Sunset fantasy

 

Today the prompt in the Sketch a Day app is 'bright' and that made me think about bright colours at sunset.

So I picked some colours (limited palettes always work nice) and started painting an imaginary sunset seen at the shore.

Of course there have to be clouds in the sky so I can paint the bright orange colour under the clouds, where the light of the setting sun touches them.

The dark foreground can be water or sand, that does not really matter. The whole scene is imaginary, painted for the atmosphere.

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

Between ebb and flow - Hoek van Holland

 

Now my painting vacation is over, the August challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' needs my attention.

The challenge is about the sea, 'between ebb and flow' and I just had the right reference picture for that challenge. My husband Peter made it a few years ago in the hour of sunset at the Pier of Hoek van Holland when some huge container ships were coming into the Port of Rotterdam.

Coming in or leaving the port is always between ebb and flow, ships must make sure they don't miss the tide and that is why I thought of this reference picture when I found out the theme of this month's challenge.

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

Dark clouds, light and a sunset

 

Last week I was on Painting Vacation again! Every year a very happy week with a lot of fun, a lot of painting and a lot of learning. This week our coach and teacher Ad van Aart had a special 'challenge' for me: do something unexpected to your work.

The first works I have made are more about an omission (compared to the reference picture) and letting the light become the subject.

The picture above is the last one I made, I will show the steps leading to that one first:

It all starts with a study, in this case a charcoal drawing to get the 'feel' of the darkness of the clouds, the light and the landscape below.

Next is a watercolour painting in the colours of the reference picture

and to challenge myself I painted on a larger sheet of paper than usual.

Both works are about the white line of light between the dark clouds and the landscape which is also a bit gloomy under that dark sky.

Then I thought 'What if....' and the idea of the sunset was born.

For that painting I had to use the same shapes in the clouds and the landscape, leave the same line of light between them but I had to find the right colour scheme, starting with the orange-red colour of the sky. The colours of the clouds and the landscape are all based ton that choice and the result is at the top of this post.

This was a nice start of this week and I am happy with the results of this day's work.

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

Sunset

 

A few months ago my daughter Riska sent me a picture of a sunset (I think it is a sunset and I think it is in The Netherlands) to enjoy and maybe for inspiration. Of course I wanted to paint it, but having been busy with other things it has been postponed until now.

As this is a cityscape it was a bit of a challenge. Usually I just like to suggest the architecture by the outlines and the main colours of the buildings. The horizon was mostly in backlight so only I had to suggest on that part, but the buildings on the right had some of the sunlight, there I had to do more details - but not too many as the buildings are not my subject.

The yellow shades of the sunlight are painted with some nice warm colours - not too warm because it is Autumn and the reflection in the water was really nice to work on.

Even though there were some challenges in this painting, the result is what I hoped for.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

(This is not a) sunset - for a challenge

 

The April challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about to paint or draw something that is not what it seems to be. The only thing I could think of is the famous painting by René Magritte with the text 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' and so I decided to make something like that. 

First I painted a sunset, leaving room in the composition for a text. The text is in Dutch, meaning 'this is not a sunset'. It is added just like I add my watermark, using a PowerPoint sheet that is layered over the image of the painting. Below is the work I submitted for the challenge.

Making the painting was not easy. This was one of those days and I was struggling with water, paper and paint to get an acceptable result. At one moment I even washed almost all the paint off the paper, made myself some tea, let the paper dry and started over. That did help a little, but I still could not paint as easily as I usually do. Maybe just because I had not painted for weeks?

By now I am happy with to the result of my work, other people say it is a nice sunset (I usually ask my husband and/or my mother to comment on my work) and I start to think so as well. Taking some distance does a lot for accepting the results of your work!

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.

Sunset in Hoek van Holland (Netherlands)

 

Summer is the time to go to the beach and when the weather is good, it is nice to stay until sunset (or later) and drive back home in times of 'not much traffic on the road'. My husband took our two young guests to the beach of Hoek van Holland and made me some reference pictures of the sunset while the young ones were enjoying themselves with beach things.

The reference picture only had shades of yellow, gold, orange and brown so I wanted to make a painting using only those colours. The result is a nice sunset scene with colours that are not often seen in The Netherlands - usually there is some grey or blue visible in the sky and sea.

As this was in Hoek van Holland, the Pier and the radar post at the end of the Pier are also included and far away there is a large ship, barely visible.

Painting a realistic seascape using this limited palette was new for me, but I am really pleased with the result.

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.

Maasvlakte - sunset 3

 

During our walk by the shoreline at the Maasvlakte a few weeks ago I made a lot of reference pictures of the setting sun and I have already painted some watercolours. I did not make all the pictures standing up a bit from the waterline, I also made some pictures with a lower viewpoint, as low as I could get in a comfortable way (I wanted to stay dry and I had to get up without too much help) and for this watercolour I used one of those pictures.

