After the lightning - for a challenge

 

The theme of the January challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is taken from a book by one of the members: "Bliksem" or Lightning in English.

What do we do nowadays when there is a thunderstorm? Do we look at the lightning or do we hide in fear? 

This does not inspire me, so I looked a bit further. What does it look like after the lightning?

In our country we can still find oak trees standing alone in a field and these are in danger of being struck by lightning. Sometimes a tree survives and we can see the damage. More often the tree is killed by the lightning and cleared away before the remains can bring danger to people passing by.

Based on the silhouette of an oak tree in winter I imagined one side to be broken and fallen to the ground while the other side is still alive. The time is set in the end of Autumn, some leaves have not fallen yet.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

Autumn in the 'Meinweg' 2 (The Netherlands)

 

During our walks in National Parc the Meinweg we saw beautiful autumn colours, lots of trees and bushes and traces of wild boars looking for food on the sides of the paths. 

With this painting I have tried to paint all of that without showing all the details. So the foliage is suggested with colour only, the tree trunks are painted and blurred in parts before the paint dried to suggest they stand behind bushes and in the foreground there are some very dark shapes beside the path to suggest the activity of the boars.

This painting is all about atmosphere and I am happy with the results.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Autumn magic

 

The October challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about Autumn magic or enchanting autumn. The real challenge for me was trying to paint or draw something that I have not done before. After some thought I decided on my little oak tree (not yet two years old) and a drawing with a watercolour under painting.

For the under painting I used cling film for the effect - something I know about but have not done before. Not really much paint in two colours and let the cling film do its magic while the paint dries.

On the background I used my watercolour pencils. The picture is taken from above, with such a small tree this is almost the only way. For the top leaves I used water after the first pencil layer and added two or three more layers of colour. The other leaves are only pencil marks on the paper (no water used) and I used less layers of pencil for the lowest leaves. 

The stem (tree trunk is a bit too much yet) is added to show where the leaves come from.

This was fun, partly an experiment for the background but I really like the result.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this work and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Autumn - maple

 

Today is the beginning of Autumn and I have wanted to paint in Autumn colours for more than a week now. 

This is my painting, inspired by a sketch I made almost five years ago using a photo reference that I cannot find again. But the sketch - almost a study - was very detailed so I used my imagination for the colours.

The next challenge was to find what kind of maple tree this was - I did see the tree and made the reference picture in the parc close to my home - so I looked in books and on the internet to find it. It is a field maple tree or Acer campestre.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

Hills - landscape

 

During our short vacation in Vaals (The Netherlands) we made a few signposted walks, enjoying the weather, the hills, the views and the woodland areas we were walking through. Several pictures were made of the nice landscape and I intend to use some of them as reference for watercolour paintings. 

This is the first scene I painted and though the landscape was green under a blue sky, I adapted it to another colour scheme. Sometimes I just don't want to paint another blue and green landscape.

My limited palette has a yellow, two browns and a blue for making the grey-ish shades by mixing it with the brown ones.

This is one of those paintings that are started with a reference picture that is really good, but before all the trees or other elements are added, the painting already looks great, so  I decide to stop. 

I really don't think this painting would improve with foreground trees, it's all about atmosphere. 

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

Virginia creeper - watercolour painting and pencil drawing

 

Last week we visited the Castle Ruin of Valkenburg (Netherlands) and one of the things that attracted my attention was this plant in full Autumn colours creeping over the walls of the castle. I made some reference pictures to make a pencil drawing.

The drawing was made but for several reasons I was not completely happy with the result

and I decided to use the drawing (second picture) as a study for a watercolour painting.

For the watercolour painting (first picture) the paper was given a hint of colour, using the colour of the 'mergel' or marl stones that were used to construct the castle. On top of that background I painted the leaves of the Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) and added the structure of the stones using a watercolour pencil. 

The emphasis of the watercolour painting is now on the plant and its autumn colours as I wanted it to be.

The information about the materials I have used for both the drawing and the painting, the sizes of the works and the availabilities can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Looking out...

