Portrait of a wave

 

Yesterday, New Year's Day, my husband and me went to the beach, for a good portion of sea air after having been indoors for several days (for various reasons, like celebrating birthdays and other nice things) and of course I made pictures of the waves rolling in.

As the North Sea is not a deep sea, the waves are not very big, but for us a wave is a wave. The colour of the water also shows that the sea is not deep, there is always an amount of sand or sediment in the water. This time we had a very grey day, not even the illusion of clouds in the sky so the sea was dark and grey as well.

Painting waves is a challenge for me, I still feel the need to improve my skills. For this painting I made a light pencil drawing and did not use any masking fluid, so the whites of the foam are areas I painted around. This time I did not lose many whites, so I think (hope) I am getting better at this. Just after I finished it did feel a little artificial to me, but after having done something else, that also started to look better. Nor perfect yet, but a credible  wave in the North Sea.

As it was a dark and grey day, my colour palette is very limited, I only added a second blue for the green shade of the wave in the middle.

The result is what I hoped for, and I know I will have to practise this again and again... (not a bad thing to look forward to)

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.

If you are interested in my work, please contact me.

North Sea beach at low tide

 

A few days ago I did see a challenge announced on a FaceBook page that needed an abstract watercolour painting. A few hours later we were walking on the North Sea beach at low tide and the wave patterns in the sand inspired me to make reference pictures, to be used for an abstract (-ish) painting. Abstract painting is not my usual style so it is no surprise that I have used an example from nature for my painting.

In the patterns were fragments of shells and other things that wash up at high tide and I wanted to include these as well in the painting.

So I made a rough drawing of the wave patterns and masked the shell fragments with masking fluid, let that dry and started painting. 

It took several layers of paint to make the sand look like wet sand and after all had dried I took off the masking fluid and added some colour to the shell fragments.

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

Alienation

The April challenge of our regional amateur art association is 'Alienation' and that is of course because of the strange times we are having at the moment. We have to practice 'social distancing', we have to stay at home or close to home as much as possible, grocery shopping is done alone and we work from home. 
All meetings, (art) festivals and other gatherings are cancelled so we can only go 'out' in our nature, which is discouraged. This is happening all over the world now but I write it down for future readers, to remind them about the circumstances at the time I made this painting.

A few weeks ago, just one day before all things closed down in The Netherlands (because of the corona virus) we went for a walk on the beach. We did chose a beach that is not so very popular, so we had a nice walk without too many other people coming too close. We already had to practice 'social distancing' at that time.
We made some nice pictures of the waves walked for more than an hour and went home again.

I decided to use one of the pictures that were made at the beach for the 'Alienation' challenge.
I have tried to omit the horizon in order to get the alienation that is asked for in this challenge. There are several reasons for that and I will try to explain them all.

In our rather flat landscape there always is a horizon. In fact, there is another online challenge at the moment which uses that ever present horizon as its theme.
When we are looking at a landscape our eyes always try to find the horizon and a photograph is 'not good' when the horizontal line is not found.
And I remember reading that the paintings J.M.W. Turner made about ships in stormy weather were thought to be alienating because the horizon was nowhere to be found in these scenes.

So I have made a seascape with a bit of beach, some waves, the sea and clouds but I have not marked the horizon. I hope this will do for the challenge.

Painting these waves was a bit of a challenge for me, mostly because I have not done this very often. I know I need to practice more and I really will do so somewhere in the future.

The details about the paper and paints used, the size and availability can all be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Impressions of "Winter on Texel"

Last week we had booked a nice hotel on our largest Wadden Island, Texel for a few days vacation. Because hotel rooms are not meant to be transformed into a painting studio, I only packed my drawing materials.
The weather turned out to be very very cold, so we did not walk outdoors as much as we usually do when on vacation.
This scene is very close to the hotel, we only had to walk over the dunes to find the North Sea coast. Sunset was to be in an hour but it was too cold, the wind was too strong to wait for it. I made some reference pictures and later in the evening I tried a graphite pencil drawing. I am not unhappy with the result - for a first try.

