Rose hips

 

After the beautiful rose flowers have withered, there is another thing that inspires me to paint and that is the beauty of the rose hips. During a short walk close to our home I made some reference pictures of rose bushes with lots and lots of rose hips and I have made a mixed media work inspired by these pictures.

I have changed the colours to a yellow background, anticipating the autumn colours. The background is made using watercolour paint and a lot of water. Gravity did most of the work here. 

After the background had dried, I decided on my composition. When I make a watercolour background using this technique, there is a lot of 'chance' in the result so I place my subject on the best spot of the under painting.

Only one branch situated on the side of the bush, with some leaves and lots of rose hips is my subject, but I have added the suggestion of more branches and leaves for the sake of my composition. This is all made using my watercolour pencils.

For the branch and the berries I have layered the colours to achieve the results I wanted.

Because I have used textured paper, this will always be visible, but where I have used more layers of pencil the texture of the paper will be filled completely without leaving white parts in the shape of the berries, leaves or branches. I like to work with these contrasts.

The information about the paper, paints and pencils I have used, the size of the work and its availability can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com