Enchanted Garden

The May challenge of 'Goed Gezien-Goed Bekeken' - our regional amateur art association is 'enchanting gardens' which I changed to 'enchanted gardens'. To be more precise 'enchanted garden'.
My daughter has a lot of pictures of beautiful gardens and I asked her to send me some of the most enchanting ones. There was too much inspiration in there, but I decided almost immediately to paint the Museu Romântico (in Oporto) and its garden.

Of course I have changed some things, combined some pictures, added a very magical creature and after I was happy with my sketch I started my painting.
The size of the watercolour paper is not exactly the same as my sketchbook and something went off with the perspective while painting so I could throw it away or try to save it. 
First I tried to hide the problem behind some bushes, but in the end cropping the painting into a square was the best solution, and the perspective issue is not there anymore.

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

The Gate.... now in a daylight version

The gate also deserved a daylight version, so here it is. I changed the shapes and the size of the gate a bit just for the fun of it.
I used a balanced palette of three colours here, a combination I used before and I like very much.
With these three basic colours I can mix almost all the colours needed in a landscape. 
To keep my painting clean and transparent I just have to avoid mixing all three together. 

This gate - and the versions I made earlier - is based on a gate we saw a few years ago in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal. The 'real' gate was at a piece of land with only weeds and small stones in it. 
No buildings or ruins, no signs of a garden or the remains of it, no burial grounds, no factory, just a mystery! 
That is exactly why it appealed to my imagination and I am not really sure if this is the last Gate I will paint - I don't think so.

More information about this watercolour (size, colours used, etc) and the other Gates I painted can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

The Gate - in charcoal

I really did not expect to draw the gate again so soon, but here it is in charcoal.

As you can see, I made some changes to the drawing. 
The dimensions of the paper I use are a bit different, so the composition is a bit different. There are some differences between working with watercolour and working with charcoal and I used those differences to make some changes to the gate and to create a foggy atmosphere by blurring the trees.
I started working on another quality of paper and I am getting used to that too. It is easier to blur the trees now, but I have to take care not to saturate this paper too soon. Well, fine-tuning is a nice thing when it's about my hobby.

Now I made two versions of the Gate I can let it rest - for a few days or weeks. 
To me there is something very intriguing about this subject so there are definitely more gates to come. 

More information about this charcoal drawing (size, paper used, etc) and about the watercolour painting I made earlier can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

The gate to....

There really is a story behind this one!

First of all, we did see an abandoned gate like this during a walk through Vila Nova de Gaia, in Portugal. At that moment I asked my husband to take a picture for me, if only to remember the scene but I never used that picture as a reference. 
The memory of that gate remained and the plan to use the scene for a painting also kept lingering on the background of my to-do list.

A few days ago my daughter was talking to me and used the word 'gates' to explain something and all of a sudden I saw the picture I wanted to paint! Of course I made my apologies for not listening very well and got my sketchbook out and started composing my painting. 

When I started doing that, I planned a charcoal drawing but as I continued sketching it 'became' a watercolour and while thinking over which colour scheme would be the best for this painting I decided on the Twilight colours.
I am still not as comfortable with that set of colours as I am with the others on my palette so this was also a nice exercise for me.

That scene keeps calling out to me, so I expect to paint more gates - with different colour schemes, maybe also a charcoal drawing and certainly with some variations compared to the first sketch I made.

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

A fortress by the sea - Castelo do Quejo

We have been in Oporto a few times in the last years and we visited almost all the touristic sites. This small fortress by the sea is one of them. It is possible to enter and visit the castle, but as I mentioned, it is small. Outside is - for us - more interesting.
It is situated among rocks and points out into the ocean. It's easy to imagine how it was used to defend the city of Oporto from danger coming from that ocean in centuries past. Along the coastline there are remains of some more small fortresses, but this one is still complete and safe to visit.
Walking around the fortress - as far as that is possible of course we tried to make pictures with as much 'Castelo' and as few modern buildings as possible. That was not a simple task, for the apartment buildings surrounding the fortress are much higher than the fortress itself.
My son Martijn tried to find a view from the south side with as many rocks as he could get. He made several nice pictures and I selected one to paint. I did not include the apartment buildings in my sketch and painting because I wanted to show the fortress guarding the shoreline and defending the land behind it.
As we had a day with clouds, wind and waves all the colours were a bit greyish.
Once again I did not want to show all the details, just the atmosphere we felt walking in that place.

