Rowan - a watercolour painting

 

After the Conté drawing I had made of the rowan bush I wanted more. 

So I prepared a sheet of watercolour paper with a gold-yellow background and started drawing the composition of my Conté drawing using a brush and paint. For a plant like this, no pencil drawing is really needed (for me) and I loved the small changes this method gave me.

The leaves were painted in the same colour scheme as the Conté drawing: with a dark brown and a red earth colour. 

After cleaning my paint water and returning to my work I decided the berries were not needed here, the branch looks like the birds have already eaten them. The Autumn colours of my palette make that very probable.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this work and - if you are interested in my original artwork - my contact information can all be found in my Flickr account.

"Double Exposure" 2

 

After the first experiment with painting a 'double exposure' I wanted to explore the idea a bit further. This time I painted the addition to the landscape as my first layer and the landscape itself on top of that.

The idea of adding something to a ditch with pollard willows came up while talking about the first painting with the tree roots. What to add was the question and I decided on Goldfish.

So first I painted two fish swimming as the fish in my Zodiac sign swim.

After that dried I created an imaginary landscape with a ditch, pollard willows, bushes on the horizon and some structure in the grassland. Just like the Dutch 'polder' landscape I live in. This might be imaginary, this landscape is based on the views we have here, not far from where I live.

This was fun, the addition of the goldfish is not dominating the painting and that is what I wanted. To make a more equal 'double exposure' where the first image does not dominate the second or the other way around I need to experiment and practice a bit more. That is something to look forward to.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this work and - if you are interested in my original artwork - my contact information can all be found in my Flickr account.

"Double exposure"

 

Today's prompt in the Sketch a Day app is 'Double' and some of the inspirational images provided by the app are 'double exposures' in photographs and drawings.

That inspired me to do a double exposure my own way, using watercolour.

The first layer is an imaginary landscape, a forest path as we walk often when we are enjoying our beautiful Nature Reserves. The second layer is made after a reference picture I made of some tree roots showing in the sand path.

These two belong together, the root picture was made on a path very similar to the imaginary one I painted.

For the second layer I decided on a not so natural colour, a violet to make it stand out against the first layer. After making a large 'stain' of violet on my painting I started adding the shadows around the shapes of the roots with more of the same violet. 

I had thought I could let the violet flow a bit over the paper, but I should have done that as a first layer. Now I was having the risk that the first layer would disappear and add itself to the violet. Which was not what I wanted. 

This idea is nice enough to explore further and find the best way of doing this while experimenting.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this work and - if you are interested in my original artwork - my contact information can all be found in my Flickr account.

Yellow blossom

 

The little blossoms in my painting are really very small, I first only saw the little round balls on the branches of the bush we were passing by, but some of them were opened and the flowers are beautiful little bells.

The bush is a common sight close to our home, in the 'public' green areas between blocks of houses these are planted and grow nicely. The people from the landscaping department take care of these bushes and unfortunately I do not know what the name of the plant is. It is most probably from the Berberis family that has up to 500 different plants.

To make a reference picture I had to adjust the camara on my phone and I managed to get a good reference for a painting.

Inspired by the colours of the bush I made a background and after that had dried I added the branch that I photographed. 

At this point I decided to add more colour, mostly in the lower part of the painting, suggesting branches and leaves by creating an uneven layer of colour. In this part I also added some flower buds, these are only suggested with little amounts of yellow.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this work and - if you are interested in my original artwork - my contact information can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Catkins

Some weeks ago we were walking in our beautiful nature and I saw these catkins almost hanging over the path. Of course some reference pictures were made and I started thinking about the painting I wanted to make.

For this painting I have used some Masking Fluid to preserve the white colour of the catkins and again I needed the help of my husband to open the bottle. The bottle cap is not only child proof....
The trees and bushes in the background are only suggested with spots and stripes of brown applied wet in wet - and I let gravity do a lot of work again. There is not much green in the trees and bushes when catkins can be seen, so the background is mostly brown, with some small patches of green.
After all that had dried I remover the masking fluid and painted the branches with the buds and the catkins. 
Writing this goes faster than the painting process, to make a branch seem round is a technique that takes a little time.

I am really happy with the result of the thinking and planning that was needed before I could start painting.

The details about paper and paint used, size, availability and contact information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Autumn - trees and clouds

In this autumnal scene I have combined two prompts for this month again, trees and clouds. Landscape painters do lots of clouds and lots of trees, so I had to think of something I had not done before. That is not an easy task.

For this painting I have used a reference picture I have made last spring, so I had to change the colours. In a magazine I found an example of a landscape in autumn colours that inspired me to follow its colour scheme and translate that to watercolours. I changed the fields into a pond and now I only had to paint it.

As I have done before this watercolour painting is built up by mixing the colours wet-in-wet, placing shadows and highlights where I want them to be and adjusting it all because of the unpredictability of watercolour. 
The atmosphere could have been much darker, but I wanted the trees to be golden and red, so there had to be some light.
This is what I hoped it would be and I have enjoyed painting this one.

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