View on Monswiller - a winter fantasy

 

This time I was inspired to paint a Winter mood and - as it is not yet Winter in The Netherlands - I looked for a reference in my old sketchbooks. This scene, a view from a roadside restaurant on the small town of Monswiller inspired me.

Of course I had painted a watercolour inspired by this scene short after I made the sketch, but this time I wanted to change a lot, not only did it have to be a Winter fantasy, I also changed the format from 'landscape' to 'portrait' so there would be much more sky and a bit more foreground.

The church tower is placed at a 'good' spot in the composition (one third from below and one third from the right side) and I made the drawing starting from that place, adding some slopes to the foreground and leaving room for a nice cloudy sky.

Using some of the colours that are not my first choice I set myself another small challenge, but sometimes I wonder why these colours are not so often used - maybe it's about habit.

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.

To die for - for a challenge

 

The November challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is in Dutch 'Om je vingers bij af te likken' which translates (Google translate) as 'To die for'. The original phrase is about licking your fingers after eating something delicious.

And that is what I wanted to draw this time. A cat licking his fingers/paw after eating. Another cat is also present to suggest the food.

For this drawing I used examples from a book with tutorials about drawing cats (not much more than a line sketch and a result in grey shades) and I added the colours using my imagination. To be able to draw two cats I used one of my larger sizes of paper

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

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

Little white mushroom

 

During one of our forest walks last month we saw this little white mushroom, standing all alone. It was early in Autumn and this was one of the very few mushrooms we did see.

With my phone camera I tried to make a nice picture, even using the 'Macro' setting, but everything was sharp in the picture except the mushroom. That happened a few times and I kept the best as my reference pictures.

The background was full of dead leaves, patches of earth, mosses, small stones etcetera so I decided to only suggest a messy forest floor instead of showing all the details. The little mushroom is my subject so it has to stand out a bit.

Of course the mushroom was not completely white, some of the colours in the background are reflected on the white surface. These colours are used to paint the structure of the hood.

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.