The second day of our vacation was still very cold with a very strong wind from the East. As we were at the western coast of the island, walking in the dunes, it was possible to make a walk of about 7 km. We did not stop long to make pictures and did not stop at all to eat our lunch (we ate that in the car, after the walk) and returned to the hotel early in the afternoon. 
This is from memory, as it was too cold to take off my gloves to hold the camera at this point. The dunes of "De Muy" - a bird protection area - were looking very unforgiving, possibly because of the winter season. I used my Tinted Charcoal pencils here on watercolour paper, as an experiment. 

The third day of our vacation we went looking for the dry sandbanks of the Wadden Sea. The most northern part of Texel is where we had to be to have a chance to see what I wanted to see. We were warned not to go walking on the dry sand because at that point it is quicksand and very dangerous. The "wad" was covered with a layer of ice,but we did see some sandbanks. Sheltered by the dunes and dykes I made some reference pictures at different places close by the lighthouse of Texel, where we had access to the shoreline.
We returned to the warmth of the hotel early in the afternoon again and I made a second graphite drawing.

These three drawings were meant to become accustomed to my pencils and to explore the possibilities they give me. 

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

On the Pier of Hoek van Holland - looking towards England

When I am on the Pier of Hoek van Holland, I do not only look towards the seashore. The Pier is really a long way into the North Sea and at the end of it is a radar post with a helicopter platform which is the only one in The Netherlands (maybe even in the world).
On the left side of the Pier is the canal through which the Port of Rotterdam can be reached, on the right side there are some of the basalt blocks that protect the beach. When I am at this spot I have walked further towards the end of the Pier compared to the spot where I made the sketch for my previous watercolour painting.

For this sketch I really had to imagine the Pier without all the tourists and fishers.
The radar post is the one on the right side of the Pier, on the left side is a light beacon. They both seem to be on the horizon, but the beacon is much closer to the point from where I am sketching.
The waves do often fall over the edges of the Pier, leaving dark wet marks on the concrete. 
We were here on a Sunday, so there was some traffic at sea, but not as much as would have been on a weekday. I have suggested only one ship at the horizon. Sometimes even that one ship was not to be seen that day.
The previous painting had a lot of clouds in the sky, but half an hour later those were all gone. There was a strong wind that day, I really could not have painted on the spot if I wanted to do that.

After I got home I looked at my sketch and thought 'Why did I do that?' because it was not a very detailed sketch, a few pencil lines and notes about the colours on white paper. 
I decided to paint the scene and make the best of it. Using the right colours for the basalt blocks, the light beacon and of course the sea would bring back the scene that inspired me to make that sketch - I hoped. And that is exactly what happened.

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

At the Pier of Hoek van Holland

We did not really have a long and hot summer this year. Most of the times it was cool, windy, cloudy and sometimes even rainy weather. Some days we had a lot of sunshine and one of those sunny days was used to visit the beach and the Pier of Hoek van Holland.
That pier is made out of basalt blocks and some of those are at the side of the pier, for extra strength. 

At some point I decided to sit down on the edge of the walking path over the Pier and make a sketch of the view I had there. The great sea vessels were on the other side of the Pier, where the Port of Rotterdam connects to the North Sea. It is strictly forbidden to swim this close to the Pier so at that point there were no tourists either.
This way I had a nice view with only some sailing ships on the horizon. I had a nice time sketching this scene and I also enjoyed painting it.

The basalt blocks with sand blown up to their sides are still a bit of a challenge, but I am confident that some day painting them is as easy for me as painting the sky. I have painted so many clouded skies in my landscapes that it is a part of my landscape I am very confident about. I still need to give attention to the sky but there never is that moment of "I can never achieve what I want here, I might as well throw the thing away" which almost came up while painting the basalt blocks.


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

North Sea beach - almost sunset

It's almost sunset at the beach of the North Sea, some people are still walking on the floodline and the clouds look great.
My husband Peter took the reference photo for me last september and it took me a few months to make a plan to paint it. 
Usually I paint the sky wet-in-wet, but sometimes that does not work well with the greys I mix for the clouds. So I tried a different approach.
First I made an underpainting in the sky with yellow and a bit blue. I left the sun open. After this was completely dry I mixed a blueish grey and made the clouds, adding water where I wanted the colour to flow. I also added the grey to the sky where needed. 
After this had dried again I added sea and sand and in the final stage I added details to the waves, the tracks in the sand and the people on the shoreline.
I am very happy with the result of this technique and will use it again for sure.

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