 

Looking out of a window on our first floor I did see our chestnut tree in its Autumnal splendour, looking great in the bright sunlight. Because there are blinds I had a fragmented view on the tree and its colours but exactly that inspired me to paint.

So I made a reference picture of the tree from that first floor - a bad picture as we have double glass windows - and made plans to paint the next day. 

I used parts of that picture to draw my composition, leaving out the cars parked in the street, the opposite houses and more. After I had a nice composition of leaves I used a ruler to draw the lines for the blinds and masked these shapes using masking fluid.

After the masking dried, I used a neutral brown for my background, painted the leaves, using my memory and imagination to get a nice colour pattern and after that had dried completely, I rubbed away the masking. Next step were the blinds, looking at the real ones I established where the shadows were to be painted and I added the vertical element of the 'thread ladder' that keeps the blinds in the right shape.

It really surprised me that all went right with the masking fluid, as I do not use it often, the bottle is rather old and only half full. But there were no problems at all. 

Of course this was an experiment, but I really like the result.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Almost Autumn!

 

After a hot and dry summer my chestnut tree is dropping his leaves early - as many other trees do - and the chestnuts are ready to fall off the tree. So it is time to paint an autumnal watercolour painting using my own tree as my model. 

For this painting I decided to make a brown background by letting two shades of brown flow on my wet paper. This did not cover the whole sheet and that is exactly what I wanted.

The composition is made using my two reference pictures. After the initial drawing was made I have used my memory for the colours and because the leaves, branches and chestnuts are painted over the background these colours are part of the end result.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Iceland - Autumn colours

 

Of course the nature in our own country is very beautiful, but sometimes I want to paint something different, if only because that is a challenge for me that helps me improve my skills.

This time I got inspired by a documentary about Iceland and its nature and I wanted to paint that. My memory of the scene had to help me while I was sketching and later while I was working on my watercolour painting. 

Iceland is very volcanic and this scene showed a stream flowing in a typically volcanic rock formation. The lines of the black rock or solidified lava are beautiful visible and all I had to do is paint... Of course it's not that simple. 

Solidified lava is very black and usually watercolour artists don't use much black in their paintings, as the colour is 'not natural'. This time I decided to use Ivory Black for the rocks and as that has a slightly brown shade I added a light blue to create the colour I needed. There was a lot of light falling on the lava rocks so I left patches of white, added some blue and made the shadow parts as dark as possible.

The vegetation growing in that landscape (probably mosses) are showing brownish orange autumn colour with bits of red and patches of brown and that was mostly painted wet-in-wet.

Painting this landscape - without any trees in it - was a small challenge and an experience that I liked very much. The result is even better than I hoped to achieve.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Weeping willow - Autumn colours

 

It has been a while since I painted an imaginary landscape with the little weeping willow in it, so I made one today.

There are three weeping willows in this painting, the landscape may be imaginary, yet I wanted to paint a scene that might be realistic. So there are three trees on the bank of a pond that is situated in a small parc in a town. The town's buildings are suggested in the background. There may be a path in the parc and there are reeds in the pond.

As autumn is very very near, I wanted to paint the autumn colours of a weeping willow and I added a strong wind to complete the autumn mood. The leaves of a weeping willows turn yellow before they fall and turn brown so I have used several shades of yellow and a brown to paint the foliage that is still on the trees. Some leaves are already blowing in the wind, I have splattered paint to suggest that. The reeds are also bending in the same direction.

To suggest the reeds I have not only used a very small, almost dry brush with some of the colour mixes that are also used for the grass, but in addition to that I have used some watercolour sticks in their dry form to draw some sharp lines. Some of the lines in the trees are also a yellow watercolour stick.

The watercolour sticks are pure paint of the same quality that comes in pans and used with a wet brush there is no difference between the paint from a stick and the paint from a pan or tube. These sticks can also be used to draw lines and I like that idea very much so I have a few of these sticks in shades that can be used in landscape paintings.

The information about all the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can be found in my Tumblr blog.

