Sunset

 

A few months ago my daughter Riska sent me a picture of a sunset (I think it is a sunset and I think it is in The Netherlands) to enjoy and maybe for inspiration. Of course I wanted to paint it, but having been busy with other things it has been postponed until now.

As this is a cityscape it was a bit of a challenge. Usually I just like to suggest the architecture by the outlines and the main colours of the buildings. The horizon was mostly in backlight so only I had to suggest on that part, but the buildings on the right had some of the sunlight, there I had to do more details - but not too many as the buildings are not my subject.

The yellow shades of the sunlight are painted with some nice warm colours - not too warm because it is Autumn and the reflection in the water was really nice to work on.

Even though there were some challenges in this painting, the result is what I hoped for.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

December doodle

 This time the challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' was to make a December doodle. So we could just doodle away in a December or Christmas mood or make a zen-tangle work, both things I do not do very often.

Of course I had to do this my way so I made a drawing of two Christmas Balls first and after that had dried (I used water soluble graphite) I added the strings.

Now it was time to doodle or zen-tangle. I started in the balls, using the shapes of the zen-tangle to create the shadows and expanding these tangle shapes into the figures below the balls. Of course I did not follow the 'rules' of zen-tangle, I used two colours of line markers and added some pencil for extra colour.

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

Along the railroad (Mattemburgh, Netherlands)

 

A few months ago, at the end of Summer, we (my husband and me) made a walk starting at 'Landgoed Mattemburgh' which took us through the surrounding landscape with fields, mudflats, the view of Bergen op Zoom (a town in The Netherlands) and a railroad.

The walk was nice with all those differences and I made several reference pictures for later use. This one is along the railroad, very close to a point where we had to cross it again - very safe crossings of course - looking back to where we came from.

I thought this scene could be ideal to try the panorama-shaped paper I bought  last summer so I selected a nice part of the reference picture and started painting. In fact I did not find much difficulties painting this one, I only had to get used to the size of the paper.

The painting is what I hoped it would be and I really am looking forward to other paintings on this paper. The size of the paper does set some limits to the composition, but I really like these little challenges because they make me grow as a painter.

The information about the materials I 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.

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.

Monday is wash day

 

The September challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about 'Monday is wash day' and my inspiration came from stories of cat owners in my family.

After the wash is dry, a nice stack of towels makes a very comfy place for a cat nap so that is what I have been drawing and painting. For this challenge I decided to keep it simple, not too many details and suggesting the table, the towels, the hanging wash and the cat just by their shapes and some shadows.

For this work I used watercolour and line markers in many colours, the information about these materials, the size of this work and its availability can be found in my Tumblr blog.

Beech tree bark

 

During my painting vacation I made several reference pictures of trees and tree bark hoping I could use them that same week. One of the pictures is of a beech tree that had several dark spots at eye level (my eyes) so I made the picture. When looking at my pictures our teacher and coach Ad van Aart suggested I would make a watercolour painting of that part of the tree including a bit of the background. 

So I tried to do that, on the hottest afternoon of the month. Of course I failed being too tired with the heat and humidity and my paper (I selected Grain Torchon) would not dry because of that same humidity. At last I gave up and when I did show the work everyone mistook the tree for a birch, the tree trunk was too light and the dark spots were too dark, as you can see below.

As I wanted to paint the beech tree, I tried again at home on Grain Fin paper and I started differently. Now I succeeded to make it look like a beech tree. 

This tree stands in the shadow of other, large trees all the time and did not grow upright. 

The tree bark is dark grey with patches of green that are caused by some algae growing on the tree bark. The dark spots are not all dark brown (my mistake in the first version) but just darker grey with a touch of the green I mentioned. For this version I also changed the composition a bit, the left side of the tree - with some extra dark structures - is now visible so the structure of the tree trunk is more comprehensible.

The second painting (the one above) is what I hoped for. Beech trees do not have a very structured bark and this is the best I could do.

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

View on Dordrecht from Papendrecht (The Netherlands) made during a workshop session

 

The 'Teekengenootschap Pictura' from Dordrecht is 250 years old and that is celebrated with different activities. One of these activities is a series of workshops about drawing during the summer months. I have attended the first one and now also the last one. (the two in the middle were either booked full or inot possible to attend for me).

