Dolmen - five works

 

The second project in my painting vacation was a dolmen, capstone and supporting stones or at least what is left of the structure.

The first thing I made was the pencil drawing as a study for the composition and to get an idea of the structure of the different stones. After that came the Conté drawing on Terracotta paper as a 'mood' study.

Then out teacher and coach Ad van Aart suggested a second Conté drawing, with less stones for a better composition. That is the one on the grey paper.

After that study I reduced the amount of smaller stones to three and made a watercolour painting in natural colours. The grey-blue and the earth colours ate what is to be expected in a landscape.

There was more to be tried with this scene so I reduced the supporting stones to the absolute minimum of two - as suggested by Ad - changed the direction of the paper from 'landscape' to 'portrait' and used colours from the 'Twilight series' of my palette.

The results are what I hoped for. As mentioned in my previous post, this week I intended to paint the spiritual feeling that a dolmen is holy ground and my watercolours really reflect that feeling.

The information about the materials I have used, the sizes and availabilities of these works and - if you are interested in my original artworks - my contact information can all be found in my Flickr account.

Siberian Tiger - a Conté drawing

 

Last weekend we visited the 'Dierenpark Amersfoort' and had a great time. 

At some point in the main route we saw this Siberian tiger, that walked towards the large window where  lots of children and adults were watching. Close to the large window the tiger laid down as if it was posing for pictures. My husband had the camera and made pictures for me.

Today I found time to make a drawing, using my Conté Crayons because these have the best colours for the tiger. To get the best result for the orange-ish fur I had to mix some colours but that is the fun of working with a limited set of colours.

This time I added more white after a first spray with fixative, to make it stand out even more. Of course I used my fixative again after that. This technique is something I have seen in a tutorial and I use it when I think I need it.

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 Flickr account.

Kasteelpark van Brasschaat - a Conté drawing

 

The May challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about the colour red. After I had painted poppies for my first submission I wanted to do something with red paper as my background.

From three shades of red (all in a set with a lot of colours) I picked the darkest one and made a Conté drawing of a landscape. Because of the red background I limited the palette for my drawing.

In fact this is in a parc area where my husband and me went for a walk, the Kasteelpark Brasschaat which is a public place now and a great place for a walk. 

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

Tree roots - a Conté drawing

 

Last spring we (my husband and me) went for a signposted walk in the 'Mastenbos' (Belgium) where I made several reference pictures for my paintings and drawings. Some have already been used to make nice watercolour paintings and this time I wanted to draw these tree roots.

The tree had fallen and the roots were exposed which is not usual, most of the times you see a large amount of soil and earth attached to the roots. That means all the soil had been removed - by rain or wind or both - from this fallen tree.

I made some reference pictures when we were there and I selected the best one for my drawing.

Only the roots are visible here, the sand that had fallen off and the tree trunk are not in the drawing.

That decision was made during the drawing process. I started with the roots and gave them as much details as possible with crayons and looked at the result. Nothing else was needed, so I signed the drawing, used fixative and called it finished.

The result is what I hoped for.

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. 

Feather - a Conté drawing

 

Last summer my husband Peter made a nice picture of a lonely feather on the beach. During my painting vacation we discussed the possibilities of this reference picture for making a painting with an 'unexpected addition' and decided I was to paint another composition.

A few days ago the Sketch A Day app had the prompt 'feather' and I immediately decided to use the reference picture my husband made. 

That picture was used for this Conté drawing, showing only the sand, the feather and its shadow.

Maybe I will try other compositions with the feather, trying to find the best 'unexpected addition'.

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

Antlers - a Conté drawing

 

A week ago I discovered the 'Sketch a Day app' with every day a new prompt for a sketch. I have been drawing every day, very often a quick sketch that not very great but a nice practice.

Today's prompt was Antler and I had time and inspiration to do a bit more. So I looked for an inspiring reference in my collection of photos from magazines and calendars and I found a nice old photo that I could use with some adaptations.