There are some sandbanks a bit further away and these are only distinguishable from this point of view because there are no ripples. These sandbanks are not covered with water but very wet (almost quicksand) and they reflect the sunlight even better than the seawater around them.

The sun is almost touching the horizon and where the water is shallow the reflection of the sunlight is beautiful. The dark shapes are the waves rolling in, in backlight. I was crouching on a sandbank so there was water all around me - I did not want the beach to be visible in the reference picture.  After making a few pictures we had to leave, the sand was still too wet to hold us for a long time.

The painting is inspired by the reference picture and my memories of that walk so it is not an exact copy of reality (that's why it is a painting). 

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.

Maasvlakte - Sunset 2

 

Last week we (my husband and me) went to see the sunset at the nearest beach, the Maasvlakte (Netherlands) and I have already painted a watercolour after the reference pictures I had made and made a blog post about that painting and a small description of the landscape we found there.

This scene is as the sunset was seen from the dunes, where we sat down for a while to find some shelter from the wind. From that relatively high spot I made several pictures which showed a very broad view of the landscape because I used my phone, which has a wide angle lens. The advantage of this is that I can select any part of the picture for my painting as these pictures are very high quality - so 'zooming in' causes no problems with losing the high definition of the image.

For this painting I was inspired by the sunset colours (no surprise here), not only in the sky and the reflections in the water, but also on the sand of the dunes. In broad daylight the sand is almost white, but in these light conditions even the sand had a red colour which I like very much. I enjoyed it to paint this and find the right colour because there was also a shadow on the sand, cast by the single line of beachgrass that we passed on our way to a soft spot to sit down. 

The footsteps show we were not the first to find a resting place in that area during that day. These footsteps are softened a bit in the painting, because they are not my subject, but do make the composition more interesting. 

As the tide was retreating there still was a lot of water between the sandbanks forming little streams catching the last sunlight forming some very nice dark and light contrasts. In fact this is one of the things that made me choose this part of the reference picture for my painting.

Compared to my previous painting, the sunset colours are all more yellow-orange, that is of course because the sun was still higher when I made the reference picture.

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

Maasvlakte - sunset

 

For my husband and me Summer vacation has already started as we don't have to go to work when the children don't go to school. This means we have time to go to the beach to see the sunset when the weather permits. Yesterday evening was one of those moments. The air was warm, not hot, the sky was blue and there was nothing urgent to do the next day so the alarm could be set a bit later than on a workday. From our home it is almost an hour drive to the nearest beach and sunset was to be around 21.43 hrs. 

We went to the beach at the Maasvlakte, not exactly a place to go with children that want to play in the sand, but the sunset is as beautiful from that beach as it is from any other place. After parking the car we walked over the line of dunes and started walking, making pictures while we were on the way. When we reached a beautiful spot we waited for the sunset and made more pictures (no surprise here). As the tide was outgoing, there were lots of patches of water left on the shoreline, catching the sunlight and reflecting the colours of the sunset.

Today I picked one of these pictures to make a watercolour painting. As the sun was still visible in this scene I had to use masking fluid to make sure that this spot stayed as white as possible. I also masked the reflections on the water. Because of the use of the masking fluid, I could not speed up the drying process of the painting with my hairdryer so I had to wait for the colours in the sky were dry and hope they would not mix too much while the paint was still wet.

The foreground was also a bit of a challenge, with the reflected light in the water and the dark patches of sand that were left behind by the retreating water. Both water and sand were coloured by the sunset so I had to give them a light glaze without disturbing the first layers of paint too much.

After all had dried I had to remove the masking fluid and correct the white shapes so they would look like the kind of shapes that can be seen in a landscape.  

All that planning and correcting and adding and again correcting made me a bit too focused on the details so I had to walk away for a few minutes before I could see the painting I made as a whole. In fact I am really happy with the result.  Even though the reference picture has been my inspiration and guideline, the painting is not exactly how the scene looked yesterday. 

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

Sallandse Heuvelrug - Sunset

 

During our short stay near our Natural reserve the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' we walked to the vacation homes of our children for dinner at the time of sunset. One of these days we had a great sunset so we took a shortcut to a road outside the vacation area and stepped away from the trees to have a good view. My husband had the camera and he made some nice pictures.

Of course I wanted to paint this beautiful sunset and here is the result.

I have challenged myself by choosing Grain Torchon paper, which holds the water a bit longer than the Grain Fin paper I usually paint on. There were some clouds that looked great, so I had to paint them as well.

