Hydrangea - shades of red

These Hydrangea flowers are also in the garden of Milonga, where I was last week for a painting vacation. These flowers intrigue me very much, mostly because the large four leaf shapes on the outside are not flowers at all. They are there to seduce the insects to come to the plant and the five pointed shapes in the middle are the real flowers, waiting to be fertilised by those insects. 

I have sketched some of the 'fake flowers' ans some of the shapes in the heart of the structure, the flower buds and some of the star shaped 'real flowers' to make a nice composition for a red painting.
This time I made the background in shades of red and I had to use three layers of watercolour paint before it was to my liking. In the middle was to be a source of light, this is different from the paintings I made earlier this week, where the light came from one of the corners.

Our teacher Ad van Aart helped me find the right composition for this background and advised during the making of the painting. I had to add some more flower shapes on the edges of my painting and added a light wash of yellow to make the light source warm.

Even if this is only one week, I am learning fast and I really am happy with the result of this experiment. I never thought I would be painting flowers every day and enjoying it but this is what happened to me during this painting vacation. 
There is one more painting to come that I made in Milonga, but at home I will have to explore this theme a bit more, there are a lot of nice colour combinations and compositions that have not been tried yet.

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

Hedge bindweed, painted in shades of yellow

After I had painted in red and orange, I wanted to paint in shades of yellow. The hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium) flowers grow in the garden of Milonga, so it was easy to sketch a few and make a composition using the shapes of the flowers, leaves and buds.
Our teacher Ad van Aart suggested that I should try to make my background first and add the flower composition later. For the background I painted three layers of shades of yellow, taking care to leave one corner almost white and to make another corner as dark as possible with yellow as my chosen colour.

From the prepared composition the best cut out (for the background that was created) was selected - with a little help from our teacher - and drawed on the dry watercolour paper using a watercolour pencil.
Using watercolour paint in an ochre colour I accentuated the leaves and the buds, the flowers were given an extra 'shadow' with my darkest shade of yellow. Finally the flowers were given their true shape by adding fine lines of a dark earthly red colour.

This technique - painting my background first and then adding some flower shapes - is different from the Umbels paintings I made before and I like the result even more. 
In fact I have made some more paintings 'like this' during my stay in Milonga and I have plans to make more of them now that I am back home.

More information about this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Umbels, painted in shades of red and orange

During my painting vacation in Milonga I wanted to paint flowers and I wanted to use the colours red, orange and yellow. 
The first morning our teacher Ad van Aart asked all of us what we wanted to do during that week and I indicated my wishes. So most of the time I have been sketching, drawing and painting flowers.
My first paintings are based on a 'blind contour' sketch of some umbels that were in the garden of Milonga. I have made a background using shades of red, added the flowers and strengthened the background with the shades I had already used and added a Gray for the shadows and stems of the flowers. This red painting followed the composition of the initial sketch.

After this first painting I was eager to do a second one with shades of orange. This painting is on a much larger sheet of paper and I deliberately changed the composition (advised by Ad, our teacher) so there is much more open space above the flowers. The shadows are made with sepia which is much more harmonious with the orange shades of the background.

Using a much larger sheet of paper was a bit more challenging, but I still had lots of fun painting this one.

Both paintings are what I thought they would be and I am happy that I did choose to paint this subject, using a very limited palette. I have explored the shades of red and orange and I have experimented with the composition these flowers offered me.

Of course this was not the end of my week in Milonga, so there is more to follow!

More information about these watercolour paintings (size, colours used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Landscape with elements of surprise

Last week in Milonga I painted the landscape only once, in a workshop about surprises in our paintings.
Our teacher Ad van Aart had prepared this lesson and I was eager to join (these lessons are voluntary, we are not required to attend).

The aim was to paint a scene and to add an element of surprise to the painting. 
My plan was to paint a landscape (this is the view from my bedroom that week) and add checkerboard - like marks on top of it for my first 'surprise' and do something with a flower shape for the second 'surprise'. It was easy to paint the landscape so I have made three versions that are almost identical and gave two of them a 'paint over'.

This was fun and I liked doing this. 
The flower shape was the hardest, mostly because I had tried to hide the underlying landscape completely and that could not be done with watercolour paint. 
So I washed away some of the paint but the result is not really beautiful. 
That is a lesson learned.

More information about these watercolour paintings can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Leaves

Last week I was in Milonga again, a week full with painting, drawing and learning organised by Ad van Aart.
I have learned a lot this week and now I am trying to write coherent blog posts about the paintings and drawings I came home with.

This charcoal drawing is the result of an instruction about composition. We were to fill the sheet with our subject, make a cut out and find a good composition.