For the drawing I used Conté first and then pencils for the green leaves. After I finished all I used my fixative, not only for the Conté, but also to 'awaken' the colours of the watercolour pencils.

The result is even better than I hoped I could do.

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

Water tower at the 'Spoorwegmuseum' - Conté drawing

 

This week we went to visit the 'Spoorwegmuseum' in the town of Utrecht and we were in the company of the grandchildren, their parents (of course!) and two guest children from France. The museum has many locomotives, trains, wagons and other material that has once moved over the rails in The Netherlands. 

Besides these there are also lots of information and modern trains - as a model - a simulator, some old rails and a workplace from the steam age.

That workplace shows the building as it was - we cannot really enter it, but we can look - and part of that is this old rusty water tower that inspired me to make this drawing.

This time I have also used Conté pencils, both for the colours and for the lines.

Because I was relatively far away from my subject when I made my reference picture, the building is not as detailed as it might be but as the water tower is my subject that does not really matter to me. Now the building is clearly the structure that has the tower on its roof.

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

A stack of trunks - a Conté drawing

 

During our walk in the Arboretum Trompenburg we passed by a stack of trees (in fact there were more of these stacks) surrounded by plants and I decided to make a reference picture for a drawing.

The drawing in only black, grey and white was a challenge because I also wanted to suggest the surrounding plants and bushes because these partially covered the stack of trunks. This background has mostly the same value as that stack of trunks, so my subject (the trunks) did not stand out any more.

That is why I evened the background, using the Conté that was already on the paper and added white to that later to take away a bit of all that black.

Now only the stack of trunks is detailed with a background in a gradient of grey. The darkest black is for the shadows and the really dark spots on the tree trunks and I have tried to make these stand out against the background as well.

Using fixative does change the intensity of the white a bit, so in between layers of fixative I added more white.

The result is not what I planned, but while I was working on this one I had to change my plans. In fact, I think I like this more.

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

Tree trunk, Sonnenberg - a Conté drawing

 

On the last day in Sonnenberg (Leiwen, Germany) we walked towards the Fünfseenblick in the morning. The walk was a nice one with lots of forest areas to give us shadow while walking. Where there are trees, there are also tree trunks, fallen trees and fallen branches.

Of course I could not stand still to make pictures of them all, but I did make a reference picture of a tree trunk that was partially in bright sunlight.

Today I made a Conté drawing of that dead tree, maybe in the (near) future I will also make a watercolour painting using the same reference picture.

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

Boomstronk - Conté tekening

 

This is not the first dead tree or tree trunk I have been drawing and it is not the last either. I like the idea of finding as much details in a dead tree trunk as possible and trying to draw them all. Of course I cannot draw all details on such a small sheet of paper - compared to the original tree trunk - but suggesting them in a credible way is good enough for me. Just for the fun of it and while doing this I am also improving my skills.

We (my husband and me) like to make a short walk in the weekend when the weather allows it - and of course only when we did not have the time to go for a longer walk in one of our beautiful Nature Reserves. During one of these walks I saw this dead tree trunk and made some reference pictures.

The drawing is made with Conté Sketching Crayons on grey paper, I often use these materials for dead trees or tree trunks.

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

Dead tree in 'De Moerputten' - a Conté drawing

 

Last weekend we (my husband Peter and me) went for a walk in Natural Reserve 'De Moerputten'. The walk was nice, partly over an old railroad that was made for industrial use, part over a boardwalk in the peat lands below the old railroad. We learned a lot about the history of the area and about the work that is done to preserve the nature.

At one point, on the side of the old railroad, stood a dead tree that just asked for a drawing, so I made a reference picture and a few days later I made this Conté drawing using the colour scheme I selected for dead trees.

Maybe I will make a watercolour painting of this dead tree as well, using the colours of the winter landscape that are in my reference picture.

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.