For the foreground I relied on my memory. A camera always gives a dark, almost black foreground when you make a sunset picture, while in reality there is a lot to be seen. In this case there were fields that were harvested recently, so we could see dark earth with some lines made by the machines.  For the painting I have changed that foreground a little bit.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size of this watercolour and the availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog

Port-en-Bessin, October sunset

Last October we had one bright day in Port-en-Bessin (Normandy,France) and we enjoyed it from the first until the last moment. During our stay there I have already painted the sunrise, this is the sunset of that day.
We did not see the sun set in the sea, there were the cliffs on the horizon that were hiding the view we hoped for, but the colours of the sky were great.
My husband made a few pictures and today I have painted that scene.

I have chosen to do a 'portrait' format so I could paint a lot of sky. The cliffs are really far away and not much detail was visible in this light and the sea was looking calm so I decided to let these elements be of lesser importance. The clouds  behind the cliffs on the horizon are only suggested here, I remember they were very hazy.

The details about paper and paints used, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com  

View from the Churchyard - Reifferscheid

Last October we were for a short vacation in the small German village of Reifferscheid, in the Eiffel region. On the day of our arrival we went for a walk around the high part of the village, mostly to stretch our legs a little after the drive from home. The high part of the village is the ancient castle area, surrounded by walls and on a high hilltop. Our vacation home was close to the old gate, a few minutes walking brought us to the other end where the white church was. 
As it was autumn, the days were short and our walk was made at the hour of sunset. The light was beautiful and I really enjoyed being outside at that moment. We made a lot of pictures and I started painting that same evening after dinner.
The reference pictures I made from the church and churchyard had to wait a little longer, but today I wanted to paint this view.

I was inspired by the shadows on the building, the almost random placement of the graves and the view on the hills opposite the village, all in that wonderful evening light.
Painting all that was a bit of a challenge for me, especially the graveyard with the graves. Because there were so many shadows the shapes were to be guessed in some cases, only the difference in colour made the gravestones stand out against one another.
I have (again) chosen to suggest most of the shapes of the stones, some graves and the plants between them.

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

View from Burg Reifferscheid

Last week we had our autumnal short vacation and this time we went to a small vacation home in Reifferscheid (Eiffel, Germany) that is part of the old castle complex.
The vacation home was as modern as we wanted it to be but the setting is great.
In a few minutes we could walk up to the ruins of the old castle and the views there were great! The first day we walked there at the time of sunset and the fading light gave the views something special. We made a lot of pictures there.

This painting is made using two reference pictures I have taken of the view to the east, the setting sun in my back.
The hills in the distance cannot be seen very well in the fading light and the evening mist and the ruins of the old castle are also looking like one big mass of stones in which the different structures are not told apart easily.

The watercolour painting was made in our vacation home and I usually do not take all my art materials with me, only those that can be packed and moved in one or two bags.
That is why I have painted on cellulose paper, not my first choice, but I am learning to use it my way. This painting had some 'this will never work' moments but in the end I am happy with the result.
I have tried to paint the atmosphere of an evening in autumn in the fading light after sunset and I think I got what I wanted.

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

"Sallandse Heuvelrug' - Twilight

As I told before, we went to our Natural Reserve 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' for a short vacation in the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve. In the four days we were there, we went hiking for three days. Each day had its own kind of weather and the differences were inspiring us to make lots of photographs. 
The first day we were walking in the late afternoon, just before sunset. We had driven to our destination first and thus it was not really early as we started walking. 
We had chosen a marked trail of about 6 km and because we were making so many photographs, we were not making much progress. 
One of the rules about walking in the Natural Reserves in The Netherlands is that you are free to walk on the paths of a Natural Reserve, but you have to leave before sunset. Because it was winter, we made it just in time.
The sky was clear that afternoon and the colours of the sunset were wonderful. I could not help making some reference pictures for the purpose of painting later - back at home.

As this was a twilight scene, I used my Twilight Colours to paint it. I chose to do this painting on a quarter sheet (a full sheet is 51 x 76 cm, usually I use a half sheet, 38 x 51 cm). The thoughts behind that choice are not easy to explain, usually this is a decision based upon the 'feeling' of my subject and most of the times I make a decision that gives me a nice painting as a result.

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

Sunset on the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug'

Last week - between Christmas and New Year's Eve - we went for a short vacation to one of the Natural Reserves of The Netherlands; the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug'.
The next bit of text is information I copied from the English Wikipedia page about the region:
The Sallandse heuvelrug is a  moraine, created in the one but last glaciation, Saalien, 150.000 years ago. During the Holocene forests started to develop, but after the growth of the human population, these forests had been cut. From the Middle Ages onwards the area was used for grazing by sheep and goat, and the upper layer of the soil was removed to use it as fertilizer for the crop fields. In this period, the area became a heathland because of sand-drifting. In the beginning of the 20th century the state started forestry programs, to prevent this erosion and to produce pine wood. The area is well known for its scenery because of its relatively large heathlands.