I had sketched some leaves and decided on this the best cut out. 
Charcoal is my preferred medium for this drawing and I really am happy with the result.

A few days later, the last day of the week I had some spare time and I decided to try a mixed media experiment.
I made a watercolour background in shades of blue and wanted to make a drawing on top of that. The sketch with the leaves deserved some more attention and this time I made a drawing with all three leaves in it, using watercolour pencils in some shades of green.
The structure of the watercolour paper is still visible and I really like that.

More information about these two drawings can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Landscape studies - clouded sky using different materials

The last days of my painting vacation were dedicated to my own work, concentrating on my 'strong points' and trying to improve those.
Our teacher and coach Ad van Aart advised me to concentrate on atmosphere - in a landscape - and try to limit myself to atmosphere only without adding too much details. 
One of the mornings I had seen and photographed a very cloudy sky over the fields opposite our vacation home, Milonga and we decided that that memory would be the guideline for the next studies.

I had found a set of Conté Sketching Crayons, bought it and wanted to try that in my first studies. In that way I could 'explore' the landscape and the atmosphere I wanted to create and get used to working with these crayons.

These crayons work almost like charcoal and it was easy to get to know the material.
The atmospheres of both my drawings are different and I liked doing both of them.
The foggy effect on the horizon is made with the grey crayon, that was a very nice surprise for me.

The next day I was going to make one large watercolour study but there was a bad spot in the paper, so after I had started the cloudy sky I decided to divide the paper in two parts, sticking tape right over the bad spot. In this way I had two studies, beginning with a lightly clouded sky, a green horizon, some bushes and....

The largest one became darker and darker, adding gray to the sky and to the bushes and fields. You don't want to be outside in this weather!

The smaller one had to remain lighter so I used a different brown and less gray colours. I also suggested more details in the fields by adding shadows. This suggest that you have a chance to get home before the rain starts to fall.

There was time left, so I tried the same study, now with a very different palette. The heat of the day was not in my favour, so the paint would not flow as nicely as it had done in the morning. The fields changed into a lake, the cloudy sky into a clouded sunset and the whole picture is friendly and nice now. 

Doing studies of the same landscape for more than one day was a great experience. Every version did teach me another lesson and I really think I can continue on this path when I am painting at home, without guidance of a teacher. I do still remember the tips I was given and will use these advices to my benefit - and the benefit of my art of course!

More information about these studies (materials used, availability, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Apple tree study

My painting vacation was all about learning. The workshops were meant to awaken our creativity and the time for 'free work' was to improve our skills. Our teacher Ad van Aart gave us the encouragement we all needed and guided us to better paintings.

One of the things I wanted to improve was my skill in painting trees, especially in placing the shadows in a tree with summer foliage. The garden of our residence for that week, Milonga was perfect for my purpose.

For this study I chose a branch of one of the apple trees and started out to draw it. There was not much time, so I took only one branch, not the whole tree.
After the drawing - or sketch - I took a piece of watercolour paper and tried to paint with only the drawing as my guideline.

This study was a nice experience. The drawing took most of the time I needed and after I had done that it was not hard to remember the difficult areas of the branch with apples  while painting the watercolour version.

More information about this study (paper and paint used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Study of tree trunks - watercolour, charcoal and ink

This year my painting vacation was in Milonga, in the Northern part of France.
Our teacher and coach was Ad van Aart who really did a great job.
The first day we started with an exercise in 'blind contour drawing', a difficult thing for me. We were finding our subjects in the beautiful garden of Milonga.
After a discussion about the results and a lunch we started painting, using one or more of the drawings we made that morning.

This is the first one I made, only watercolour. (the white edges are caused by the tape)
The background was made quickly, wet-in-wet and soft. The tree trunks were added after the background had dried. I have taken care to suggest (not show) all details of the cracks in the dried wood and the structures of the little mushrooms that were on the right trunk. The left trunk is the one in front, so I have chosen another, lighter mixture for the browns and greys of the wood.

On a background of bright colours I have been drawing the tree trunks with charcoal for my second study. This time I have added more details to the drawing, as charcoal has only one colour. This study does have a different atmosphere than a watercolour painting and I like the contrast between these two.

This is the third and final one for this week. I made it one day later than the previous two so there was a bit more time to think about my approach of this one.
Our teacher suggested a background in only one colour and I wanted to paint the tree trunks a little different, not exactly as in the first study. 
I placed the tree trunks a bit to the left on my paper and used a pen and calligraphy ink for the details of the cracks in the cut off edges where the branches used to be.

I really liked doing this and it was a good start for the rest of the week with more and more challenges, lessons and coaching to come. I will write about that in my next posts.

More information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com