Roode Beek (The Netherlands) - Conté drawing

 

Last Autumn we (my husband and me) were in the Natural Reserve 'De Meinweg' in The Netherlands and the signposted walk we were on passed by the 'Roode Beek'. This small river is part of the border between The Netherlands and Germany where we were walking.

The reflection of the trees in the water was nice and after making some reference pictures I was sure I wanted to make a painting or drawing using these references.

For this Conté drawing I did buy a light blue pastel stick first, to add to the shades of grey, black, white and some earth colours I had used before. The blue is a nice one for landscapes, indicating the sky colour or the reflections in the water.

The sky was mostly grey that day but somewhere there must have been a patch of blue between the clouds as it is reflected in the water of the river. The trees, bushes and grasses are drawn in the earth colours that are my usual palette when I work with Conté.

The result of my work is what I had hoped for, the touch of blue helps defining the river.

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

Tree! - a Conté drawing

 

During the workshop morning with Pictura in the garden of the 'Dordrechts Museum' I sketched some of the trees there as these are old and impressive. 

There are three Platanus trees in that garden, that were already there when the Museum was founded, in the year 1904. These trees are maybe 200 years old and they look like their age. The trees are really large and as they are in a garden in an old city it is not possible to make a (reference) picture of the whole tree, they are too tall for that. 

The tree trunks have several bulges, maybe scar tissue where branches have been cut off. The lowest branch grows at least 3 meters above ground.

After I had made my sketch, I moved on to another tree and did not do much with this sketch. The sketch went to the exposition in the 'Pictura' building that ended over a week ago.

Now the sketch is back in my home - and my studio - I can work from it. The vertical lines in the sketch are showing the structure of the corrugated cardboard that we had to support our sheets of sketching paper.

It has been over two month that I was in that Museum garden and my memory of that tree has faded a little, there are no reference pictures, so the sketch is all I have to work with. 

This Conté drawing, using brown and earth colours on a light brown (naturel) background may not be an exact reproduction of the tree or the sketch, it does show what did attract my attention to this tree: the bulges on the tree trunk.

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

Quickly into the tree! - for a challenge/contest

 

The third week of the television programme 'Project Rembrandt' is about movement in animals. The contestants in the show had a stuffed panther from a museum as model and they had to draw it as if it was moving. The people at home are allowed to use any animal for reference, just make the movement visible. Materials to be used are charcoal and/or crayons and white paper.

Last autumn we were on a short vacation and there were squirrels and my husband succeeded in making some pictures. I tried as well, but I only got a blur of a tail in my picture and that is not enough for this contest. One of the pictures my husband made is my reference for this drawing.

This time I used my Conté crayons and the pencils for the smaller details, I worked on a small size sheet of paper. For the suggestion of movement I blurred the tail and the shapes of the 'hands' and 'feet' even more than they already are in the picture.

The squirrel is my subject so that is where I used colours, the tree and grasses are only in black for contrast. Without the tree it would not be understandable what the squirrel was up to and without the grass the tree would have no beginning and no end.

The result is even better than I hoped I could do so I am happy with my contribution to the contest.

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

Walking! - collage and Conté drawing

 

The March challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is 'In our family...' the theme of the Books Week that is happening each month of March in The Netherlands.

In our family we like to go for a nice walk, preferably a forest walk.

For my contribution I have made a collage of walking maps, the legenda of these maps, some titles of the walks, a bit of a description and of course the icon for a restaurant (coffee cup) from old magazines on tinted cardboard and sprayed that with fixative for Conté Crayons. 

On that layer I started drawing a forest path with the Conté Sketching Crayons, but I had to use more layers of fixative before the crayons really did 'hold' on the magazine paper. For this I was prepared, I did read about it somewhere in the past.

After some layers I found that there was a difference in paper quality that could not be covered up with fixative so I let that be part of the experiment's results.

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

Tree trunk - a Conté drawing

 

As promised (mostly to myself) another drawing of the tree trunk we saw a few weeks ago during our walk on the Herikerberg. At first I made a pencil drawing or study, using the materials I brought during our short stay in the area.

