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.

Dead Tree (another one) - a Conté drawing

 

This week we were in the North of Belgium again, for a nice walk on the Kalmthoutse Heide. That Natural Reserve is always worth the time for a walk, every season is different. We have made these signposted walks several times, sometimes clockwise, sometimes anti-clockwise and now I try to make reference pictures of the details of the landscape. The wide views don't change that much over the years.

This time we passed by several dead trees, many of them not really good for a picture, but in a bend in the path we found this one. Very dead for a long time and filled with small holes made by birds or insects. The bark was mostly gone and only some beginnings of branches could be seen. The rest of the branches were sawn off, probably for the safety of the walkers.

Again I chose my new grey paper and some Conté Sketching Crayons for the drawing, the last time I used these together I was really happy while working on the drawing and the result was better than I hoped for. So I wanted to draw a second dead tree using the same materials and I was not disappointed. Again the result is better than I hoped for so more dead trees, tree trunks or stumps will follow and I hope to get better with every drawing I make.

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 stump - Conté drawing

 

During our very short vacation a few weeks ago we walked a lot in our beautiful nature. We had chosen the area of the 'Utrechtse Heuvelrug' for our hotel stay and went for walks in that Natural Reserve which has many beautiful signposted walks for everyone who loves to be in a forest area. The 'Soester Duinen' (see my previous post) is also a part of that Natural Reserve.

During one of these walks I made a reference picture of a tree stump that had been a stump for a long time and was partially uncovered. There were dark and light spots on the stump, caused by moist and some patches were green with mosses or algae. I wanted to draw this tree stump as soon as I saw it, but it took some weeks before I had the time to do so.

The paper I chose is new for me, I did buy it not long ago and I used the 'back' side because that side seems to have more tooth than the other side. And a bit of tooth is needed when I use my Conté Crayons (or charcoal). The grey crayon is lighter than the paper and I added black to make my drawing. Finally some highlights with white and my drawing was finished. Only some final shaking off (of the dust) was needed and some layers of fixative.

To make a good picture for this blog - and other places on the internet - was a bigger challenge than getting my fingers clean after using the Conté  crayons. I have tried various places, but either the incoming light was too visible or the paper reflected the colour of the ground. Finally I placed it on a greyish ground and made my picture(s). Another lesson learned as this is not so obvious when making pictures of a watercolour painting.

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 for information.

Shadow Play

 

During our painting vacation, the weather was nice and dry, but really hot. Too hot to make two watercolour paintings a day, so some afternoons were used for other things, like drawing in the shadow.

This work is all about drawing the shadows. I took a place under a walnut tree and tried to draw the shadows of the leaves using my Conté Sketching Crayons. There was some wind, so it was not easy. After the first, dark layer I added a second and a third layer, each one a lighter shade. The final layer was just the outline of the shadows in white.

After I had done this drawing, I changed to another tree:

My colour scheme for this drawing was more simple, only one black and the final layer in grey.

With the first sketches on paper I asked our teacher and coach Ad van Aart how to continue because this was a first time for me. He advised me to add colour to the layers in the first drawing and to work on the composition of the second one.

The first shadow play is now stronger in colour, the shapes are better defined and the white lines are visible and a bit intriguing now.

The second shadow play is more balanced now the shapes are connected and the grey shapes are more scattered over the whole sheet of paper.

This was a first time for me, but I really wanted to do this at least once. In fact I love the result and knowing what to do to make the composition stronger / better I will certainly try this again, with different shadows and perhaps different drawing materials.

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

King of the street

 

During our regular walks around the residential area where we live, my husband and me meet people, birds and cats. The cats are free to go where they like and don't always react when I talk to them. This one walked along with us for a short distance and when I asked permission to make some reference pictures he (?) allowed me to do so, taking a nice pose on the street.

It took some time for me to make a drawing, but today I was inspired to draw this nice guy.

This pose was a bit of a challenge because the head is slightly turned away from me and the edge of the cheek not very good visible as it has the same colour as the rest of the body, but I accepted that challenge and tried to make the best of it. 

The Conté pencils and crayons I used do not have the right colour for this beautiful red cat, in fact he was much paler, almost a very light orange. But as I wanted to use my Conté materials, some give and take was necessary where colour was concerned.

Of course my cat-drawing skills need a lot more practise but the result is not discouraging.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this drawing 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.

Along the river Waal - Conté drawing

 

Over the years I have collected a lot of different drawing materials and I don't use these as often as I should. So this year I intend to experiment with these materials a bit more, using free hours during the week to make a quick drawing or sketch or...  Making a drawing or sketch does not take the preparations that have to be made for a watercolour painting, so I can decide I want to work on my drawing skills when I have an unexpected hour for myself.

This scene is along the river Waal (Netherlands) at the spot where we came for inspiration during the painting vacation last summer. As I have written before, I have made several sketches during the time we were there and I am using these sketches now, months later for watercolour paintings or experiments with my materials.

For this drawing I have selected a nice blue sheet of tinted cardboard and used a white, a grey and a black Conté Crayon as my drawing materials. The blue cardboard is not exactly the right colour so I had to add some grey and white for ta better depiction of the summer sky and I used all three colours for the river, as the waves have a darker shadow. The riverbanks are done with all three colours and I hope I have been able to show some of the shadows in the bushes and trees. I know I need more practice before these shadows are what I want them to be.

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