More information about this painting - and another one I made from the pictures we took at the Castelo do Quejo - can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

Twilight Colours!

The special edition colours by Winsor&Newton Professional were too tempting.
I already had the Smalt (Dumont's Blue) and I never use black colours, so I bought Sanguine Red, Quinacridone Violet, Aqua Green and Cobalt Green Deep. 
It was a challenge to find something to paint  for an average reference photo does not have (all) those nice colours. Last winter we were in the train that rides alongside the river Douro at the time of sunset and my daughter Mariska made a lot of pictures. 
I decided to use one of them, a picture I had not painted before. 
The sunset was really nice and reflected in the river beautifully, I just had to change the colours a bit. The mountains were all black because of the strong backlight, but I do remember seeing detail in them so I painted them that way.

Getting used to a new set of colours is not done with just one painting so I expect to have a lot of fun with this in the near future!

More information about this watercolour and the others I made after our winter trip to Portugal last year can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Autumn colours the sky - 2

The colours of autumn are really great to work with, so I could not resist the temptation to make another painting with them. For this one I used a sketch I made after a picture my daughter Mariska made in Portugal. 
When you walk around the church of Santa Luzia above Viana do Castelo you get this view of dome of the church. The foreground is a combination of bushes and treetops. 
For this painting I imagined a strong backlight so the details of the dome would not be visible.

More information about this painting and the one I painted from this sketch before can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

Guimarães - that tree in the museum

The museum of Alberto Sampaio in Guimarães is housed in the buildings belonging to the Collegiate Church of Nossa Senhora da Oliveira. 
Part of this is a former cloister and the garden is still worth seeing, although very small.
It was not easy to take a good picture of this old tree but somehow my daughter Mariska succeeded. 
That picture has been waiting for me to find a way to paint it for over two years now. The composition was something to think about so I have been looking at the picture and cropping it several times. 
And still I could not think of a way to make a good painting.
But recently I was introduced to charcoal drawing as a medium and now I finally saw a possibility to make the painting I wanted to make.
Deep shadows in the structure of the building, the tree standing out in front of it and the illusion of space around it, now they are all there!

More information about this work (size, material used) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

Abandoned Sanatory - by day

 

An abandoned sanatory is an intriguing subject to paint, so I decided to make two different scenes with one reference photo my daughter Mariska made.
She made the photo at night looking out from the windows of the abandoned Sanatório de Valongo in Portugal.
This is the daylight scene as I imagined it to be several years from now.
The original photo had a lot of backlight so I had to guess where the wall stopped and the floor began, with a little help from perspective lines that was easy to do.
Then the walls themselves, were they high or not? I decided on high and damaged so I added cracks and green algae.
The floor would also be dark with algae and moist from the incoming rain.
The plants outside would have taken the opportunity to overgrow the walls and windows, so there will be vines coming in. But not too far, once inside they are devoid of sunlight and can't grow any further.
I had a lot of fun imagining all this and of course painting it!

More information about this watercolour - and the nighttime version - can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Abandoned Sanatory - by night

An abandoned sanatory is an intriguing subject to paint, so I decided to make two different scenes with one reference photo my daughter Mariska made. 
She made the photo at night looking out from the windows of Sanatório de Valongo in Portugal.
This is the night scene and it depicts the situation as it is now. 
There was a strong backlight so the structure of the building was not to be seen, only the light coming in from the windows and the reflection it made on the floor.
This scene inspired me to paint on very black paper, so the contrast between the dark and light are increased.

