Deelerwoud - moorland

 

A few weeks ago we (my husband and me) were for two nights in a hotel so we could go for some nice walks in our Natural Reserve 'De Veluwe'.

Our first walk was in the 'Deelerwoud', a beautiful part of the Veluwe and also protected. The walk passed some moorlands and we used a shortcut between the 'large' and the 'small' moorlands. Halfway that shortcut were some large trees and some benches for tired walkers at a viewpoint.. As it had been raining recently we did not sit down, but we enjoyed the view and I climbed on a fallen tree trunk to make some reference pictures. 

Because I was under the trees, some low branches are in the picture as well. These foreground branches are perfect to show the distance of the trees in the background. The foreground has mostly yellowed grasses and in the middle ground a bit of the moorland is visible, dark now that the plants have lost their flowers. 

The cloudy sky only adds to the autumn mood - it had been raining lightly during our walk - and I really wanted to paint this scene, the colours of this beautiful landscape were really wonderful and I do want to visit that area again.

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.

Light

 

Winter is coming, so the November challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is OverWinter(ing). That can be about going to a warmer climate for the winter months or about going out and coming back to hot chocolate and other comfort food or.... what may inspire us.

All those activities have in common, that we are looking for the light, because these are dark months with shortening days and grey skies. 

So I remembered a very old picture made by my daughter Mariska which shows a lot of candles burning in a church (or cathedral) in which the light and warm colours of the candles are a beautiful contrast to the cool colours and darkness of the building.

Of course I have simplified the scene a bit for my watercolour painting, but the idea is still there; the warmth of the candle light contrasted by the grand, dark building. 

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.

Dead tree - watercolour and pencils

 

More than a week ago my husband and me were on a very short trip to our Natural Reserve 'De Veluwe' and we started with a morning walk in the  Deelerwoud. After the rain had (not completely) stopped we had a great walk with beautiful views. We even saw some deer that were too fast to be photographed but we do have the memory.

Not far from the starting point of our walk we saw a really big dead tree, still standing as if nothing was wrong. Because there was no bark left we could not determine what tree it was, but it probably was an oak tree - looking at the shape makes that very plausible.

My husband had already made the picture before I could ask him and of course I wanted to paint that tree. And that is exactly what I did not do.

Because the tree was lighter in colour than most of the background I would have to paint around it and so I decided (also inspired by our current climate crisis) that I would paint around the shape of the tree and leave that negative shape as blank as possible.  I could either leave it untouched or add some pencil marks if the painting 'asked for it'.

After the painting was done I decided that the pencil marks would add to the result so I used three colours of my water soluble pencils to accentuate the shape of the tree and the branches. The tree still looks very much like a negative presence and that is what I wanted it to be.

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

Mushrooms - a drawing

 

We were on a very short vacation - only two days in a hotel near our Natural Reserves on the Veluwe and we made some nice autumn walks in our very beautiful nature. There have been wonderful views, beautiful trees, some deer that were too quick for the camera and of course mushrooms.

To the hotel I only brought my drawing materials (paper and pencils) and I used these to make a drawing after one of the pictures my husband made. 

Out of a dark, wet fallen tree trunk come some shining mushrooms that capture the light beautifully. On the tree trunk there is a fallen leaf in orange and yellow shades, adding some colour to the scene.

Using my pencils, I have layered colours to get the result I wanted, carefully avoiding the white, reflecting hood of the mushroom. The cracks in the tree trunk were really dark, especially after the rain of that morning. 

The result is what I hoped for and I had a good time drawing this mushroom.

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

Nighttime conversations

 

When the end of October is near the challenges (mostly on Facebook) are about ghosts, spooky things and so on. It took a long time (and some conversations with relatives) before I had the inspiration to paint this watercolour painting.

My daughter suggested a misty forest, I thought about a spider and its web and my mother added the idea of a black cat. All that combined would make a nice scene for me to paint. Most of this is completely imaginary, only for the cat I have used one of my own reference pictures. 

For the spider's web I have used a small white wax crayon, so the lines would resist the watercolour. Not all the wax lines did resist the watercolour though so in the end I added some lines a bit with small amounts of black paint. The result is suggesting the white lines are shimmering in a beam of moonlight. 

The black cat I was painted using a mix of black and a greyish blue colour as animal fur always has variations in its shade because of the light. That suggested beam of moonlight will also have touched the cat so I had to include that in my depiction of the cat.

I have enjoyed painting this little scene and I was happy to have experimented with wax resist again - there is a lot to learn with that technique.

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

Iceland - Autumn colours

 

Of course the nature in our own country is very beautiful, but sometimes I want to paint something different, if only because that is a challenge for me that helps me improve my skills.

This time I got inspired by a documentary about Iceland and its nature and I wanted to paint that. My memory of the scene had to help me while I was sketching and later while I was working on my watercolour painting. 

Iceland is very volcanic and this scene showed a stream flowing in a typically volcanic rock formation. The lines of the black rock or solidified lava are beautiful visible and all I had to do is paint... Of course it's not that simple. 

Solidified lava is very black and usually watercolour artists don't use much black in their paintings, as the colour is 'not natural'. This time I decided to use Ivory Black for the rocks and as that has a slightly brown shade I added a light blue to create the colour I needed. There was a lot of light falling on the lava rocks so I left patches of white, added some blue and made the shadow parts as dark as possible.

The vegetation growing in that landscape (probably mosses) are showing brownish orange autumn colour with bits of red and patches of brown and that was mostly painted wet-in-wet.

Painting this landscape - without any trees in it - was a small challenge and an experience that I liked very much. The result is even better than I hoped to achieve.

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.

Cedar cones - a white on black painting

 

During a nice forest walk in the 'Kaapse Bossen' we made pictures of mushrooms, of trees and of each other and we were looking out for 'Christmas Card inspiration'. We were looking for pine cones, larch apples or any other combination of needles and the fruits of the same tree and high up in a tree we could see some cones that were as good as white.

My husband (who had the camera) made some nice reference pictures for me and I have been thinking about 'how to paint these' because the background was very blue and that would not do for a Christmas card. After some thinking I decided to paint these white cones and some of the branches they were in on a black background, using a combination of white gouache and watercolour paint. 

Working on a white paper and painting a blue background using watercolour would mean that the cones would not stand out so beautifully as they did when the reference picture was made.

The black background unfortunately means that this painting will not be used for a card as the printing companies cannot handle all that black.

Zooming in on the picture revealed that the cones were not all white, but a shade of beige with a lot of white resin which created the white appearance from where we were standing. It was a tall tree, so we could not see details from ground level. I chose to paint them white, using a shadow colour to create the characteristic shape of the cones because that was what did attract our attention and gave me the inspiration for this painting.

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