Dead branch - a pencil drawing

 

The June challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about minimalism and Less is More.

During our walk yesterday I saw a dead tree branch with lots of colours in it but the little orange mushrooms were attracting most of my attention. Of course I made some reference pictures and as we walked on I realised that this was perfect for the challenge.

Drawing the dead wood in only black, white and grey using graphite pencils and giving the mushrooms their own colour would be as minimalistic as I can get.

While I was working on this one I decided that I would not use water on the branch because it did not really need more layers than this first one.

The mushrooms were drawn with a layer of pencil, a droplet of water and more pencil to make them stand out as much as possible.

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.

Night Moth - a pencil drawing

 

The June challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is 'small pearls' or 'little gems', those little bits of beauty that can suddenly inspire us. When I saw the theme, I immediately had to think about the night moth that was resting on the wall of our vacation home while I was painting a watercolour painting outside to have some shadow and a cool spot to work.

My husband made the reference picture for me after I had pointed out the little animal and that reference was used for this drawing.

I have used a small size black paper and my watercolour pencils without adding water this time. The little animal is done as detailed as possible (zooming in on the reference picture blurred the details a bit) and the corner of the wall it was resting on is only suggested.

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

Sweet bliss - for a challenge

 

The month of June is the beginning of Summer and that inspired the theme of the June challenge of Goed Gezien-Goed Bekeken, as we had to make a work about Sweet Bliss.

The suggestions were about strawberries or cherries, but I thought of a nice large ice cream coupe and I only needed some inspiration about how to paint it.

Using a black background (heavy black cardboard) I painted my subject with white gouache and watercolour and added an iridescent medium on the glass of the coupe.

The result is what I hoped for and this is my contribution to the challenge.

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

Pisces - for a challenge

 

The June challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is all about Colourful. So first I thought of a stained Glass window, then of a colouring book image, then of Mosaïc, then of...

Finally I picked my Zodiac sign as my subject and tried to make the painting as colourful as possible. I did not use all the colours in my palette, but the ones I used  have more layers to make them as strong as possible.

The background is made with my new paint, a highly granulating colour from Daniel Smith. This paint has more than one pigment in it and the results are better than I hoped for.

Last thing added was the constellation of the Zodiac sign using white watercolour paint.

For the picture, the contrast are a bit changed - the natural light is very unkind now, too much sunlight, direct and reflected to make a good picture of my work.

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.

Play - Garden a mixed media experiment for a challenge

 

The June challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about a playground, but as the Dutch word has 'garden' in it instead of 'ground' I made a combination  of Play and Garden.

Last summer during my painting vacation we started with 'blind contour drawings' and as there was some very old playground equipment I made some drawings of these as well and never used them. 

For this challenge I used these drawings to make contour drawings with brandless wax crayons on a sheet of watercolour paper and added a picture of a flowery garden in watercolour. As expected, the wax lines were resisting the watercolour and the drawings of the swing, the football goals and the climbing device were still visible. 

Because I have used cellulose paper, I could use only one layer of watercolour so I added pencil marks to create some flower shapes. After all this I went over the wax lines again, as they were a bit weaker than I thought they would be and now the playground equipment is standing out a bit more than before.

At this point I could not hope to improve on my work any more (the materials and mostly the paper used are my limits here) so this is the result. It really is very different from my usual work, but I like the result of this experiment.

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

Rose - drawing

 

Now we are slowly coming out of lockdown (in The Netherlands) many events are themed 'Open up' and so is the June challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' and 'IkToon'.

This year both organisations work together again - as happened before - and both have the same challenge in the month of June.

Most of the times I try to find my inspiration for a challenge in nature or my own garden and this time the opening buds of our rose were just what I was looking for.

I have made some reference pictures at the right moment and decided to make a drawing for the challenge.

I have chosen to draw some of the rosebuds that were just beginning to open and one flower that was halfway opening up because that referred perfectly to the theme of the challenge.

For this drawing I have used my water-soluble pencils and a mixed media paper with a very fine grain to get the results I like best.

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

Bridge, Scotland (for a challenge)

This month the challenge of our regional amateur art association ("Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken") is combined with the challenge of "Ik Toon - Molenlanden". 
We have to make a new work and the theme is 'Bridge' or 'Bridging'.

In our part of The Netherlands there is a lot of water, so we have a lot of bridges but I did not want to paint one of the bridges that is familiar to everyone.

Years ago we were in Scotland for a week and we visited the beautiful nature of The Trossachs. This scene was one of the many where we all made pictures. 
In these days our son and daughter did spend the vacations with us, so there were three or four cameras working hard and now I do not remember who made which picture.

For the watercolour I have used a sketch I had made long ago using one of the pictures for my reference and did not bother to look for the original picture in the album.
For the watercolour  I decided to use a very limited palette, only two colours and the scene is reduced to its essentials: a background, the river, the river banks and the bridge.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability can be found in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

The groceries!

The June challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' (the amateur art association of which I am a member) is Father(s day) and that meant some thinking for me.
Painting or drawing people is not what I really want to do so I had to think of something else. Animals are not my best subject either, but I am a bit more confident about my skills with that.

As it is springtime now, there are lots of father birds having to feed their young or a breeding mother bird so that was to be my subject for the challenge.
The scene is made up with a breeding mother bird and the father bird bringing in a nice fat caterpillar or something she would like to eat.

The whole scene is imaginary, I have used a photo reference for the silhouette of the father bird and I have given the birds the colours I like. The mother in brown shades to be camouflaged in her nest and the father has some violet, my favourite colour.
I emphasized the branches and green of the tree they chose for their home not as much as the birds, because they are my subject and I wanted them to stand out a bit.

Again I have used a challenge to get 'out of my comfort zone', and even though I did not 'get out' far, I did have some thinking to do here and I had to find a reference for the bird before I had the confidence to draw it. 

More information about this small drawing (paper and colours used, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com