National Treasure 386

A few years ago my son Martijn was in Seoul, South Korea for an internship. Of course he worked hard but also found time to make trips to touristic attractions.

He lived very close to Changgyeong Palace - or Changgyeonggung so he visited that site several times. In early springtime the sakura trees blossom, so he tried hard to make pictures with as few tourists as possible - and of course as much blossoms as possible.
The reference picture I used to paint this watercolour also features Okcheongyo Bridge. This bridge serves as a symbolic entry to the courtyard and is designated as National Treasure 386. (Wikipedia: Changgyeonggung)

Again it took me some time to decide on my composition, I cropped the picture a bit and changed the position and size of a few of the trees.
As the scene is in early spring I painted with soft colours and adding darks only in the trees and the shadows under the bridge. I have been adding to the depth of the shadows carefully, too little is not good, too much would be even worse. 
I had fun working on this one and am really happy with the result.

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

Sakura - and Watercolour Markers

There is something new in watercolour - world to have fun with: Watercolour Markers! 
My daughter gave me a box with 6 colours and I had to try them as soon as possible. 
As described in the instructions I found on the internet, they have two tips, a sharp one for precision and a brush type tip for filling in larger spaces. 

I tried all that of course, with and without water, with and without added paint.
This is the result of half an hour fun and experimenting - I did not have much more time.
For the subject of my test run I also got inspiration from my daughter: Sakura flowers!
I kept my composition simple so it would be easy to copy, for I wanted to try all those possibilities and compare the results.

This was fun and I will definitely try out more... I like this stuff so: thank you very much Mariska for giving me this box of wonders!