This one was all about the View on Dordrecht from my home village/town, Papendrecht. Following the Old Masters, we were to make a charcoal drawing of a view on Dordrecht preferably featuring the iconic buildings like the 'Grootshoofdspoort', the 'Grote Kerk' (big church) and less old, the railway bridge between Dordrecht and Zwijndrecht.

Because the weather forecast was not so great, we were on the terrain of the marina where we could go indoors if needed. So we did not have the 'classic' views of Cuyp, Willaerts and many more, but the view we had was still worth drawing.

We had a large sheet of paper and I folded it in two, so I could make two drawings on one sheet - and the smaller size did feel more comfortable to me as well.

The weather still was not bright, dark clouds were above us almost all the time and that can be seen in mu drawings. We were behind a row of bushes and these can also be seen in my drawings. The river was mostly behind these bushes and the view was limited, but I decided on two 'looking directions' that would give a view on Dordrecht.

The second, portrait format drawing is more a view on the 'Drierivierenpunt' (three rivers point) with the Water Tower of Zwijndrecht in view and the ferry from Papendrecht to Dordrecht waiting for its time to go.

Both drawings are to be seen in the Library of Papendrecht after September 26th in the exhibition of the works that were made during the workshop.

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

Sleep well!

 

During our painting vacation we were visited and sometimes encouraged by the old calico cat that lives at the location where we stayed. We were surprised to see her again, she is 18 years old now. Most of the daytime she sleeps in a nice spot and so I made a reference picture with the plan to make a drawing somewhere in the near future.

The last day our teacher and coach Ad van Aart did not have a small/short exercise for me for the afternoon so I decided to make the drawing I wanted to do.

Using my watercolour pencils I made this drawing, only layering pencil colours and not using water - I wanted to keep my brushes dry to be able to pack them that afternoon as it was the last afternoon of our stay there.

As she is old and very skinny, her fur is 'fluffy' and I tried to draw that as well. 

This had to be a quick one, there was not much time left before we were to close the week with a discussion of the works we made during the week.

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 artwork, contact me.

Storm coming - two paintings, one storm

 

In the middle of our painting week a storm was expected in the evening. Thunder and rain were predicted and we sat at the dinner table when suddenly the wind started (what a relief from the warm and damp day) and dark clouds were coming in.

Most of us (painters) stepped away from the building to make pictures of these beautiful clouds and of course I did that as well.

The clouds were very dark but there were also bright spots of light, our pictures are really inspiring. In fact there was not much rain, just a few drops (there was more the next day) and even though we could hear thunder, the lightning was above the lowest clouds.

Of course I used my most impressive picture as my reference the next morning, painting on a large sheet of watercolour paper with a dark colour mixture that should result in dark grey or even black.

The painting is made with the picture as my guideline, but as our teacher and coach Ad van Aart always says, the picture may have inspired to make a painting, but the art happens on the paper. The painting almost painted itself, using my hands as a tool and I know that trying to correct what happened would have spoiled the whole image.

The result is even better than I hoped for.

After the first painting happened so easily and in very short time, I decided to try a second one, on a smaller sheet of paper, using a different kind of paint. This paint is made with two pigments and I hoped it would give me a nice stormy sky.

Unfortunately that did not go as I wished for. This paint works in one layer and adding more does not give me the possibility to make some areas darker. As I work on a tilted surface (both in my studio on a drawing table and on my field easel) the water that runs down the paper slowly takes the paint with it to the lowest point.

Finally I asked Ad van Aart for help, as this would never become a nice dark clouded sky and I was getting a bit tired. The suggestion he made was to let the painting dry and start drawing on it with charcoal or another drawing material. I decided on charcoal and started drawing in the dark parts of the clouds, using my fingers and a piece of eraser to get the result I wanted.

There was one last surprise, after using fixative for the charcoal, the blue pigment from the paint resurfaced a little and that gave just a bit more depth to the final result.

After all this I am really happy with both works, the watercolour that went so smoothly and the experiment that turned out great after I used charcoal.

The information about the materials I used in both works can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

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

 

Tree bark - oak

During this painting week I also wanted to do something with tree bark, like I have done before but now a bit more experimental.

