Iceland - Autumn colours

 

Of course the nature in our own country is very beautiful, but sometimes I want to paint something different, if only because that is a challenge for me that helps me improve my skills.

This time I got inspired by a documentary about Iceland and its nature and I wanted to paint that. My memory of the scene had to help me while I was sketching and later while I was working on my watercolour painting. 

Iceland is very volcanic and this scene showed a stream flowing in a typically volcanic rock formation. The lines of the black rock or solidified lava are beautiful visible and all I had to do is paint... Of course it's not that simple. 

Solidified lava is very black and usually watercolour artists don't use much black in their paintings, as the colour is 'not natural'. This time I decided to use Ivory Black for the rocks and as that has a slightly brown shade I added a light blue to create the colour I needed. There was a lot of light falling on the lava rocks so I left patches of white, added some blue and made the shadow parts as dark as possible.

The vegetation growing in that landscape (probably mosses) are showing brownish orange autumn colour with bits of red and patches of brown and that was mostly painted wet-in-wet.

Painting this landscape - without any trees in it - was a small challenge and an experience that I liked very much. The result is even better than I hoped to achieve.

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.

Reflection, Iceland

 

Improving my skills in painting water also means painting reflections in water and our teacher Ad van Aart had the perfect picture for me to paint from (thank you!). 

This is another scene in Iceland and looking at all these pictures (to select the perfect one to paint from) made me want to visit Iceland as well. Maybe that can happen in the future.

The reflection in the picture was almost a perfect mirror image, so the challenge was to show that slight imperfection in my painting, but I should not overdo it. The black volcanic rock still is another challenge, as I should not overdo that either.

Of course things were not perfect at first, but watercolour can be forgiving and I could remove some of the blackness that was too much and the result is a landscape painting of which I am proud.

The rock in the foreground was added last, we decided this rock should be in the painting (it was there in the reference picture) because it improves the whole scene.

This painting was quite a struggle, it took me a long time to complete this one. Because of the hot weather we had all week I took my time, there was no need to rush things and ruin a painting. Maybe the weather was also slowing me down for another reason, the drying time of a wet surface was longer than expected on such a hot day. 

As said, I am happy with this painting, the result is worth the effort I put into it and I definitely have learned something while painting this scene.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Waterfall, Iceland

 

The plan to improve my skills in painting water also led to half an hour viewing pictures our teacher Ad van Aart had made in Iceland, with waterfalls, melting ice and more.

I was allowed to make some 'screenshots' from his laptop with my camera and use them to paint from.

This beautiful waterfall was the first to be painted and the mist beside it was an extra challenge. 

Ad told me that the foreground plateau ended abruptly and that the waterfall dropped much deeper than was visible from the point where the picture was taken.

The black volcanic rocks of Iceland are another challenge to paint, the dark colour is very different from any other landscape I have ever painted.

So I did take my time for this one, also because we still had very hot weather and the heat could not be avoided, the shadows of the trees did not bring any refreshment.

Of course I needed some guidance with this one - that is why I go to a week of painting lessons - but I learned that painting a waterfall is just looking good at the reference and reproducing that on my paper. Of course this is not an exact copy of the picture, but I have got the rocks behind the water in the right place and that what matters most.

Again I was surprised, honoured and happy that one of my fellow students wanted to buy this watercolour. 

The information about the paper and paints I have used can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com