View from the Churchyard - Reifferscheid

Last October we were for a short vacation in the small German village of Reifferscheid, in the Eiffel region. On the day of our arrival we went for a walk around the high part of the village, mostly to stretch our legs a little after the drive from home. The high part of the village is the ancient castle area, surrounded by walls and on a high hilltop. Our vacation home was close to the old gate, a few minutes walking brought us to the other end where the white church was. 
As it was autumn, the days were short and our walk was made at the hour of sunset. The light was beautiful and I really enjoyed being outside at that moment. We made a lot of pictures and I started painting that same evening after dinner.
The reference pictures I made from the church and churchyard had to wait a little longer, but today I wanted to paint this view.

I was inspired by the shadows on the building, the almost random placement of the graves and the view on the hills opposite the village, all in that wonderful evening light.
Painting all that was a bit of a challenge for me, especially the graveyard with the graves. Because there were so many shadows the shapes were to be guessed in some cases, only the difference in colour made the gravestones stand out against one another.
I have (again) chosen to suggest most of the shapes of the stones, some graves and the plants between them.

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 

The Signpost

As I wrote in my previous post, we made some signposted walks during our short vacation in Reifferscheid (Eiffel, Germany). Only the second (and last) walk was signposted not so very well. 
We were happy that my husband made a picture of the information board that had all the signposted walks drawn on the map so we could find our route with the help of that picture and a navigation app.
We came upon this signpost, showing lots of destinations, but our route was not indicated. 

Despite that little fault, the signpost itself was a perfectly placed element in the landscape, the white of the indicating signs contrasting with the dark bush behind it.
I made some reference pictures and painted this scene in the afternoon when we were back in our vacation home.

I do not use rough paper very often, grain fin (or cold pressed) is my usual choice.
For this small scene I decided to try something different and I had a bit of a struggle of course, but the result is nice. 
There are some unexpected qualities to the structure of this paper and I will have to explore that a bit further - and I guess I will enjoy doing so.

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