The triangle... for a challenge

 

The November challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about a triangle. A local artist (Ad Dekkers) found the triangle a shape he could not interact with and we are challenged or invited to try our best to do so.

Being a landscape painter I wanted to do something with that. The scene is imaginary and the triangles - I just painted around them.

For this painting I started wet - in - wet using a neutral background colour that could also help darkening the shadow parts. Using models I drew on the triangles and started painting in colour, but around the shapes. So the first background colour is still visible in the triangle shapes, a bit blurry as I painted wet - in - wet.

My first idea was to make it rain triangles, but then I would have to paint around many little shapes and the second layer still is partially wet - in - wet to make the sky look as a sky should be.

Only after the second layer dried I started painting on the dry paper, shaping the tree, the little building and some parts of the bushes and foreground.

This experiment was a nice experience and maybe I will use this idea again.

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

Autumn in the 'Meinweg' 2 (The Netherlands)

 

During our walks in National Parc the Meinweg we saw beautiful autumn colours, lots of trees and bushes and traces of wild boars looking for food on the sides of the paths. 

With this painting I have tried to paint all of that without showing all the details. So the foliage is suggested with colour only, the tree trunks are painted and blurred in parts before the paint dried to suggest they stand behind bushes and in the foreground there are some very dark shapes beside the path to suggest the activity of the boars.

This painting is all about atmosphere and I am happy with the results.

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.

Autumn in the 'Meinweg' (The Netherlands)

 

Last week we had 'autumn vacation', a week free from work and we usually go away for a  short vacation. This time it was a very short vacation due to work in our home (it is beautiful now).

We went to make a walk in National Parc the Meinweg as we have not been there before. The walk was a long one, so we divided it in two parts, one day the shorter part, the next day the long one. The area is beautiful and even though we were warned about the presence of wild boars, we could only find where they had been. We did see and hear more birds than mammals as we were late in the day - around noon or later - and it was suddenly cold weather.

During the walks we made several pictures, some for the album, some only as reference for my paintings.

At one point, we passed by a forest edge behind a meadow and we were looking at it from below some large trees. The Autumn colours in the forest edge were spectacular so I made several pictures for reference.

For this painting I decided on a portrait orientation, just to make a different kins of painting than I have done several times before. This is a way of challenging myself and not painting on routine only.

The painting is what I hoped for, a nice Autumn mood showing the beautiful nature of The Netherlands.

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. If you are interested in my original artwork, please contact me.

Snow fantasy

 

The special offers for discounts when ordering cards are coming in, so I had to make my Christmas card!

This year it will be a landscape and the reference is a sketch I made many years ago and changed to a winter scene, adding some hills and forgetting the path while painting.

The colour scheme is simple, only dark, moody colours for a nice winter's night in the hills - all very imaginary but really fun to paint.

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

Autumn magic

 

The October challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about Autumn magic or enchanting autumn. The real challenge for me was trying to paint or draw something that I have not done before. After some thought I decided on my little oak tree (not yet two years old) and a drawing with a watercolour under painting.

For the under painting I used cling film for the effect - something I know about but have not done before. Not really much paint in two colours and let the cling film do its magic while the paint dries.

On the background I used my watercolour pencils. The picture is taken from above, with such a small tree this is almost the only way. For the top leaves I used water after the first pencil layer and added two or three more layers of colour. The other leaves are only pencil marks on the paper (no water used) and I used less layers of pencil for the lowest leaves. 

The stem (tree trunk is a bit too much yet) is added to show where the leaves come from.

This was fun, partly an experiment for the background but I really like the result.

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

My little oak tree - Autumn

 

Last year we had a surprise in our garden, we suddenly had an oak tree. A little one of course and probably the acorn was planted by a jay that did not have the opportunity to eat it before it turned into a plant. We re-planted our tree so it would not be killed during a lawn-mowing activity and it survived all this. 

So now the tree is in its second year and at this moment it shows nice autumn colours. Which means I have to paint my little oak tree.

For this painting I made several reference pictures and selected a nice group of leaves showing the autumnal colours of an oak tree. The background is lightly coloured and the leaves have the same colours - and some more.

This is the first time I paint oak leaves so very detailed and I really like the result of my 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.

Autumn - maple

 

Today is the beginning of Autumn and I have wanted to paint in Autumn colours for more than a week now. 

This is my painting, inspired by a sketch I made almost five years ago using a photo reference that I cannot find again. But the sketch - almost a study - was very detailed so I used my imagination for the colours.

The next challenge was to find what kind of maple tree this was - I did see the tree and made the reference picture in the parc close to my home - so I looked in books and on the internet to find it. It is a field maple tree or Acer campestre.

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. If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.