Winter in the forest - a pen-and-ink drawing

 

My first pen-and-ink drawing since I started painting and drawing. 

Of course I have used line markers before, but always as a part of the materials needed for the desired result. I got a set of line markers in a 'goodie bag' and I decided to try them on some basic, smooth paper with a prompt from the Sketch A Day app.

The theme was 'Nature' and so it is no surprise that I made this wintery forest scene. 

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 Tumblr blog.

Forest Bath

 

The last day of my painting vacation had arrived and I wanted to make one more painting with an unexpected addition to the landscape. A forest scene was what I wanted to paint and then there was that 'What if...' moment again. What if I place a bath tub in the forest? Our teacher and coach Ad van Aart loved the idea and references for both the forest and a bath tub were found.

This time I had a vision of what I wanted to paint so I did not make any thumbnail sketches. The composition was sketched on the paper with the plan to paint the bath tub last, adding this unusual item to my forest scene.

Painting a birch forest in watercolour is a bit more challenging than any other forest - we have to keep the trees white and cannot paint them dark over a nice background - so that took some time and attention. I enjoyed every moment!

For the bath tub I selected a special set of colours so it would stand out between the natural colours of the forest. 

The result is what I hoped for. Not my usual kind of landscape, but I had a lot of fun painting this one.

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

Deep in the forest

This is a fantasy drawing, inspired by tales and myths.

In an old forest, hidden from sight lies an old abandoned house, with a low wall around it. When you venture into the forest and go where the path has become a small track used by some very brave or foolish animals, you might see the place. The answer to the question who once lived there is in the local ghost stories and myths.

I have tried to make a charcoal drawing with the atmosphere of an old tale. Because I wanted the viewer to tell the building and the wall around apart from the background, the scene is not as mysterious as I first planned. 

Sometimes I have to adjust my original plans in order to show what I want to.

If I had not done so, the whole scene would have consisted of shades of grey without any structure.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability are in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Au bord du lac / The house by the lake

In previous posts I have mentioned that I was taking part in a contest, organised by the French magazine 'Plaisirs de Peindre'. 
For that contest we could pick a sketch from twenty suggested ones and paint with that sketch as guideline. There were three equal rounds, each giving twenty new sketches and each ending with twenty 'finalists'.
At the end of the contest there were to be twenty winners. The number twenty that keeps coming back is of course because of the twentieth 'birthday' of the magazine.

I have entered in the first round without result and I have published my entered paintings short after I found out I did not end in the finals with them.
For the second round I have painted several paintings, published the ones I did not enter and waited for the results.    I ended in the finals with this painting!
After the third round the final results and the twenty winners would be published and I waited for that to publish my painting.
I am not one of the twenty winners, but my painting was published in the magazine announcing my place as a finalist. 
Of course I am very proud that I have got this far and I am ready to try again next time.

The sketch shows a house by a forest lake or pond, surrounded by trees and bushes and there is a reflection in the water. 
I have made the house an abandoned building, as they are seen very often in France or further south in Europe. The forest is green, as in early summer (or late springtime) so some of the background can be suggested behind the foliage.
There is almost no wind, so the reflection is close to being a mirror image.

While I was working on it, the mystery came into my painting and I welcomed it of course.
I think the abandoned house by the lake has a nice story and I think I can best leave that to your imagination. I can paint the atmosphere, telling the story is not one of my talents.

More information about this painting (size, materials used, availability, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Crossing....

The nature in our country is beautiful, but sometimes very wet. To be able to walk in these areas plank paths are constructed and maintained as part of the signposted walks.
Our last walk in 'Landgoed Visdonk' passed by one of those paths. The forest pond it crosses is a large one and the views are beautiful once on the path. This pond is an open area between two parts of the forest.
The plank path is very close to the surface and constructed in a slightly curvy way.
I have made some reference pictures at the beginning of the path for later use. 

It took some time before I knew what I wanted to paint, the day was bright and sunny and the pictures I made are very detailed. Because detailed painting is not the style I like the most  I had to think of something else.