This time a Conté drawing, like I have made some more: using black, grey and white Conté crayons on a grey paper for a 'portrait' of a dead tree or tree trunk.

For this drawing I made a different composition, the trunk is more to the right side of the paper so the roots on the left side of the trunk get more attention. Only the tree trunk is in the drawing, the surrounding mosses and dry autumn leaves are not here. This tree trunk was in the middle of the path we were walking and maybe that is how the roots are so clearly visible.

The drawing is what I hoped it would be, these remains of trees are still impressive and I can show that in my drawing.

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

Rooted and tenacious (for a challenge)

 

The October challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' has Deep-rooted as its theme, with references to trees in the description. That subject is all I could wish for, trees are my most important inspirations. Though I had some difficulty in selecting which tree I would draw or paint for this challenge. It had to be a living one and this tree, in the 'Alblasserbos', very close to my home (walking distance) is the chosen one.

This tree and another one of the same kind are lying on the ground in a small section of the forest area that used to be an orchard. It looks like the trees have been pulled down when the orchard closed but tenaciously stayed alive and are still bearing their fruits in autumn - now for the passers-by to pick and enjoy.

It has been a while since I made a Conté drawing, so my contribution for the challenge is a Conté drawing of that tree as it is at the end of winter - when the reference picture was made.

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

Dead tree, Kalmthoutse Heide - Conté drawing

 

Last weekend we were walking another signposted walk in 'Grenspark Kalmthoutse Heide', a Natural Reserve that is in Belgium and The Netherlands. Border-crossing nature it is called and we love to go there for a walk. 

This time we had a walk in a woodland area that is on the edge of the moorland (heide) that gives the Natural Reserve its name. Under the trees we had a nice cool walk with some great views. The reference pictures I made there will be used for watercolour paintings. 

This area has a lot of dead trees in it, either because of the fire that destroyed a part of the nature several years ago or because the trees just die and are left in the area to provide food for insects - who attract birds, who attract predators, etc.

This tree stump was standing in an empty field beside the path and I just wanted to draw it. So the picture was made and the drawing as well. Because this stump really is very dead, I used grey paper and the corresponding colour combination.  As written before, I have selected colour combination for dead trees and another combination for the living ones.

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 art, please contact me.

Plane tree, winter

 

Not far from my home - I can see it from the garden - is a large plane tree and I wanted to paint or draw it for a long time. Last winter I made some reference pictures of the tree and now I have found the time to draw it.

Of course it also took so long because I wanted to use the Naturel PaintOn paper as my background and I only got that paper recently. After I had the paper I also needed time to think about 'how do I want to draw the tree' and time to draw it. 

The thinking about 'how' resulted in three colours of Conté Crayons that do not at all resemble the true colours of the tree, but are a good combination of values; a dark, a middle and a light value with the colour of the paper between the middle and the light values.

The reference pictures were made in winter, so the tree is still bare, with only showing the seed balls that are still on the branches. By now most of them have fallen off. The many different colours of the bark are only suggested as I do not want to show all of the details. The same applies to the smallest branches, seen in back light.

This drawing is what I hoped it would be and I think I have now found the best way to draw a living tree with my Conté crayons.

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 work, please contact me.

Pollard Willows - a Conté drawing

 

After having made several drawings of dead trees and tree stumps I wanted to draw a living tree for a change. A living tree needs a different colour scheme compared to a dead one, to make the difference visible, especially in winter.

The dead trees are drawn on grey paper using only black, grey and white crayons.

The paper I have used for these living winter trees is a naturel coloured one and I have selected brown and brownish crayons to draw the trees. These are combined with black and white for the deep shadows and the highlights. 

The reference picture was made from a distance and not very good, so a lot of details were lost. The trees stand beside a small pond in a residential area and are relatively young, so the trunks are straight. Older pollard willows in a field usually have damaged trunks where birds like to hide.

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