About me... (mixed media)

This is in answer to a challenge by 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken', the amateur art association of which I am a member. There will be a challenge each month this year and the January challenge is to depict 'yourself' as good as possible.

That is not an easy task, so I started thinking. The boiling kettle with things coming up that are important to me is a nice alternative to a self portrait.

What is coming up in the bubbles are a palette and brushes of course and a book with a cup of coffee (or tea) are also included. My walking boots and a compass which stands for the signposted walks I like to do with my husband are also visible, as well as a shawl (I almost always wear one outside the house and sometimes even inside). And my baking and cooking passion is depicted with a cake. In some of the smaller bubbles are stars.
The kettle is placed in a forest landscape, the trees are also essential to me.

I have used watercolour, of course, but I have also used a lot of my pencils and charcoal for the underside of the kettle, where it is blackened by the fire.

In this painting I have used the kettle with all the different bubbles as an image for my various hobbies and passions and I have used the landscape setting because that is my most important subject when I am painting.

It really was fun making this up, sketching and painting/drawing this, but I don't think I will do this very often.

More information about this mixed media painting (all the materials used, size, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

I have got free art materials!

This month my favourite art supply store gives away free art materials when you get yourself a membership of the Dutch Association of Artists.
So today we went to the store, filled in the application  form and went shopping.
The result is in the picture.
I got paint and paper for my watercolour paintings, charcoal, fixative and paper for charcoal drawings and paper for sketches. I will be using some of these materials when I am on my painting vacation in The Ardennes - in a few  weeks.
The membership of the Artists Association does also have some nice advantages, so I think I got myself a good deal.
Now I only have to paint.

More information about me and my paintings can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

There is work in progress...

This time I do not have a picture to show you.
I have been working on a project that will include at least fourteen charcoal drawings and I will publish this project when it is finished. To give you a hint on the progress: four of them are finished, ten to go. For this project I have been given permission to use pictures made by my son Martijn and my daughter-in-law Claudia. When all drawings are made, I would like to write (or have someone write for me) a text to accompany my artworks.

Usually I have time to paint or draw in the weekends, but lately there have been other things filling my time. 
For example: my son got married last week. Of course that is a very happy event but it took my time and attention away from my little studio.


The time of outdoor art events has started in The Netherlands and I have some obligations towards my 'colleagues' in amateur art. On the other hand, those days might inspire me to do some watercolours, so I could have paintings to publish here soon.

When nothing is published here, I am still working on my project.

More information about the paintings I have made in the past and the art events I participate in can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

A bit more about me

Some days ago I was asked by Patience Brewster to write a blogpost with a bit more information about myself as an artist. The questions asked were not that easy to answer, so I took some time to think them over and write the answers down in a nice, readable post. I hope you will enjoy this one!

I was asked to describe how I became an artist – although that was posed in several questions – and what inspires me.

As a child I was not very exposed to art like paintings and drawings. My father was an amateur photographer,  so photos and cameras were always a part of my life.

Another big part of my life is reading and that led me to watercolour. It all started with a series of lessons based on fairy tales and poetry. There I got acquainted with the wet-in-wet technique. 

More lessons were taken, now focusing on painting what I saw. Here I discovered that the landscape is my favourite subject.

I really want to show the beauty of this world in my paintings and sometimes I achieve that goal. The more I paint, the better I manage to express the feelings I have when I am in a certain landscape.

There are times in which I do not paint what I have seen personally, but what one of my children saw, photographed and told me during and after their travels. Those times I really need their words before I can paint. My son once told me that my painting expressed the atmosphere of a certain place better than his pictures did. That was really a special compliment to me!

The last few years I have also been trying to find out whose paintings I like the most.

From the past I like Rembrandt and the masters of the School of The Hague. Turner and some of the Impressionists are on my list of favourites as well. And you may think this a strange one, but I grew up with his art for it was always somewhere in school or public places: M.C. Escher. There are many contemporary watercolourists I admire so I will not bother you with that overly long list of names…

What the future will bring me I don’t know. I follow the path I started upon and I cannot really see where it will end. Along the way I hope to be surprised by fantastic landscapes, beautiful paintings and nice comments of the people who see my artwork.