For this one I made a reference picture of the bark of an oak tree and gathered some leaves. Our teached and coach Ad van Aart advised me about how to make my composition.

The watercolour under painting is as usual and I used a pencil for the structure of the tree bark, awakening the colour at the darkest spots with a touch of water. 

After that I started laying the leaves on the drawing and outlining them with pencils that will show bright colours when 'awakened' with water. By allowing leaves to overlap and using the nagative space between the leaves I got irregular shapes of colour. Only the red shapes might be recognised as parts of leaves. In the end I added some more colour to some parts of the structure of the tree bark.

Of course this is only a first experiment, there are many more possibilities I want to explore in the future.

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

Sequoia

 

Very close to our location, on the grounds of a hotel, is a sequoia tree. Last year I painted the tree bark, this year I wanted to paint the whole tree. After making my reference picture our teacher and coach Ad van Aart and me decided on the composition of the painting.

It really helped that I had bought a block of 'panorama' paper that can of course also be used for large trees.

Painting this tree was a nice challenge and I really enjoyed it. The result is what I hoped for.

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

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

Branches in the wind

 

During my painting vacation I have worked as much as possible and that means that sometimes I used a spare hour for a charcoal drawing. This drawing was inspired by a question our teacher and coach Ad van Aart asked me. In my previous work there is a movement as if there was a lot of wind and so I was asked to do a charcoal drawing of wind in the branches.

Only branches in the wind, so that is what I put on the paper. Some loose twigs suggest a lot of wind, almost storm (but not yet).

We decided that the connection to the tree trunk had to be visible to make sure which side of the drawing had to be 'up'. 

Making this drawing was fun and the result is what I hoped for.

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 artwork, please contact me.

Woodland

 

Last week, during my painting vacation, I have been experimenting with my materials and with atmosphere. Our teacher and coach Ad van Aart encouraged me to do so and this work is one of the results of my experiments.

The reference picture is made at the location of our vacation, a small patch of woodland opposite the parking place provided a nice enough scene to paint.

My colour scheme is experimental, yellow, orange and red for the background with the plan to 'go wild' with other colours to change the atmosphere from serene to something more dramatic. I used my water soluble graphite for that, layering dry upon washed graphite for depth.

This may not be the best I ever made, but I enjoyed working on this one. And experiments always have the chance of failure or at least being not really great.

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

Vines - two watercolours and a charcoal drawing

 

Last week I had my painting vacation and this time I did not really have a goal like last year. So when our teacher and coach Ad van Aart showed me a book with the landscape paintings of Paul Citroen I was inspired to paint in his style - adapted to my preferences of course. In fact my own 'style' is not so very different from the paintings and drawings from the book.

Our location was at 'De Holdeurn' again and after the first morning of 'blind contour drawing' I had a very nice drawing of the vines. I left out the foliage and the grapes, drawing only the stems and the main branches and that gave an interesting start to work from.

My first adaptation was this charcoal drawing

following the lines of the 'blind contour drawing' but adding some emphasis on the stems of the vines and the pole on the right. We (Ad and me) decided that the horizontal lines were important for the composition. In reality these lines are there, the vines are tied up to these lines.

After that I made a watercolour painting, inspired by the atmosphere of a work by Paul Citroen but adapted to my subject (the vines).

Like the example in the book I used ink over a watercolour background, making the front row of vines stand out strongly compared to the ones in the background.

Again we decided on the horizontal lines of the structures that hold up the vines and I used the ink for those as well. Later I added some lines in the background, using light pencil lines.

At the end of the week I decided to close the circle and make the watercolour painting that is shown on top of this post, using only watercolours and following the original composition that can also be seen in the charcoal drawing.

These three works are very different even though they have the same subject and even share one reference sketch. Varying colours, materials and even the orientation on the paper resulted in three works of which each has a very own atmosphere.

The information about the materials I have used, the sizes of these works ant their availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

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

Pendulum with shells - a watercolour painting

 

The drawing of the little pendulum with shells I made 'en plein air' in a nice garden last week inspired me to a watercolour painting. Using the drawing as my reference I made a painting with a bit more colour in the background, just like I sometimes do when painting flowers or mushrooms.