For this watercolour painting I have changed the atmosphere of the scene from a bright sunny day into something more moody.
The foggy atmosphere is not so very strange in such a place, these forest ponds are well known for their morning fog after cold nights. 

After all this thinking I sketched the path and the lines of the forest in the background and started painting. I have used a limited palette of only four colours and only the beginning of the path has the suggestion of details.

More information about this watercolour painting (paper and colour used, size, availability, contact information) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Poplar tree

Sometimes I use a sketch more than once. This poplar tree has already been the subject of a charcoal drawing, but at that time I did show much more details of the background and the surrounding landscape.
During my painting vacation our teacher also talked about our previous works and gave some tips we could follow to improve our future works. 

So I made a watercolour painting using the sketch of this tree and followed some of the advice I was given. 
The background is not detailed, only suggested by wet-in-wet painting. This technique also gives more muted colours, especially when the greens and browns are mixtures of more than one colour of paint. The dried paint gives an illusion of a foggy day.
The foreground is now only a suggestion of grasses and herbs.
The surrounding landscape is still here, but does not distract the viewer's attention from the subject of the painting.
Once again I concentrated on the atmosphere of the painting. 

This was to be a 'portrait' of the poplar tree, so this tree is a presence in the painting.


More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Another walk in the 'Alblasserbos'

Our local forest area has two parts that are separated by fields and a Provincial way. There are some differences between both areas, the western area has an old orchard with some high fruit trees, the ones you have to climb to get the fruit. The eastern area has more pollard willows that are still harvested every two or three years.
Both areas are very wet and an early walk is a nice experience as all the birds are singing.
There are signposted walks in both parts of the 'Alblasserbos'.

I usually take my sketch book and pencils with me and I choose a seat with a nice view for some rest and sketching. 
Of course there are lots of trees, bushes and other green stuff where I have made my sketch, so I decided to pick only a few for my composition.

This time the sketch is used for a watercolour painting.
I am still experimenting with different yellow and blue mixtures to get a nice foliage and this time I am very happy with the result.

More information about this watercolour painting (size, colours and paper used, availability) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Dead tree at "Huis ter Heide" - a charcoal drawing

We love to go walking in the beautiful nature of our country (The Netherlands). Most of the nature is made up of small patches of forest, moorland or dunes and there are a few larger areas that are extra protected as Natural Reserves. This time we went to one of the smaller areas called "Huis ter Heide". There is a building that gives the area its name and used to be the 'headquarters' for the rangers that managed the area. Now the building has another function and is no longer accessible for the public.
Our signposted walk passed through the forest part of the area. These walks are not only signposted in the forest itself, but using an app on your mobile phone you get additional information about the special features of that walk. Most of the times the information is about the animals that live in the area or about the history of the place. 
A lot of information is given about the policy regarding dead trees. A few decades ago these dead trees would be removed so the walk through the forest would be more pleasant. Nowadays the dead trees are left where they are unless the endanger the visitors. Dead trees give food and shelter to lots of insects and birds and are indispensable for a healthy forest. The 'unpleasantness' of dead trees is now turned to a thing to be explored by inquisitive (young) people.

All these dead trees have light and dark areas, some of them have mosses or lichens, some have the bark partially fallen off. All that is a nice exercise for me, to train my drawing skills.

This time I chose a very dark tree with many curves catching the light or casting shadows - a nice challenge for a charcoal drawing. 
The result is as I hoped it would be, so I am really happy with this drawing.

More information (size, materials used, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Dead tree - a watersoluble pencil drawing

The wonderful springtime weather continues, so we went for a nice long (signposted) walk on a small estate that is now managed with the meaning to protect the nature.
The signposted walk started in an agriculture area, so we passed by fields with cows, fields with leeks, fields with horses,  ... 

After a while we came to a forest area with patches of moorland. 
One of those open areas in the forest had this dead tree trunk standing in the middle. This dead tree had mosses and lichen growing on the trunk and the colours were really nice.
So I made a few reference pictures and we walked on.

While making the pictures I had already planned to make a drawing using my Graphitint and watercolour pencils. I have only used water on the trees in the foreground to make them more visible against the background.