We had visited this National Reserve only once, so we decided to spend more time here to walk, explore and make pictures. 
The first day of our visit the weather was fine, we had some clouds and sometimes a clear sky. As the sun sets early in winter, we had beautiful views of the colouring of the sky through the branches of the trees. 
The reference picture for this watercolour was made by me.

I painted this watercolour in the evening in our vacation home. Because of that it is a small size and not a very challenging subject. Just a nice little painting to reflect the mood of the afternoon walk we made.
There were more pictures of course, with scenes that need a bit more thought and preparation before I paint them. So there is more to come!

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

Where three rivers meet - at sunset

A few weeks ago we had visitors and as the weather was great, we went for a walk by the riverside. Whe live near the point where three rivers meet: Merwede, Noord and Oude Maas. On the left you have a view on Dordrecht, on the right hand side lies Zwijndrecht, behind the trees of the riverside park.
In the weekends the river is quiet, not so many boats as during weekdays.
The upcoming sunset was colouring the sky in a marvelous way so we stopped for pictures. My husband Peter made the reference picture I used for this watercolour painting.

Painting a sky without clouds is a thing I do not often get the chance to do, so this was a bit of a challenge.
The colours of the sky were reflected in the water, but as there was a lot of wind the water was not  calm. As this is a point where rivers meet and the tides are still of influence the water is never completely calm here.

I enjoyed painting a view that actually is very close to my home. To us this is a beautiful spot to visit all around the year. There is so much to be seen - even when traffic is low - and the light changes every minute.
In fact this was a favorite spot for some of our Old Masters as well and I can easily understand why!

The information about size, colours used etc can be found on my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com  

Sunset - rediscovering Indigo

Last winter my daughter Mariska traveled to Germany for a week to visit a friend. 
Somewhere in the last hours of the journey the sunset was beautifully visible from the train and she took some pictures with the idea that I might be able to use at least one of them.
In this scene the clouds are very feathery which is one of the attractions for me. I do not often get the chance to try to paint that kind of sky, we usually have clouds that are much more impressive.
The sun setting behind the trees is also really nice - and quite a challenge to get it believable.

For this painting I decided to make a small size and try to work with Indigo. That colour is perfect for evening skies, but not always easy to work with. When diluted too much it gets a greenish shade which does not fit in a sky - unless there is a thunderstorm approaching of course.

For more information about this painting (size, paper and colours used, etc) I invite you to visit my website  www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

North Sea beach - almost sunset

It's almost sunset at the beach of the North Sea, some people are still walking on the floodline and the clouds look great.
My husband Peter took the reference photo for me last september and it took me a few months to make a plan to paint it. 
Usually I paint the sky wet-in-wet, but sometimes that does not work well with the greys I mix for the clouds. So I tried a different approach.
First I made an underpainting in the sky with yellow and a bit blue. I left the sun open. After this was completely dry I mixed a blueish grey and made the clouds, adding water where I wanted the colour to flow. I also added the grey to the sky where needed. 
After this had dried again I added sea and sand and in the final stage I added details to the waves, the tracks in the sand and the people on the shoreline.
I am very happy with the result of this technique and will use it again for sure.

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

Twilight Colours!

The special edition colours by Winsor&Newton Professional were too tempting.
I already had the Smalt (Dumont's Blue) and I never use black colours, so I bought Sanguine Red, Quinacridone Violet, Aqua Green and Cobalt Green Deep. 
It was a challenge to find something to paint  for an average reference photo does not have (all) those nice colours. Last winter we were in the train that rides alongside the river Douro at the time of sunset and my daughter Mariska made a lot of pictures. 
I decided to use one of them, a picture I had not painted before. 
The sunset was really nice and reflected in the river beautifully, I just had to change the colours a bit. The mountains were all black because of the strong backlight, but I do remember seeing detail in them so I painted them that way.

Getting used to a new set of colours is not done with just one painting so I expect to have a lot of fun with this in the near future!

More information about this watercolour and the others I made after our winter trip to Portugal last year can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Abandoned courtyard

The inspiration for this landscape came from a sunset photo my daughter Mariska made for me. The sunset is nice, with lots of clouds and colours in the sky, but the courtyard is a little worn out so my imagination had to add in some interesting details before painting this scene. 
Again, I started to wonder what this would look like after people had abandoned the site.
I exaggerated the worn out look of the courtyard to a point where normal use is not possible anymore. I added a lot of green, overgrowing the buildings and helping their decay. The sunset had to remain of course, that's what started my creative process!

More information about this watercolour (colours used, size and more) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr