Although I keep naming the paintings 'White World', there is a lot of colour to be seen in the landscape I am painting. That is of course because the white colour in the landscape is frost, frozen fog that forms ice crystals on the branches, grasses and tops of the humps of clay in the fields. There has been no snow in this landscape.
All the reference pictures I have used so far were taken during one walk of five kilometres in the hills above Saarburg, as we walked from our vacation home to the village of Ayl and back. Down in the valley there was no white at all, the temperatures were just above freezing point there.
The views were great in spite of or maybe because of the light fog we had in the beginning of the day. Taking good pictures was not easy, the camera saw too little contrast between the foggy, grey sky and the white bushes.
This contrast could be seen with the eye so I have added my memory to the pictures when I was painting the watercolours that I named 'White World'.
Once again I have chosen a small size paper and I have used a limited palette of three colours. When we were walking the world seemed to have only two colours, white and gray but closer observation revealed browns and greens as well. I have tried to reproduce the atmosphere of that lightly foggy, cold white landscape without losing the colours that were really there.
More information about this watercolour painting (materials, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The many pictures we made last week, walking through a wonderfully white world are not to be wasted. Of course a selection of these pictures will appear in our albums, but they are also made to be my reference for painting.
This foggy landscape is made to be painted with watercolour. At this point of our walk we were having a bit of back light so the white branches are a bit darker than the sky. There was a bit more fog here, that did change according to our location as we were walking into the valley where the village of Ayl is situated.
Once again I have made a small size painting, mostly because it matches the first three I have painted in our vacation home. The scene is not very complicated and due to the fog there is not a broad view to be painted so a small size 'fits' the subject.
More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, contact information, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
This is the third and last painting I made during our short vacation in Saarburg (Germany).
After the first two I was gaining confidence and I have chosen a more detailed scene for this one.
The other two watercolour paintings were made in the afternoons and there was some light coming from the windows, helping me to see my work-in-progress better. This one was made in the evening so my only light source was a lamp and I have been struggling with the light that reflected in the wet parts of my work.
This scene is in between the frosted trees and the leaves that are still on the beech trees are adding colour to the scene.
The path is almost black but I have softened that a little so it does not stand out so much.
We had to walk down that path to reach our vacation home again, behind us was a point of view that overlooked the valley of the river Saar - in clear conditions, we had not much view in the foggy weather of that day. I am not complaining here, the foggy weather and low temperatures gave that wonderful frost I have been painting.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, materials, availability, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Last weekend we were near Saarburg (Germany) and we found ourselves in a beautiful white world. This was because the temperatures were low and the fog had made ice needles on all the branches, humps of clay, grasses, wires, and many more things.
My husband and I were walking in the hills surrounding our vacation home and made many pictures of this beautiful white world. The day after this the weather was warmer and all the ice had gone.
In the afternoons I painted in our vacation home and these pictures were my inspiration. After the first painting I had chosen another beautiful scene, with some pine trees in it. Their darker shapes make the white trees and bushes in the foreground stand out even more.
The tree trunks were dark against all that white and that gives depth to this scene, together with the hilltop in the background.
In this painting I have used paint from one of my watercolour sticks. The result is of course exactly the same as the results from paint in pans or from tubes, it is an extra that the sticks can also be applied like crayons.
More information about this painting (materials used, size, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
This past weekend we were on a short vacation, to the German town Saarburg.
We were in a vacation home on a hill above the town, surrounded by vineyards and some cornfields that are now bare.
The weather was a bit foggy and as the temperatures were low, everything had a layer of frost. We really were in a white world, or almost white. The fact that the original colours of the trees and fields were still showing made this landscape extra beautiful.
We made lots of pictures while we were walking over the hills to the next village (Ayl) and back to our vacation home.
The afternoons were for painting, my husband Peter was enjoying the swimming pool so I could do as I pleased.
Because I never painted a landscape like this before I chose a small size paper and I decided that only a few colours would suffice to paint the atmosphere of that slightly foggy day.
Everything just seemed white, as I said before, the original colours of the fields and trees were visible. The fog made everything that was a bit further away into a gray mass. The pure white is only at the ends of the branches and the tops of the clay in the fields. This means I had to paint much more than just a few outlines. Of course i was prepared for that and I enjoyed painting this scene.
This is just the first one, I have painted more of this white world in the next days.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, materials used, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
