Dinner time!

 

In this time with most of Europe in a (partial) lockdown, there are a lot of art challenges to lighten the burden of having to stay close to our homes. I am trying to enter in as many challenges as possible, if only for the reason that it's good to challenge myself to improve my skills in drawing and painting.

The second week of the Lockdown Drawing challenge by Artists&Illustrators magazine has 'Dinner time' as its theme and that inspired me to make this painting of two great tits feeding on our bird feeder. As I do not paint people, I chose to paint animals that were having something to eat.

The reference pictures were made last year (we have a new feeder now) by my husband Peter and they were waiting to be used.

I have combined two pictures and the feeder is situated in an imaginary setting, ours is hanging from a small hook that is fastened at our garden shed. 

This is a 'small' scene, so I took a small piece of paper for this watercolour.

Usually I paint wet-in-wet, but this time I have painted most of the painting wet-on-dry to keep the birds recognizable. 

This is the first time in years that I have painted birds and I am really happy with the result.

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

Red Panda - a mixed media drawing

 

Last December we made the best of the weather and we visited 'Diergaarde Blijdorp' on a nice Saturday. There were lots of restrictions due to the Covid pandemic, but the animals were there and those that like the colder weather were outside. 

One of my favourites is the red panda (Ailurus fulgens) and when it was walking outside I made some pictures, hoping for the best. This one was the best, the other pictures had the panda with its head in the other direction, so the face was not visible. This picture was not perfect either, the panda was walking so there are some parts that are not as clear as I hoped them to be.

For this one I decided to make a mixed media drawing, using watercolour for the background and the big trees where the panda usually goes for a good nap. I also added the tree stumps and some bushes behind the red panda.

I left the shape of the red panda white (not painted) and used watercolour pencils and Graphitint pencils to draw the walking panda, the grasses, herbs and fallen leaves on the ground.

The paper I have used has some structure and that is still visible where I used my pencils.

Once again the conclusion has to be that I need more practice, but I have no problem with that. I love red pandas so when the Zoo can reopen (after lockdown) I will certainly be back to make more reference pictures and in warmer weather I make sketches on the spot.

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

Reed lands

 

Another challenge was announced a few days ago: Artists and Illustrators Magazine has started a 'Lockdown Drawing Challenge' again, with a new theme every week. This first challenge has 'lockdown walks' as its theme and I made some reference pictures during a walk close to my home, in the park 'Noordhoekse Wiel'. In this time of the year, the most prominent feature of that area are the reed lands, with reeds that are higher than I am and some bare trees and bushes standing between them.

For my 'lockdown drawing' I made a watercolour underpainting with the colours of the sky and the shapes of the distant trees and an indication of the shadows in the foreground.

After that had dried, I used my pencils to draw the tree and bushes between the reeds and the reeds themselves. In the foreground are reeds that were broken and lying on the ground, I have used a lot of different colours for the stalks of the reeds to indicate a wide row of reed plants. Of course I added more shadow colours until I had so many layers of pencil that I could hardly add another colour.

After I had made my reed land as dense as I could achieve, I started adding the plumes and the last details to the tree branches and to finish it all I used some fixative.

The information about all the materials I have used, the size and availability of this work are all in my Tumblr blog

Daily meals

 

This January the challenge of our local Amateur Art Association  Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken  was 'daily meals' , meant as a returning to normal after the weeks of Christmas and all other festive days.

Of course there is a lot of inspiration in our daily food choices, but of course i wanted something different, not 'what all other people do'.

My mother came up with the idea of eating cats - as they do eat the same meals every day, no special Christmas food for them with the exception of a special treat when we are having coffee or tea. She had the idea, but there are no reference pictures of her cat eating, so I asked my daughter and she had some pictures.

This one, where the oldest cat is eating from the food bowl of the youngest was my favourite. The other food bowl has the same cat kibble, but the portion in the bowl that is not for him is more appealing.

So Tamlen is eating and Regalyan seems to be looking for help from my daughter. 

I still have to practise a lot before I can make a 'purrfect' cat portrait, but I am happy that my daughter liked this one.

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

North Sea beach at low tide

 

A few days ago I did see a challenge announced on a FaceBook page that needed an abstract watercolour painting. A few hours later we were walking on the North Sea beach at low tide and the wave patterns in the sand inspired me to make reference pictures, to be used for an abstract (-ish) painting. Abstract painting is not my usual style so it is no surprise that I have used an example from nature for my painting.

In the patterns were fragments of shells and other things that wash up at high tide and I wanted to include these as well in the painting.

So I made a rough drawing of the wave patterns and masked the shell fragments with masking fluid, let that dry and started painting. 

It took several layers of paint to make the sand look like wet sand and after all had dried I took off the masking fluid and added some colour to the shell fragments.

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

Primo Vere (early springtime)

 

One of my usual New Year's resolutions is to participate in painting challenges and I do try each year, but most of the times the challenges do not inspire me at all, so I do not participate more than I already did. 

This time I am inspired by a challenge in one of the Facebook groups I am in. The theme is 'Spring' and I have to participate with a work of art, not necessarily a watercolour.

Of course I could make a nice painting of flowers, birds, green foliage or something like that, but I want to do something different (no surprise here).

Springtime is also bird's nests and eggs hatching in those nests, so I chose to use that theme.

Using a book for colour and size reference I have chosen some of the birds that visit my garden, a blue tit, a robin, a blackbird, a dunnock and a jackdaw. The hatching egg is a chicken egg. 

I have tried to draw nests as the birds probably would make (again using the descriptions in the book) and I have taken care to draw the eggs in the right scale, taking the chicken's egg as my standard. 

The scientific names (in Latin) are written under the nests and I have used a dictionary to find the Latin words for 'early springtime'.

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