Almost two years ago my husband and me had a short vacation in The Black Forest in Germany and we visited the ruins of Allerheiligen. We made some pictures and I made watercolour paintings. The first watercolour I made had the colours as they were, and the yellow tree did look great in reality, in the reference picture and not so great in the watercolour painting. The painting was laid aside and I tried again with another palette. That second painting pleased me more.
Last summer, during my painting vacation I was introduced to 'painting over' and made some nice personal versions of pages from an atlas.
We also did 'metamorphosis' paintings, with a simple painting to start from and adding new elements each next version.
For this painting I have combined these two ideas. I took the watercolour painting and started drawing using my Conté Sketching Crayons, adding some dark areas to the ruins and changing the shape and quantity of the surrounding bushes and trees.
In this way I have made the yellow tree a part of the background instead of something that did not belong in that place.
The added plants and bushes make this place look more abandoned.
This version pleases me much more than the original painting (which does not exist any more) and now I have come closer to the atmosphere I wanted for this scene.
More information about this painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Last autumn we were in the Black Forest - in Germany - for a short vacation. During that trip we visited the ruins and waterfalls of Allerheiligen.
The ruins have been painted (and will be painted again) and during the vacation I already painted the waterfalls once and I promised myself that I would paint them again.
Waterfalls are not an easy subject for me, because I have to go on vacation to visit them. In our flat country there are no waterfalls to be found. At least nothing over a meter.
As I have written in my first post about these falls, the Allerheiligen waterfalls are a series of falls cascading down around the mountain. To visit them safely there are stairways and platforms beside the falling water.
At that time my knees were giving me messages about 'age' and 'not in shape for this terrain' so I stood sketching some of the falls as my husband went down a bit further to make lots of photographs. This painting is made after one of my sketches.
For this painting I chose to do a small size using only two colours. This enables me to focus on the falls; how to paint them in a way that they can still be recognized as waterfalls. On top of the scene is a small waterfall, which is mostly in the shadows of the rocks and trees surrounding the falls and the path beside them.
As it was my goal to make a recognizable waterfall, I think I have succeeded with this painting. Of course I will have to paint much more waterfalls to improve my skills on this subject.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, colours used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The ruins of the monastery of Allerheiligen, Germany are situated very nicely besides the brook and the waterfalls. As it is a touristic site, it also is very well - kept, clean and accessible. I gave some information about the history of the site before.
I painted this scene before and used the colours of reality; green for the fir trees and yellow and orange for the other trees and the bushes below. I also tried to reproduce the foggy weather of the day we were visiting the site.
But I was not finished with this scene, I wanted to paint the scene again and this time I wanted to do a fantasy in autumn colours.
For this painting I also changed my crop a bit, now I did not want to draw attention to the contrast between the green and the yellow/orange trees but I wanted to accent the ruins themselves. This time I have been depicting the difference in the structures of the walls that are still standing. Some are in natural stones, others are made of nice rectangular blocks of limestone. And all of it is striped with moist and dirt.
The trees and bushes are bare this time, as if the foliage has already been shed and the leaves have been cleaned up by the caretakers of the site.
The background still suggests a forest in autumn colours - not all the trees shed their leaves at the same time.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, colours and paper used) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
At 'Allerheiligen' waterfalls was also a monastery, now in ruins. During our trip to the falls we also visited the ruins and the small museum and took some pictures.
The next bit of information was found - amidst a lot more information - on a wikipedia page
According to the tradition, the foundation date was 1192, and the site of the building, at 620 metres above sea level in the upper valley of the Lierbach near Oppenau, was determined by a donkey which threw off a sack of money at this remote and inaccessible spot. In the same year a wooden chapel was built, which was gradually extended to be a Premonstratensian monastery.
Large fires, in 1470 and 1555, had already destroyed parts of the premises. In 1804, a last fire, started when a bolt of lightning struck the church tower, finished the job.
Not until the end of the 19th century, when tourism finally reached the Lierbach valley and its waterfalls, were any steps taken to secure what was left of the ruins, which were then put into the condition they are in today.
Also now on the site are a cafe and a small museum. Below the ruins are the All Saints'waterfalls.
Those ruins are really great for a painting! We only have a few pictures (camera battery low) but I intend to use them as good as possible.
On the slopes of the mountains are mostly fir trees but closer to the buildings was a group in bright autumn colours - just behind the ruins. So this painting is about the autumn colours and the contrast with the ruined building.
Because of all the dirt and mold the structure of the ruins was hardly visible, especially the tower is hard to see clearly.
The tree trunks were dark because of the moist, and as a lot of leaves had fallen already they were standing out nicely against the bright coloured foliage.
I have tried to paint the decay of the ruins standing out against the life in the trees. To show some of the details I have also used some of my Graphitint pencils, they have colours that fit right into this atmosphere.
More information (paper, pencils, colours used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
This October we were in the Black Forest for a week of vacation. The Black Forest (in Germany) has mountains, forests, waterfalls, ruins, and a lot more to see and paint.
As we were there only for a week we haven't seen it all but we did visit the waterfalls of Allerheiligen.
There are lots of small and larger waterfalls in a row, not going down in one big fall but circling down in a gorge. A good footpath has been constructed with safe stairs and some platforms to walk up or down beside the falls.
On one of the platforms in the path I have been sketching and the same evening - in our vacation home - I made a small painting after one of the sketches.
There is one more - on the spot - sketch and a lot of pictures so I will be painting some more waterfalls in the weekends to come.
For this watercolour painting I decided to use only autumn colours (orange and yellow) in stead of adding the green that was still part of the colour scheme of the forest.
This is my first waterfall painting, so it's not perfect, but I had fun painting this one and I am happy with the result.
More information about this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
