Photography evolution - drawing for a challenge

 

The April challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about 'my generation' and we have to draw, paint or otherwise show what is special to our generation. That is not an easy task, so I took my inspiration from the picture added to the description of the challenge and changed the subject from books to photography.

My father was a good amateur photographer who did use black and white for a relatively long time. So I grew up with camera's and black and white pictures. Later we had colour pictures. And now we all have a camera with photography apps on them.

I made landscapes with water soluble graphite pencils and watercolour pencils, the phone just shows some apps on a fantasy background. And a camera much like I remember having myself. 

On all the elements of the drawing I used water to 'awaken' the colours.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this work and - if you are interested in my original artwork - my contact information can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Freedom - for a challenge

 

The April challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about freedom and inspired by the fact that in the next month we are celebrating that we were liberated from the occupier and World War II ended.

In April my mind is more engaged by another kind of freedom, the kind we celebrate with Easter.

So I made a drawing of a human figure - outlines only - on white paper and painted with watercolours around it, from light yellow to orange. After that had dried I used willow charcoal for the dark areas.

The idea is that the shining figure drives the darkness away. 

As this is one of my first experiments with these materials combined the result may not be perfect. 

Still I am happy with the result - a very detailed work was never my plan for this one.

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

(This is not a) sunset - for a challenge

 

The April challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about to paint or draw something that is not what it seems to be. The only thing I could think of is the famous painting by René Magritte with the text 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' and so I decided to make something like that. 

First I painted a sunset, leaving room in the composition for a text. The text is in Dutch, meaning 'this is not a sunset'. It is added just like I add my watermark, using a PowerPoint sheet that is layered over the image of the painting. Below is the work I submitted for the challenge.

Making the painting was not easy. This was one of those days and I was struggling with water, paper and paint to get an acceptable result. At one moment I even washed almost all the paint off the paper, made myself some tea, let the paper dry and started over. That did help a little, but I still could not paint as easily as I usually do. Maybe just because I had not painted for weeks?

By now I am happy with to the result of my work, other people say it is a nice sunset (I usually ask my husband and/or my mother to comment on my work) and I start to think so as well. Taking some distance does a lot for accepting the results of your 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.

Lilies - pencil drawing

 

The April challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is 'dressed' -  about clothing to impress or for functionality or....

As I do not paint people, I had to think of something else and as my first idea was already used, I turned to plan B. My inspiration/clue comes from the Bible: 

"Look at the lilies, look how they grow in the field. They neither work nor weave. I tell you, even Solomon in all his splendour was not dressed like one of them." (Matthew 6:28-29)

Of course I had to look for these words, I do know they are in the Bible, but I do not know exactly where to find them.

The lilies were drawn from several reference pictures and I used my imagination for the colour scheme, hoping to get a nice composition. My (water soluble) pencils were used to make nice blended colours and the background was added mostly because of the very pale lily below.

Making this drawing was fun, using all the pencils I wanted to - trying out some colours I had not used before (the box of pencils was a birthday gift last year) and I really hope everyone understands why I made this drawing for this challenge.

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

Springtime in the garden

The new month means a new challenge by 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' and this month the theme is 'Stranger'. As I do not paint people, I had to think of another stranger and a look into my own garden gave me the inspiration I needed.

A lot of our flower bulbs are left in the ground in summer and this has resulted in some mixing of the species. It can occur that a daffodil comes up between the tulips and this way I found the stranger I wanted for my contribution to this challenge.

This time I have used my watercolour markers - and water to make the colours flow and mix with a fine liner. I have explored this combination of art materials before and I liked the result so this was the moment to use these markers again.

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

 

Zondags gaat zij naar de kerk...

 

The April challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about a book with silverwork on it. The inspiration for the challenge was an exposition about silver in the museum in Schoonhoven, our centre of Silver industry (jewellers etc)

There is also a nursery rhyme with that book with silverwork on it about a young woman who always feels ill, but never on a Sunday, then she will go to church with the book full of silver.

So I painted that book - probably a book with both the Bible and some Hymns in it - with an old-fashioned purse with a silver clasp and for the modern touch I added a disposable mouth mask. All of that is on a table waiting for the walk to church.

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.

Alienation

The April challenge of our regional amateur art association is 'Alienation' and that is of course because of the strange times we are having at the moment. We have to practice 'social distancing', we have to stay at home or close to home as much as possible, grocery shopping is done alone and we work from home. 
All meetings, (art) festivals and other gatherings are cancelled so we can only go 'out' in our nature, which is discouraged. This is happening all over the world now but I write it down for future readers, to remind them about the circumstances at the time I made this painting.

A few weeks ago, just one day before all things closed down in The Netherlands (because of the corona virus) we went for a walk on the beach. We did chose a beach that is not so very popular, so we had a nice walk without too many other people coming too close. We already had to practice 'social distancing' at that time.
We made some nice pictures of the waves walked for more than an hour and went home again.

I decided to use one of the pictures that were made at the beach for the 'Alienation' challenge.
I have tried to omit the horizon in order to get the alienation that is asked for in this challenge. There are several reasons for that and I will try to explain them all.

In our rather flat landscape there always is a horizon. In fact, there is another online challenge at the moment which uses that ever present horizon as its theme.
When we are looking at a landscape our eyes always try to find the horizon and a photograph is 'not good' when the horizontal line is not found.
And I remember reading that the paintings J.M.W. Turner made about ships in stormy weather were thought to be alienating because the horizon was nowhere to be found in these scenes.

So I have made a seascape with a bit of beach, some waves, the sea and clouds but I have not marked the horizon. I hope this will do for the challenge.

Painting these waves was a bit of a challenge for me, mostly because I have not done this very often. I know I need to practice more and I really will do so somewhere in the future.

The details about the paper and paints used, the size and availability can all be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Springtime in my garden - white on black

This year the Hellebore bloomed with a few white flowers, but to our surprise one of them came up and bloomed at some distance of the original plant. Such a brave little flower had to be honoured with some pictures and eventually a painting.
The beach tree trunk is not a real tree anymore, it is part of our bird feeding spot, a little house is made on top for feeding breadcrumbs ans other stuff to the hungry birds that visit our garden.
This is in sight of our window and I really liked the surprise of the flower under the bird feeder.

This painting was made 'white on black' using not only the gouache and watercolour but also watercolour pencils. This was an experiment with this kind of mixed media, but the result is as I hoped it would be.

I have submitted this one to the April Challenge of "Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken", the amateur art association of which I am a member. The theme of the challenge is 'Springtime' and I thought this to be a fitting subject.

More information about this painting (size, materials used, contact information, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com