Fields and a forest edge

 

This scene is what I wanted to paint when I made some reference pictures during our nice signposted walk near Bathmen. The second reference picture, about the details of the building has already been used for a drawing and this was meant to be a watercolour.

The building is still visible in the forest edge but as this is 'the whole landscape' and not a detail, the atmosphere is more open, with the fields in the foreground. At the end of winter, there are not many details in a field of grass, so the fields are mostly green with a few shadows. Later in the year there will be grasses that are higher, other herbs growing and some bumps in the field where animals have been rooting the ground.

The large trees are still bare, just like the little bush in the foreground. The whole fence is visible now, not much more than I had in my drawing.

Making this watercolour was as pleasant as the walk itself and did bring back the memory of this nice, open landscape not very far from the river IJssel.

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.

In the forest edge

 

A few weeks ago we were on a very short vacation and made a nice signposted walk near Bathmen. During that walk I have made several reference pictures and this is the second one I am using for a drawing. In fact, the picture used for this drawing was an extra reference, zoomed in on the building in the forest edge. I planned to make a watercolour painting with the sky and much more of the surrounding landscape visible and thought I might need some extra information on the building.

Today I had some free hours and wanted to make a drawing, using my Conté and a sheet of coloured cardboard. There was a nice green colour for the background so I decided to use the 'zoomed in' picture with only trees, grass, the building and a bit of the fence.

Like I did in an earlier drawing, I limited myself to three colours of Conté with the shade of the paper as my fourth colour.

These drawings are a bit of an experiment, as I am still learning how to use the Conté Crayons on different surfaces. Of course I want to end with a nice drawing with a good colour scheme even though the colour of the paper is an important part of the result. Or is it 'because' the colour of the paper is so very important instead of 'even though'? Maybe the last, because I am a watercolour painter and we watercolourists are used to let the white of the paper be an important part of the result.

About this drawing I can only say that it was fun to make 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.

Forest Edge

 

During our short stay in the Eastern part of our country, we also found a nice signposted walk near Bathmen. The walk was very informative about the history of this area as we passed several old buildings, some former barnyards and the stream that was used for transportation. There also were patches of what once were forest areas and near one of these forest edges we stopped for our lunch and to make some reference pictures.

For this work I have made a graduated watercolour under painting on smooth paper. Once this had dried, I started drawing the trees and the shadows on the ground with charcoal. After that I used my Graphitint pencils for the green grasses and mosses on the ground. A white Graphitint pencil was used for the sunlit sides of the trees. Some extra white was created with an eraser. 

The bright colours of the Graphitint Pencils only showed after I had used the fixative that is needed to keep the charcoal in place, so the amount of pencil colour applied was an uncertain element, but the result is what I hoped it would be.

When I saw this forest edge, I knew that I wanted to make a mixed media work with charcoal and pencils. The scene is not really very exciting in itself, but I did see possibilities in the shadows and the patches of green moss under the large trees to make my work a bit more interesting.

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