I really like this subject - a dead tree trunk in its surroundings. This is a nice subject to develop my drawing skills and to experiment with the pencils I have bought in the past years.

More information about this pencil drawing can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Dead tree stump - a charcoal drawing

The forest areas of our Natural Reserves are being managed in a way that enables the biodiversity to grow. Which means that dead trees are left where they are (only when it is safe for the people who visit the area) to decay and provide shelter and food to insects, rodents and birds as long as possible.

During our walk in the "Oude Buisse Heide" we saw this dead tree stump among lots of very young trees and some older ones. The sunlight was on the white wood of the dead tree and this view really did catch my attention. 
Because of the abundance of mosquitoes I did not stop for a sketch but took some reference pictures and walked on. 
I decided to make a charcoal drawing when I was taking the pictures, to make the dead tree stand out as much as possible . 

The drawing process was a bit - what shall I say,  I had to wash my hands more than once because I use my fingers instead of a feather or a stumper. But I did have fun and the result is what I hoped it would be.

More information about this charcoal drawing (materials used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my wbsite www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

After the rains - morning in the mountains

Last autumn my husband and me had a short vacation in the Black Forest, Germany. I have already made and published some watercolour paintings I made during and after that trip. On the way home we started early - as it is over six hours by car to get home - and we stopped for this sight. In the night and the early morning it rained and now the water that had fallen was rising up to the sky again in the form of mist. In the mountains that is a great sight especially for people like us, who are living in a flat country.
On my request my husband Peter stopped the car (in a parking place of course), opened the window and made some photographs.
We were near a hamlet situated in a bend in the road, so there were some buildings in front of the forests, the mountains and the mist.

Because I wanted to lay emphasis on the tranquility of the scene I have 'forgotten' to show the part of the road that was visible and added some bushes to the ones that were already there. The house on the left is also a bit altered and has got a more traditional 'Black Forest' facade.

Once again I have not been using green from the tube, but mixed my greens using several blue, grey and yellow paints. Because it is autumn I have added the yellows in pure form to the trees and bushes. The pine trees are evergreen of course and most of them are emerging above the mist. Only those on the far left are hidden behind the mist as that mountain ridge is much further away.
The smoke from one of the chimneys is highlighted with Chinese White.

Once again I had not stretched my paper before painting on it, and again I had some small difficulties. I have been giving this method a second try but I have found out that it is better for me - and my painting habits - to soak and stretch my paper before painting. 

More information about this watercolour painting (paper and colours used, size, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Painting again! A view in the forests.

It has been a long time since my last painting. I have already mentioned that I had started on a project of fourteen charcoal drawings and that project is ready for the camera now. When the pictures are ready I will publish my project.

We have been busy with a lot of things, the weather did not cooperate so it had also been a long time since we had our last walk in the nature of our country.
Not very far from our home lies the small town of Oosterhout which has a nice little forest to walk in. The signposted walk is provided with information about the history of the area and how that history affected the landscape. That is really interesting, the area used to bee moorland, later it became production forest and now it is being brought back to recreation forest with a lot of attention for the past.
In this piece of forest there are also some patches of field where wheat can grow alongside with the flowers that naturally accompany it.
At some point we had a nice look through from under the trees over one of those fields. The scene had some back-light, so the trees are a dark mass on the reference picture I took. The wheat has all the sunlight we had at that moment and makes a nice contrast to the dark greens of the surrounding trees.

This gave me the idea to paint this scene on black paper, using white gouache and some of my watercolour paints. The foliage hanging over from the top gave me some troubles, as expected. That is much easier to paint on white paper, painting the leaves and not having to worry about the white colour of the clouds behind them. I decided to make the foliage a bit more dense, this may be reality next week, so I only took some 'artistic liberty' here.

This time I cropped the picture I have made after my painting to where the paint is. Usually I show some extra bits of the black paper, but this time my 'horizon-line' could not be erased without damaging my paper. This is how the painting will be framed.
Of course it is possible to make a better picture after the painting, but it still is as I have told you before - I do not have that advanced a camera and I do not have an advanced editing program on my computer.

