

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.

Visbeker Bräutigam (934)

 

 

During our short stay in the North of Germany we used one of our days there to visit dolmens and the 'Visbeker Bräutigam' was a pleasant surprise. Not one, not two but five dolmens in different shapes and sizes were to be seen. The one that gives the name to the site is a long one, very impressive. There is one dolmen that is as good as completely destroyed, one that is still buried in its mound and two others. All information is found through the added link to Wikipedia.

The dolmen I painted this time is number 934, sometimes named 'Brautjungfer' or bridesmaid. The names are taken from the legend that connects this site to another one.

The reference picture did not include all of the dolmen, but an important part of it is visible. These dolmens are a bit large for a good picture in the woods, surrounded by trees and more dolmens so I have made the best I could get.

Before I started painting, I made a detailed drawing of the placement of the stones, I had to get the perspective right - and keep it right while painting. The trees in the background hide the highway and the forest floor is still covered with the fallen leaves of last autumn. We were here in Springtime when the beech trees were not yet having all their foliage and these leaves were still a fresh, yellowish green. 

For the stones I took my time, that is my subject and should look good. Many of the stones are covered in moss so I had to mind their shapes very well or they would have been a large greenish shape without any definition at all. Here the drawing - and the fact that I painted each stone separately - helped to get the result I wanted.

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

Ahlhorner Kellersteine II - a charcoal drawing

 

A few months ago we (my husband and me) were for a short vacation in the North of Germany, where we visited the beautiful landscape but also went to see the dolmens in that area. We followed the guidelines of the 'Strasse der Megalithkultur' and we did see a lot of these beautiful sites.

One of the sites we visited was the site of the Ahlhorner Kellersteine and of the two dolmens at that site I have painted only one. So today I have made the second one the subject of my work.

As it was already afternoon I did not have time to stretch and dry a piece of watercolour paper so I decided to make a charcoal drawing instead. There were two reference pictures, one from the side and one directly from the front, looking down into the inner chamber of the dolmen with the broken cover stone in a nice angle in front of the chamber. 

For the drawing I have only used my charcoal, so no watercolour under painting, no added colour using pencils, just the black and white of charcoal and paper. Of course I would have added some pencil work if the drawing needed it, but it is good as it is now and I am happy with the result.

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

Ahlhorner Kellersteine I - watercolour painting

 

While we were on our short vacation I did not take painting materials with me as the conditions in a vacation home are not great for painting. So the reference picture I made of the first one of the Ahlhorner Kellersteine was used for a graphite drawing while I was on vacation. There are two dolmens at this site, the other one will probably be painted later, there are several reference pictures.

Now I am back home, I can use my studio again so I took advantage of a free afternoon to make a watercolour painting using both the picture and the drawing as my references.

This scene needed a bit of negative painting with all those birch trees, both behind and in front of the dolmen. I decided to suggest the branches, foliage and some of the trees behind the dolmen instead of trying to paint all of them. A graphite drawing is very different from a watercolour painting and these suggestions give better, more painterly results than trying to include every little detail of the forest surrounding the dolmens. 

The result is what I hoped it would be so I am confident that I can draw or paint some of the dolmens we visited during our short vacation in the North of Germany.

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.

Ahlhorner Kellersteine I (Germany) - graphite drawing

 

Our vacation home last week was close to a route that connected over 33 sites with dolmen, standing stones and grave hills. The route is 330 kilometres long, so we did only visit some sites that were close to where we were staying. On the road back we also passed by several sites with dolmen, so we had our share of history last week.

One of these sites, the Ahlhorner Kellersteine I and II are located in a forest area, with a nice footpath leading there.

Of course lots of (reference) pictures were made and that afternoon, in our vacation home I made a graphite drawing, using my new box of pencils and graphite sticks.

My reference picture was made from underneath some trees, so the dolmen was seen in between the trees, not in an open area as most pictures show them. Of course I wanted something different.

Drawing all those trees meant a bit of planning but I am happy with the result. Maybe I will use this as a study for a watercolour painting.

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