Tree bark drawing - oak

 

The reference picture with the beautiful bark of an oak tree was waiting to be used for several months and I finally decided how I wanted to use it.

For this work I first made a watercolour under painting, followed by drawing the tree bark with a Graphitint pencil on the dry underpainting. This is how I usually made these tree bark drawings, though the latest one already had an 'extra' by adding the shapes of the leaves.

Now the experiment starts!

Once complete, I used watercolour paint for the colours on the tree, but not exactly as they are. Using the watercolour also activated the colour of the Graphitint pencil I used for the drawing. The Graphitint pencils are water soluble and show a different shade when activated by water. After all was (as good as) dry I used the pencil again to deepen the shadow parts.

So far I have only been working on the tree bark and now it was time for the 'extra', acorns this time. I made some shapes of acorns and the little caps they have with white paper and used these shapes for a first composition. The shapes have different sizes, that is how I wanted to do this. Drawing around the shapes with the Grapitint pencil did not really give the result I wanted so I used a white Graphitint pencil to draw these shapes again.

The result was nice, but not enough, so I almost filled the paper with these shapes I cut out, overlapping in areas and drawing the outlines with both pencils. After that I used the pencils to indicate the volumes of the acorns and that gave me the result I was looking for.

The experiment was nice, combining pencils and paint and making two layers of shapes, the tree bark and the fruits of the tree.

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

Acorns again - as foretold

In my previous post I already foretold that I would be using the same composition sketch again, now using different background colours. This is what I had in mind, a painting with the leaves standing out against a background with more dark browns.

For this watercolour painting I have made a single layer background in light ochre colours and made a drawing of my sketch on that background. Then I started to darken the areas around the leaves and acorns with a dark brown and strengthened the Burnt Sianna in the background.

The shapes of the leaves were now accentuated by adding shadows and the branches and acorns were painted.

At this point I decided I was happy with the result.

The last few paintings I did were using a much more 'complicated' background and the subject was added with darker shades of the colours I had used. 
This time the background was darkened around the subject, resulting  in light coloured leaves that still have the colour scheme of the initial ochre background. 
When this painting is compared to the previous one there is a big difference in the resulting atmosphere. I really like to be experimenting like this with all the colours I have gathered over the years and I am still learning with every painting I make.

The details about paper, paint, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Acorns

This is another watercolour painting in which I am experimenting with composition and a colour schemes that is mostly yellow.
I have been adding darker colours for contrast from the beginning and I am expanding the palette I am using - the first paintings had only four colours, this one has six colours of which four shades of yellow or ochre.

Last painting vacation I have started painting like this because I wanted to find 'my way' of painting flowers and our teacher Ad van Aart guided me in this direction. Back at home I have continued painting in this style as much as possible. 
This really feels like 'my way' and I am really happy with these paintings.

For this painting I knew I wanted to paint acorns so I made some reference pictures of branches with leaves and acorns during the last walk in the park. My husband Peter held the branches for me, to help me making the pictures I needed. (No tree was hurt or damaged in the process)

Using these pictures I sketched some acorns and leaves, giving me references for the shapes I wanted to combine for my composition.
The composition sketch was made with great care, thinking, looking and adding or erasing shapes until I was satisfied.
The yellow background was painted first in two layers that did have time to dry completely. I have used three shades of yellow for the background. After this was completed - or I did not what to make any more changes and just work with the result I already had - I decided which side was top and which would be bottom and started drawing the composition using a watercolour pencil.
And then the leaves, acorns and branches were painted. I wanted the leaves to be visible, but they should not stand out too much as the acorns were to be the subject of the painting.
At this point I asked for a second opinion (my daughter this time) and we both declared the painting finished.

In the near future I may use the composition sketch for another painting, making variations in the background colours and values.

The details about this painting (paper and colours used, size, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com