My palette is different from the landscapes or my tree scenes, I wanted to use the pinks I have for this painting. 

The dimensions of the paper are just right for this pendulum and I enjoyed painting it.

The information about the materials I used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artwork, please contact me.

Along the high tide line

 

The reference picture for this watercolour painting has been waiting a long time before I used it and I only did that now because of the August challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken'. The theme is 'along the high tide line' and this is about as close to a high tide line as you can get.

Of course the high tide was some hours ago at the moment the picture was taken, but where the water has been is still visible. This was at the beach at the Maasvlakte, just before sunset, three years ago. Of course I would have painted this scene in the near future, but the challenge made me paint now.

The reference picture was made from a low angle, just above the sand - avoiding to get wet but as low as I could get. This makes the light on the water a bit more special.

The details on the foreground - shells and the footsteps of seabirds - are only suggested, not every detail made it into the painting.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artwork, please contact me.

Pendulum with shells - a pencil drawing

 

In  my previous post I mentioned the day of plein-air painting and drawing with some members of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' in a large garden in the Alblasserwaard (The Netherlands).

Not only the bog oak inspired me, there were also some pendulums with shells, used as scarecrows in that garden. I never made a painting or drawing of shells before, so I decided to make a small size drawing of one of them.

My seat was close to the pendulum and I did the drawing without use of a reference picture, just as 'plein-air' is meant to be. Of course there is a reference picture just in case I want to do another drawing or painting about these shells.

The first layer of pencil was 'awakened' with some water, only the shells. After that more layers of pencil were added to the shells. The branch/stick that did hold the pendulum in place has only one layer of pencil, no watter added. The black cord that was used to tie the shells was drawn with a graphite pencil.

This little still life was made just for fun, 'because I can' and I an happy with the result.

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

Bog oak - a charcoal drawing

 

As I have mentioned before I am member of an amateur art association, 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' that is based in the 'Alblasserwaard' and 'Molenlanden' (The Netherlands). Every summer a few plein-air painting days are organised in our region and this time we were welcome to paint in a very large garden of one of our members in the village of Giessenburg. The garden really is large and full of inspirational items so every painter found a spot to paint or draw.

In that garden were some bog oaks, retrieved from the surrounding areas when work on ditches was done or a patch of land was prepared for the building of houses. These oaks were at least two hundred years old when they died and were submerged in the peat bog and it is estimated that they have been there up to four thousand years. 

The most beautiful one still had a part of its root structure and I sat down close to it to make a charcoal drawing.

The other side, with much more structure visible was faced to a ditch and too close to it to sit down and draw, so I made reference pictures for later use.

This side of the tree was well lit by the sun and I enjoyed drawing all those little details using my charcoal - and my fingers for blending.

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.

Tree! - a Conté drawing

 

During the workshop morning with Pictura in the garden of the 'Dordrechts Museum' I sketched some of the trees there as these are old and impressive. 

There are three Platanus trees in that garden, that were already there when the Museum was founded, in the year 1904. These trees are maybe 200 years old and they look like their age. The trees are really large and as they are in a garden in an old city it is not possible to make a (reference) picture of the whole tree, they are too tall for that. 

The tree trunks have several bulges, maybe scar tissue where branches have been cut off. The lowest branch grows at least 3 meters above ground.

After I had made my sketch, I moved on to another tree and did not do much with this sketch. The sketch went to the exposition in the 'Pictura' building that ended over a week ago.

Now the sketch is back in my home - and my studio - I can work from it. The vertical lines in the sketch are showing the structure of the corrugated cardboard that we had to support our sheets of sketching paper.

It has been over two month that I was in that Museum garden and my memory of that tree has faded a little, there are no reference pictures, so the sketch is all I have to work with. 

This Conté drawing, using brown and earth colours on a light brown (naturel) background may not be an exact reproduction of the tree or the sketch, it does show what did attract my attention to this tree: the bulges on the tree trunk.

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

View from the train Alençon - Le Mans (France)

 

Every summer my husband Peter travels to France for his volunteer work. He stays away from home two days and often sends me pictures of where he has been. This time he sent me a picture of the view from the train from Alençon to Le Mans and I decided to paint it.

