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.

Wet tree

 

In my previous post I wrote about the drawing workshop session I attended in the garden of the Dordrechts Museum where I got inspired by the water patterns on a tree trunk.

During that workshop session I made a reference picture, a sketch and an ink painting.

This time I used my sketch as a reference for a watercolour painting and maybe I will also be working from the picture. In the post about the ink painting I wrote about the weather, that there was limited time to complete my sketch, but that the composition in the sketch was interesting (lots of empty paper). The ink painting did not have these bits of empty paper - which does not make it a bad painting but it did not turn out as planned.

So today another try, using the sketch as my reference. Using watercolour and small brushes the fine lines of the water running down the tree trunk are easy to paint. 

The more horizontal lines - also wet with water and showing a lot of the structure of the tree bark - are again a challenge. When to stop? The reference sketch is good, but much more grey on white, this watercolour is much darker, giving much more contrast in the values of the painting. So I ended up adding more lines and some extra colour in the tree trunk to make the painting more balanced.

Again I had difficulties making a 'good' painting from a good (balanced) sketch and this will not be the last time this happens to me. Over the past years this happened more than once and I expect I will also have these 'problems' in the future. Well, this kind of trial and error are the best learning moments so they are good for me - a bit frustrating but good.

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