The mud flats of Voorne in winter - a charcoal drawing

 

When we were walking along the mud flats of Voorne a last week, I made several reference pictures and I also made and posted a watercolour painting. In that blog post I mentioned that there also was a lot of grey in the landscape and I would do a charcoal drawing after another picture of the views we had.

This is not a charcoal drawing on a white background, as I had in mind when I wrote that. Instead I have chosen a sheet of watercolour paper with more structure than the paper I usually use for my charcoal drawings and I made a blue watercolour underpainting as a base for the drawing. The paint is not applied evenly but there is a gradient from top to bottom.

On that blue background the willow charcoal turned out a bit too black to my taste so I added some hints of colour to the mud flats and the dunes on the horizon with my Tinted Charcoal Pencils. 

Using my fingers and a piece of tissue paper to blend the colours finished this drawing, the last one of this year.

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

Holterberg - a watercolour painting

 

Last autumn we were close to the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' - one of our Natural reserves - and we made signposted walks every day. Every walk was in a different area of the Natural reserve and we did see the 'Holterberg' on one of these walks. I have made some reference pictures of a beautiful and inspiring spot there and while we were still on vacation I made a charcoal drawing after one of these pictures.

The second picture was made from another angle and today I used it to make a watercolour painting.

In the foreground there could be a path or just forest ground, marking the edge of the hillside. There were lots of fallen branches and autumn leaves on the forest ground, and in between the leaves there are patches of moss and grasses. All these are suggested, only the biggest branches are painted as they were.

There are some young pine trees and young birch trees at the sides of the path and on the hillside, and I have tried to capture the bright green colours of these small trees. 

Once again, the picture I made for publishing is not exactly like the painting where the colours are concerned and I had trouble adjusting it. If I shift to more yellow for the colours of the trees I will lose the blue sky and if I try to make the sky more blue (like I painted it), I lose the brightness of the trees. Quite a dilemma here so I have decided to lose a bit of both.

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

The mud flats of Voorne in Winter

 

Last weekend we went for a walk along the Natural Reserve 'Slikken van Voorne' or the mud flats that have formed south of the Maasvlakte. The Natural Reserve is not open to the public, but the outskirts are good for a nice walk. 

There are footpaths and a signposted walk so we had a nice afternoon with great views and some nice fresh sea air. And some unexpected rain but not too much. 

As it was almost the shortest day, the sun was low and the reflections of the light on the water were great. I made lots of reference pictures and had a hard time selecting the best for the painting I wanted to make.

The view is great and somewhere on the horizon is also the next island, Goeree, with its sand dunes. The horizon of my painting is not horizontal because of that.

In my summer painting of the Mud flats I have painted only these mud flats, with the streams of sea water that are in between.

This time I also wanted to show the clouds that did bring the rain, but also the beautiful colours in the light shone beneath them and was reflected in the water. 

Because of the clouds and the time of the day, the sand of the mud flats was dark and almost grey, with a hint of colour from the light. I have made some pictures during this walk that only have shades of grey as I did not have any sunlight at that moment. These pictures will be good references for a charcoal drawing. (to be made in the future)

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

Amaryllis

 

One of the flowers we have in our homes in winter time is the Amaryllis (or Hippeastrum) and we usually buy a bulb that will grow a stem with flowers in the warmth of our living rooms. This is mostly a Christmas related thing, but sometimes the flowers come early or even later.

This year I have a bulb with flowers that are almost white, but earlier this month I got a dark red one in a bouquet and of course I have made pictures of both of them.

For this charcoal drawing I have combined the pictures of both flowers into one composition, positioning them as if there was a bouquet with three stems.

Of course I could have made a watercolour painting, but there are a lot of paintings made combining white and red flowers, so I decided on a charcoal drawing.

Maybe I will make a painting later, but the beautiful dark red colour of the flowers I got in the bouquet early December is not easy to mix and I think I will be disappointed by the results I will get.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this drawing can be found in my Tumblr

Air

 

One of the Facebook groups where I regularly post my artworks does have challenges. In fact, there are a lot of Facebook groups with challenges, but many of those do not inspire me to go to my studio and paint. This group however does have challenges that inspire me to think about the theme, make a painting and post it.

This time the challenge was about Air. In Dutch, 'air' is translated to a word that also means 'sky' and after some thinking I decided that this was to be my approach of the theme.

How to combine the two interpretations of the word came to my mind easily. Hot air balloons in the sky was to be the subject of my painting.

What makes the balloons float is 'air' and they can be seen in the 'sky'.

During summer and autumn they can be seen floating over our flat country when the temperature, the wind and other conditions are right and I really love to see them.

The composition is completely imaginary, the landscape is what can be seen in The Netherlands and the balloons are from the memory of having seen them.

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

Gold, frankincense and myrrh

This year the December challenge of 'Goed gezien - Goed Bekeken' is Gold, frankincense and myrrh which are the gifts of the three Kings - or Three Wise Men to the new born Jesus.

Of course these gifts symbolise much more than a present for a new born baby, they also stand for the positions of King, Priest and Prophet that were to be the future of Jesus. Another explanation is that these gifts are what is needed for a funeral; myrrh for embalming, frankincense for a nice aroma and gold to pay for all other things.

The three kings themselves symbolise the three continents Asia, Africa and Europe and that can be found in the shapes of their head coverings. Some imagination is needed here because I have only painted the outlines of the three kings, wrapped in cloaks.

The star had to be there as well, I would not forget that and its light shines on the scene in the night. The little manger is there also, a bit of cloth hangs out and this suggests that the gifts are already given and the three kings stand aside (wise as they are) so they will not wake the sleeping baby. 

For this work I have used my heavy black cardboard again and my white gouache, all the colours are done with a variety of pencils.  Deciding about my composition was not easy for this one, I had some help from my mother to establish the proportions.

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

Sallandse Heuvelrug - Starry night

 

In my previous post I mentioned that I live in a built-up area and the sunsets can only be seen well from a high place. In the area where I live there also is always light, from homes, from street lanterns, from industry and we can even see light from greenhouses that are far away.

So a starry sky is not visible where I live, only the strongest, brightest stars can be seen in the right circumstances.

When we were on vacation, that 'light pollution' was far away and we did take the shortcut out of the vacation parc to stand on the road at the edge of the field to watch the stars a few times. Of course there were clouds and we were close to some trees, but I enjoyed the view very much. We did not take any photographs, so this painting is entirely from memory and imagination.

In my painting I have included some trees as they are in winter. These trees help the viewer to understand where up and down are in the painting.

The clouds are placed behind the trees - so these are visible - and the stars can be seen through a hole in the cloudy sky. I have used my memory and imagination for the stars and what is in the painting is not a real depiction of the starry night in my country.

For this painting I have used a black paper for my background and painted in white gouache.

The details about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this painting can 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