As it is still warm and damp, I had to use my hairdryer to dry the painting between layers and even then the paper would get damp again in places I had not touched with a brush after using the dryer. So the result is more atmospheric than detailed, but I don't mind that in a landscape.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of the painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artwork, please contact me.

Calla - in my garden

 

A few years ago I bought a Calla plant for my mother, for inside her home. Unfortunately I had forgotten that this plant is not healthy for her cat, so it moved to my home and after the flower died, it moved to my garden.  Every year the leaves emerged and died again in winter but it took all these years for the plant to bloom again. Of course we made several pictures and one of the pictures my husband made is the reference for this watercolour painting.

For this painting I selected a small sheet of paper, only one flower that is my subject, so that does not need a big sheet of paper. Especially not in this moist summer heat, when the paper does not dry as quickly as I would like it to. A large size painting would have been more of a struggle than a nice, calming afternoon in my studio.

The result is what I hoped it would be and 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.

Tree collage - for a challenge

 

This month the challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is called 'Papier hier!' translated to 'paper here!', the words that come from the large trash collectors in the famous theme parc 'De Efteling'. A fairy tale figure - always hungry - cries for the paper (and other trash) and answers with a 'thank you' if he is given something.

For the challenge we were asked to do something creative with paper - not an ordinary material, but in fact really versatile.

This was a bit of a challenge for me, I'm not much of a crafter anymore - especially since I started painting. So I had to think about what would be best to hand in.

For this work I tore up old printed matter (with a collection of watercolours of mine) and pasted it on a sheet of A3 paper. On the back I very roughly drew an indication of the annual rings of a tree stump and cut the rings out.

I traced the structure of wood - but as planks - on a sheet of watercolour paper and coloured it with watercolour markers.

I glued the cut-out collage on top and the rings that I did not use immediately were applied upside down at the top right. Because this turned out va bit too white I glued narrow edges of collage on top.

So I did some crafting, some drawing and I used trees as my inspiration again.

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

Dark clouds over the 'Vlaardingse Vaart' (The Netherlands)

 

Last weekend we had a real Summer storm in our country and as it happened to be the weekend of a birthday party in our family we were celebrating in a nice restaurant near the Vlaardingse Vaart. 

The plan was that we would be on an open terrace, but due to the weather it was covered and closed with glass doors. We still had a nice view of the water and the polder landscape but the wind and rain did not spoil the party mood inside. 

We had a lot of wind and some rain but after the rain I went outside to make some reference pictures. The clouds and the water of the Vaart inspired me, not to mention the flat grasslands and reeds on the other bank of the Vlaardingse Vaart.

For this watercolour I have used a limited palette, the colours were chosen to capture the mood of that stormy Summer's day.

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.

Aekingerzand (Netherlands) - dark clouds

 

During our short vacation in the province of Drenthe (The Netherlands) we made walks in our Natural Reserves close to our vacation home. One of those Natural Reserves is the Drents-Friese Wold where we made a nice long walk that passes woodlands, moorland areas and this drifting sand area, the Aekingerzand.

We could not enter the sand area, because it is a resting place for wildlife, protecting bird's nests and other animals. But the views were nice, so we made some pictures. 

Dark clouds were over us in the afternoon - it did not rain when we walked but that started soon after we finished our walk and that inspired me to make the reference pictures for this watercolour. Earlier I have made a charcoal drawing of the moorlands we crossed under these dark clouds and this time I wanted to make a watercolour painting.

The view is from a bench where we had our packed lunch under a nice large tree giving some shadow.

The painting is what I hoped it would be, showing the landscape and the weather of that day in May.

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

The old one - 2 a pencil drawing

 

In my previous post I wrote about the big oak tree we saw at the Mantingerveld (The Netherlands) when we made a signposted walk in that Natural Reserve.

The tree was too big for my watercolour paper so I made another attempt to show it. This time I used pencils on 'mixed media' paper, which is more smooth than the watercolour paper I use. Again the tree does not fit on the paper, but I can show its size a bit better now.

The format is landscape, so I can give more space to the very long lower branches. The tree trunk is made smaller compared to the watercolour (in absolute figures, not compared to the branches) so there would be more space to show the branches. Using pencils also means that I can make the details smaller without losing the structure of the subject.

As said, again the tree does not fit on the paper and there are only a few groups of leaves visible, only where they are in front of the tree trunk and the bigger branches. I did not fill in the background with sky, bushes and the suggestion of other trees further back so the tree is my only subject. The ground is only added so it would not be floating in space.

The tree trunk and the branches have several layers of pencil, the first layer is made more intensive with a little water, to 'wake up' the colours. The foliage and the ground have only one layer of pencil colour, with no water added.

When the drawing and the watercolour painting are next to each other, the watercolour has darker colours, the tree is bigger and so it seems to be the better version. When the drawing is on its own, it looks like what I wanted to do, with the emphasis on the structure of the tree.

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 artwork, please contact me.

The old one

 

In my previous post about the Mantingerveld I have written that there are some oak trees in that Natural Reserve and this is one of them.

The tree is old, large and it was not possible to get a good picture of the whole tree. The tree came in full view behind some other trees and bushes and stepping back would have meant that those bushes were blocking the view on the tree. So my reference picture does not show the whole tree.

My painting does show even less of the tree, I should have selected a much bigger piece of paper to do justice to the size of this oak tree. Unfortunately I do not have the facilities to paint that large. 

So I decided to paint just a part of the tree, placing it in the middle of my paper, making the trunk and the large lower branches as small as possible - so that the other branches would still have some volume - and just finding out what I would end up with. 

In May the leaves are still fresh green and small, so there was not much foliage to be painted. Most of the leaves are at the end of the branches, not visible in this painting. The structure of this old tree is still visible, because it is so early in Springtime and that is exactly what inspired me to make the reference picture and this painting.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

Mantingerveld (The Netherlands)

 

In the first weekend of May we (my husband and me) went for a short vacation to the Province of Drenthe (Netherlands) where we stayed in a vacation home and made several signposted walks in our Natural Reserves - there are several protected areas in Drenthe.

Before we arrived in the vacation home, we made a nice walk in the Mantingerveld, an area with lots of juniper trees. During our stay I made a drawing of the berries and when I posted that, I promised - not only to myself - that I would post more works with/about juniper trees.

In this part of the Mantingerveld most of the juniper trees are found, from small to really large, some are bent over and appear to be broken. These trees are alive but had to endure a storm at some moment in their life.

The day was grey, clouded and we had a little rain while we were walking but the moment I made the reference picture for this watercolour that rain seemed far away. The overcast sky means there were as good as no shadows. 

All the juniper trees and juniper bushes and the heath plants were dark, the light green trees and bushes are mostly oak trees or birches in various sizes and ages. The sand path crossed a field with mosses at this point, the walk passed fields like this, forest areas and some fens.

The result of my work is what I hoped for (the picture is not really showing the colours as they are) and the information about the materials I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

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

Sweet bliss - for a challenge

 

The month of June is the beginning of Summer and that inspired the theme of the June challenge of Goed Gezien-Goed Bekeken, as we had to make a work about Sweet Bliss.

The suggestions were about strawberries or cherries, but I thought of a nice large ice cream coupe and I only needed some inspiration about how to paint it.

Using a black background (heavy black cardboard) I painted my subject with white gouache and watercolour and added an iridescent medium on the glass of the coupe.

The result is what I hoped for and this is my contribution to the challenge.

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

Wet tree - graphite drawing

 

The reference of the wet tree I photographed and sketched in the garden of the  Dordrechts Museum is once again my inspiration. This time I used tinted paper and my water soluble graphite to make this drawing.

In fact I am still looking for the best way to paint or draw the scene, using the sketch as my reference. Both the ink painting and the watercolour painting were not exactly what I hoped for - even though I made works I am happy with - so I tried tinted paper in a darker shade of brown than the background painting for my watercolour painting. 

This paper is not suitable for very wet techniques, so I used the water soluble graphite. One layer of graphite is worked on with as little water as possible to make the colours flow and 'wake them up' and after that I only used the dry graphite in several layers of colour to get this result. It starts looking more and more like a real wet tree, Once again I started with the lines of the sketch and made a drawing that looked well balanced.

I think I should let the reference sketch rest for now and look at the reference picture for another work, most likely a watercolour painting. The sketch has too little information (it started raining again, so we went inside) for further use.

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 artwork, please contact me.