Last year in the springtime my son and his girlfriend went on a short trip to Ireland. They visited a lot of touristic sites and brought home a lot of pictures - of course.
They both made a series of pictures at a spot overlooking Lough Corib and I chose this view for a painting. The reference picture was made by Claudia, my son's girlfriend.
It was not really easy to give depth to a landscape that looks almost monochrome green but the walls in the fields helped a lot.
The tree in the foreground was starting to get its foliage, but it was not complete yet. That gives a nice view of the shorelines and the islands of the lough.
What attracted me in the series of pictures I chose this one from was the feeling of continuity, those fields and walls are there from a long time ago and will still be there a long time from now.
I really hope I have conveyed this feeling in my painting.
More information about this watercolour and the others I made after the Ireland pictures my son and his girlfriend made can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
Somewhere in Ireland there is this road lined with beautiful old trees. As it is a famous scene, my son Martijn visited it as a part of a touristic ride. He made some nice pictures and I got permission to use them as references.
Because the scene is famous, I wanted to make something not so ordinary. Besides, the atmosphere of that road with those trees hanging over can be a bit eerie and I wanted to lay emphasis on that aspect.
As the trees were still bare I did not have to change anything about them, just exaggerate the dark shadows a bit.
While working I was confronted with one of the limitations of charcoal: as I am working with a stick of charcoal, not a pencil, I cannot work very detailed. Well, in this case that only adds to the atmosphere I wanted to create....
More information about this charcoal drawing can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
Many years ago there was a song by Michel Sardou called "Les lacs du Connemara" that created an atmosphere of barren, unforgiving nature. Ever since then I imagined the landscape of the Connemara to be like that, but unfortunately I never saw it.
Last spring my son and daughter-in-law went on a short trip to Ireland and brought back a lot of beautiful pictures and amongst them some nice ones of the landscape of the Connemara. They allowed me to paint from their pictures, so here is the first one!
I was attracted by the clouds, the lake and most of all the mountains in the distance that really create that same atmosphere I remember from that song.
This picture taken by my daughter-in-law Claudia really shows the Connemara as I imagined it would be!
More information about this watercolour (size, colours used) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
