Almost two years ago my husband and me had a short vacation in The Black Forest in Germany and we visited the ruins of Allerheiligen. We made some pictures and I made watercolour paintings. The first watercolour I made had the colours as they were, and the yellow tree did look great in reality, in the reference picture and not so great in the watercolour painting. The painting was laid aside and I tried again with another palette. That second painting pleased me more.
Last summer, during my painting vacation I was introduced to 'painting over' and made some nice personal versions of pages from an atlas.
We also did 'metamorphosis' paintings, with a simple painting to start from and adding new elements each next version.
For this painting I have combined these two ideas. I took the watercolour painting and started drawing using my Conté Sketching Crayons, adding some dark areas to the ruins and changing the shape and quantity of the surrounding bushes and trees.
In this way I have made the yellow tree a part of the background instead of something that did not belong in that place.
The added plants and bushes make this place look more abandoned.
This version pleases me much more than the original painting (which does not exist any more) and now I have come closer to the atmosphere I wanted for this scene.
More information about this painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
My painting vacation was filled with lessons and workshops by our teacher and coach, Ad van Aart. The second morning was dedicated to 'Metamorphosis', starting from a very basic painting or drawing we had to add something new in the second painting, again in the third and fourth and.... as far as we could go. Every addition had to be reproduced in the next version before adding something new.
My beginning was one of the blind contour drawings of the morning before. I am sure no one will recognise the bunch of flowers standing near the gate of the garden but it makes a great starting point for 'unlimited creativity'.
I added the lantern that is there in reality for the second version, number three had light and shadows and for number four I had to think a bit longer.
A surprising element was needed here, so I splashed some violet paint over my paper and started connecting the dots. A spider's web emerged and although it did not really change the initial base into something completely new, I do like the result. As I could not reproduce this stage it had to be the last one.
I have used light study paper here because that dries faster than the heavier watercolour paper I use normally. There are five colours in the initial drawing and two of these colours were used as Watercolour Markers for version two and three. For version four I only added violet paint.
This was a bit challenging, but really fun to do.
More information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