More information about this painting (size, materials used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

'Allerheiligen' waterfalls - a second attempt

Last autumn we were in the Black Forest - in Germany - for a short vacation. During that trip we visited the ruins and waterfalls of Allerheiligen. 

The ruins have been painted (and will be painted again) and during the vacation I already painted the waterfalls once and I promised myself that I would paint them again.
Waterfalls are not an easy subject for me, because I have to go on vacation to visit them. In our flat country there are no waterfalls to be found. At least nothing over a meter.

As I have written in my first post about these falls, the Allerheiligen waterfalls are a series of falls cascading down around the mountain. To visit them safely there are stairways and platforms beside the falling water.
At that time my knees were giving me messages about 'age' and 'not in shape for this terrain' so I stood sketching some of the falls as my husband went down a bit further to make lots of photographs. This painting is made after one of my sketches.

For this painting I chose to do a small size using only two colours. This enables me to focus on the falls; how to paint them in a way that they can still be recognized as waterfalls. On top of the scene is a small waterfall, which is mostly in the shadows of the rocks and trees surrounding the falls and the path beside them. 

As it was my goal to make a recognizable waterfall, I think I have succeeded with this painting. Of course I will have to paint much more waterfalls to improve my skills on this subject.

More information about this watercolour painting (size, colours used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Time for mushrooms!

Sometimes I like to paint mushrooms and for that purpose I have a lot of reference pictures, taken for me each autumn. 
The reference picture for this painting is taken by my husband, about three years ago. We were on a walk in the forests of Sauerland - in Germany. There were lots and lots of mushrooms in all possible colours.
These looked a bit grey on green moss. The moss is something I never achieved as I like it to be so this time I decided to make a very different background. 

When I was looking carefully at the mushrooms to draw them correctly I saw the grey was actually a bit violet and a bit orange. So the mushrooms have been painted in those two colours. I added the twigs in order to connect the mushrooms and make it one painting instead of several 'portraits of a mushroom' on one sheet of paper.

Unfortunately it was hard to make a good picture, the real painting has a bit more red in its overall impression.

More information (size, colours and paper used etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Painting week in the Ardennes - Path in Sepia

The second painting day (painting week in the Ardennes with Buitenatelier - see my previous post for details) we drove to a field not far from our vacation home. 
There was a lot to see and paint here, fields, hills, cows, a flower field, bushes...

I found a small path into the forest and decided to paint the lines of the trees, as a contrast to the round shapes of the bushes and the curves of the path.
The theme for this week was Contrast, so I decided on a contrast in shapes for today.

In order to make that very visible, I decided to make a monochromatic watercolour using Sepia. That is a colour I am not so familiar with so I worked carefully, adding colour and shapes only after the paint I already applied was dried completely. With the sun and wind I never had to wait long though.

Again I made a cadre with tape on my watercolour paper and filled that completely with paint.
Once again this way of working was not my usual way of painting, but I had a lot of fun working like this and I am happy with the result.

More information about this painting can be found at www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

A walk in the woods

A walk in the woods can be very refreshing - if only because of the fresh air and the exercise involved. We usually take at least one camera with us, so we return with lots of pictures and I am inspired to start painting as soon as possible.
Not all scenes are fit to be painted in watercolour, so this one has become a charcoal drawing.
Those nice tall trees are standing in 'de Renderklippen' which is a part of our National Reserve de Veluwe. We had some nice walks there and I got inspiration for a few more watercolour paintings!

More information can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

A foggy day

Sometimes foggy weather is sometimes nice, especially when the landscape around you gets a bit mysterious. A bit of fog in a forest gives just that touch of mystery to inspire a watercolourist - like me.
This forest is in the Netherlands, it's a part of the National Parc of the Veluwe. We were here for a short vacation and were really lucky with the weather. A bit of fog, not too much and the temperatures were nice for the time of the year too. So more than one walk in the surroundings was made and enjoyed.
We took a lot of pictures - as it was a bit too damp to stand still and try to sketch - so after this one there are more paintings waiting to be made.

More information can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr