Fields and a forest edge

 

This scene is what I wanted to paint when I made some reference pictures during our nice signposted walk near Bathmen. The second reference picture, about the details of the building has already been used for a drawing and this was meant to be a watercolour.

The building is still visible in the forest edge but as this is 'the whole landscape' and not a detail, the atmosphere is more open, with the fields in the foreground. At the end of winter, there are not many details in a field of grass, so the fields are mostly green with a few shadows. Later in the year there will be grasses that are higher, other herbs growing and some bumps in the field where animals have been rooting the ground.

The large trees are still bare, just like the little bush in the foreground. The whole fence is visible now, not much more than I had in my drawing.

Making this watercolour was as pleasant as the walk itself and did bring back the memory of this nice, open landscape not very far from the river IJssel.

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.

Forest Edge

 

During our short stay in the Eastern part of our country, we also found a nice signposted walk near Bathmen. The walk was very informative about the history of this area as we passed several old buildings, some former barnyards and the stream that was used for transportation. There also were patches of what once were forest areas and near one of these forest edges we stopped for our lunch and to make some reference pictures.

For this work I have made a graduated watercolour under painting on smooth paper. Once this had dried, I started drawing the trees and the shadows on the ground with charcoal. After that I used my Graphitint pencils for the green grasses and mosses on the ground. A white Graphitint pencil was used for the sunlit sides of the trees. Some extra white was created with an eraser. 

The bright colours of the Graphitint Pencils only showed after I had used the fixative that is needed to keep the charcoal in place, so the amount of pencil colour applied was an uncertain element, but the result is what I hoped it would be.

When I saw this forest edge, I knew that I wanted to make a mixed media work with charcoal and pencils. The scene is not really very exciting in itself, but I did see possibilities in the shadows and the patches of green moss under the large trees to make my work a bit more interesting.

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 edge

 

Last week I had a warm but wonderful painting vacation on the edge of the village of Holthees, in the Netherlands. Our teacher and coach was Ad van Aart.

This year I wanted to work on my skills in painting water, from lakes to rivers, from reflections to waterfalls and this little trench on the edge of the forest near our residence of the week is my first project of the week.

We started as usual with some exercises in 'blind contour drawing' and I made some of this trench. I also made some reference pictures. The pictures did show a lot of light at the end of the trench, where reality did show more landscape. I like the light effect and decided to combine that element of my picture with the lines in my 'blind contour drawing'.

Of course I did return to the scene in the afternoon to check on the trees and bushes to make the forest ground beside the edges of the trench more lively. There were some grasses and herbs on the foreground - where I was standing - and I have suggested these as well.

Combining a very loose draing with a reference picture and reality was a nice challenge for me and I am happy with the advice given to me by our teacher Ad to improve my painting.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can be found in the link on the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com