More information about this painting - and the daylight version - can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Still standing - abandoned houses

This house really is abandoned and my daughter Mariska could not resist the impulse to make some pictures. With several buildings (house, shed, stable) in different stages of decay it was really hard to find out which was which so I decided to select some of it to make up my own composition.
The chimney was to be my subject, it really did catch my attention so I had to compose my painting around it.
The contrast between the chimney and the trees is stronger now and the decay of the buildings is exaggerated as well. The tree that comes out of the middle of the house is real, the other plants growing all over are my additions. But it will not take long before those are real too!

More information about this watercolour can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Abandoned courtyard

The inspiration for this landscape came from a sunset photo my daughter Mariska made for me. The sunset is nice, with lots of clouds and colours in the sky, but the courtyard is a little worn out so my imagination had to add in some interesting details before painting this scene. 
Again, I started to wonder what this would look like after people had abandoned the site.
I exaggerated the worn out look of the courtyard to a point where normal use is not possible anymore. I added a lot of green, overgrowing the buildings and helping their decay. The sunset had to remain of course, that's what started my creative process!

More information about this watercolour (colours used, size and more) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Ponte de Arrábida - Memories from Portugal

There are more bridges in Oporto, but this one has a view towards the ocean. 
What appealed to me in this sight was the fact that the horizon was visible through the structure of the bridge. And with a lot of sunshine the white bridge is a special thing to see.
The reference pictures were made by my daughter Mariska, from an open spot in the gardens of the Palàcio Cristal. We were almost at the same height as the bridge. 

More information about this painting (size, colours used) can be found on www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Lane in Miramar - even more memories from Portugal

There are many lanes like this in the world, this one is in Miramar, Portugal.
We were there on a nice sunny day last December, so there was a lot of shade with bright spots. Not much foliage in the trees of course, but still the gardens behind the walls were showing green bushes. This lane reaches almost to the seaside.
The place felt like an open invitation to paint...

The reference photos were taken by my daughter Mariska.

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

The Douro by night - more memories from Portugal

Sometimes I see a sunset I really can't resist. This is one of them.
It was not that late in the afternoon, in December the sun sets early. We were close to the famous Dom Luís bridge, ready to walk into Oporto. Well, walking on had to wait a while because my daughter Mariska had her camera with her... 
She made lots of beautiful pictures and I chose to combine some of them to make my painting. The brightness is the main difference in these pictures, I needed a light one for the drawing of the houses on the slope.
And now my painting. This is not a real watercolour, for this kind of scenes I prefer to paint on a heavy quality black paper.
This is different from what I normally do and I have lots of fun making it!

More details (size, paints used) can be found on my website www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

View towards the ocean - memories of Portugal

Last December we were in Portugal, I already mentioned that...
One day we went north (from Oporto) with the train to Viana do Castelo. We visited the (very nice) city centre and went up in the funicular to the church of Santa Luzia.
The church was visited and afterwards we walked around it. 
That I can recommend! The vistas are nice up there and there is more to be seen than just that church. 
Returning from a pre-Roman ruin we were approaching the church again and suddenly there was this vista. The church on the left, an abandoned pillar, trees on the right and in between the ocean! 
It was a day that was not really bright, but not with a lot of clouds to be seen. 
As if we were walking right beneath a cloud ourselves. My daughter Mariska made the reference photos for me. As the light was a bit strange, I worked from memory again to achieve the athmosphere I wanted to capture.
More details (size and colours) are found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Hortus Botanicus in Coimbra - memories of Portugal

Last December we were in the Botanical Garden of Coimbra (Portugal). That is an old garden with lots of nice corners, lots of stairs and so on. The light was fading, it was just before sunset. My daughter Mariska made a lot of photos and although many of the photos were a bit disappointing, I still remember the light and the colours. So I painted this one....
A little gate with a balcony behind it looking at the tops of the trees behind it and that sunset... here I only tried to give an impression of the athmosphere of that moment, so the details are not all there.
More details of the painting (size, colours used) are to be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr