Stone circle - five works

 

During my painting vacation I was looking for a way to paint/depict the spiritual feeling I can get at certain sites. Our teacher and coach Ad van Aart helped me find my 'voice' in this.

After the cap stone and the dolmen I needed a new subject and I made up a stone circle.  The work at the bottom is a first try on composition. It is not quite finished but the other participants of the painting vacation called this stage interesting so I just left it this way. For the composition I did not need to go further.

The second version is made with willow charcoal to explore the spiritual feeling. Following this version I made one with Chunky Charcoal which is much darker than Willow charcoal.

The watercolour versions are made on panorama size paper, the stones on the left and the light coming from them shining to the right. First only Indigo and a second painting with an earth colour on request of Ad.

The charcoal drawings and the watercolour paintings do show the spiritual feeling I wanted to show in these works. All four are different, but the idea is there. I am really happy with these results.

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

"Double Exposure" 2

 

After the first experiment with painting a 'double exposure' I wanted to explore the idea a bit further. This time I painted the addition to the landscape as my first layer and the landscape itself on top of that.

The idea of adding something to a ditch with pollard willows came up while talking about the first painting with the tree roots. What to add was the question and I decided on Goldfish.

So first I painted two fish swimming as the fish in my Zodiac sign swim.

After that dried I created an imaginary landscape with a ditch, pollard willows, bushes on the horizon and some structure in the grassland. Just like the Dutch 'polder' landscape I live in. This might be imaginary, this landscape is based on the views we have here, not far from where I live.

This was fun, the addition of the goldfish is not dominating the painting and that is what I wanted. To make a more equal 'double exposure' where the first image does not dominate the second or the other way around I need to experiment and practice a bit more. That is something to look forward to.

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.

"Double exposure"

 

Today's prompt in the Sketch a Day app is 'Double' and some of the inspirational images provided by the app are 'double exposures' in photographs and drawings.

That inspired me to do a double exposure my own way, using watercolour.

The first layer is an imaginary landscape, a forest path as we walk often when we are enjoying our beautiful Nature Reserves. The second layer is made after a reference picture I made of some tree roots showing in the sand path.

These two belong together, the root picture was made on a path very similar to the imaginary one I painted.

For the second layer I decided on a not so natural colour, a violet to make it stand out against the first layer. After making a large 'stain' of violet on my painting I started adding the shadows around the shapes of the roots with more of the same violet. 

I had thought I could let the violet flow a bit over the paper, but I should have done that as a first layer. Now I was having the risk that the first layer would disappear and add itself to the violet. Which was not what I wanted. 

This idea is nice enough to explore further and find the best way of doing this while experimenting.

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.

Yellow blossom

 

The little blossoms in my painting are really very small, I first only saw the little round balls on the branches of the bush we were passing by, but some of them were opened and the flowers are beautiful little bells.

The bush is a common sight close to our home, in the 'public' green areas between blocks of houses these are planted and grow nicely. The people from the landscaping department take care of these bushes and unfortunately I do not know what the name of the plant is. It is most probably from the Berberis family that has up to 500 different plants.

To make a reference picture I had to adjust the camara on my phone and I managed to get a good reference for a painting.

Inspired by the colours of the bush I made a background and after that had dried I added the branch that I photographed. 

At this point I decided to add more colour, mostly in the lower part of the painting, suggesting branches and leaves by creating an uneven layer of colour. In this part I also added some flower buds, these are only suggested with little amounts of yellow.

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.

Kalmthoutse Heide, winter

 

During our walk on the Kalmthoutse Heide a few weeks ago I made several reference pictures. Most of them have been used for paintings in the past weeks and today I wanted to paint this landscape.

At this point the signposted walk leaves the forest area we were in to enter the moorland the area is named after (Heide = moorland). Depending on the viewpoint some really beautiful landscape pictures can be made. 

Most of the year and especially in winter the moorland is empty and dark with only a few lonely trees or bushes. Of course the area is not really big, if wanted the trees on the far horizon can be reached on foot within the hour but the feeling of emptiness is not far from us.

That feeling of being in a large empty landscape is what I tried to paint this time.

The winter sky had some large clouds, almost white with some light grey shadows and the colour of the horizon was more yellow than blue or grey. Typical for winter in this part of the world and I liked painting it. The landscape has grasses that turned yellow and lots of dark plants, the remains of the heather and other plants, all suggested like I usually do.

The result is what I hoped it would be and I am happy with it.

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.