Autumn Colours - a tinted charcoal drawing

 

During a short walk very close to our home - we did not leave our hometown - we could see the colours on the trees and bushes already changing. I made reference pictures of a branch of common dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) with leaves that were having a nice shade of purple before turning to a reddish brown. The berries were looking great as well, though they were mostly in the shadows they had a nice glow.

For this drawing I selected a sheet of coloured carboard in a shade of green that was as close to the colour of the bushes in the background and I started drawing with my Tinted Charcoal pencils. 

To draw the leaves and berries I layered different colours as much as possible, sometimes blending them and adding another layer of lines. This process was repeated with all the leaves and berries until the drawing looked like what I wanted it to look like - or as close to that as possible. To indicate the background leaves and shadows I added some shapes with the 'neutral' coloured pencil.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this drawing can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Church on the river

 

During my painting vacation we went to the river Waal for inspiration. We stayed a few hours to make sketches and pictures for future reference. Last painting vacation I did chose a theme for myself and I used the picture I made of a wild teasel for a drawing.

Of course there was more to see than only a wild teasel and I have made reference pictures and sketches inspired by the views of the river and a side stream with beautiful trees and bushes. On the other bank of the river I could see a small church - when I was in the right spot - and I made a sketch of that church as well. It was too far away for a picture, so I only have the sketch and my memories of the scene. I have tried to find the church on a map and I found that it is in fact very far from the riverside. To compose a landscape using the sketch as my guide I will have to use the church, the trees and bushes behind it and a bit of the dyke in front of the building and create an imaginary scene with these elements.

When I was there, it was still summer, with a blue sky and the trees and bushes were in shades of green, hardly distinguishable from each other. The paintings I want to make will have the colour scheme I feel like at that moment and I will be using the black-and-white sketch to determine the proportions of the church, the trees and the bushes I have been drawing.

Today I wanted to paint after that sketch and I have chosen to paint some reflections in the river as well, so the horizon is high in my composition and there is a lot of room for the water of the river.  I wanted some colour in my painting so I have made an imaginary autumn scene.

The results are what I hoped for - and even a bit better - so I will make more paintings using this sketch as my inspiration.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Sallandse Heuvelrug

 

At the end of one of our recent walks on the Natural Reserve 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' we saw a path that looked like it was constructed that very same day. Most of the times the paths in our nature have damaged sides, some bits seem to have been 'nibbled off' or bits of soil are on the path. Not to mention the uneven parts where tree roots have lifted the path up a bit.

This path was totally undamaged as far as we could see and that unusual sight was photographed by my husband. Looking at his picture, I decided to use part of it as a reference for a nice autumnal watercolour painting.

The light between the trees in the background was hazy, maybe because there had been rains in the morning and at the moment we walked there we had warm sunshine, so the moist from the morning was evaporating.

I have limited the colour scheme a bit, to match the leaves on the trees with the colours of the forest floor, some nice warm orange-browns and a bit of warm yellow.

The bench was there in the picture and I decided to paint it as well, the composition could do with some horizontal lines. Now the painting is finished I think the bench in that spot adds a touch of mystery. Who or what will come out of the misty forest to look at the resting wanderer?

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Yellow mushrooms

 

This November the challenge of 'Goed Gezien-Goed Bekeken' is 'Colour in Nature' and with autumn at its end we surely have had more than enough colour in nature to inspire us. 

But when do you really get inspired by colours in nature? When they stand out against a contrasting background of course, so I chose to make a painting after some pictures my husband made during our last walk on the Sallandse Heuvelrug a few weeks ago.

On some chunks of grey bark that were stacked close to the path grew some very orange-yellow mushrooms and they did stand out beautifully. The hoods were cracked, so a light yellow colour was shining through at some places and even before the challenge was published I knew I wanted to paint these mushrooms.

For my watercolour I chose to leave out all the distracting details of the tree bark and lay emphasis on the mushrooms as they were my subject.

The structure of the bark is still suggested by changes in colour and some lines where the shadows were and depth is created by adding some warm colours to the pieces of bark in the foreground. This was a bit of a challenge, because the whole scene has not more depth than thirty or forty centimetres. 

Once again I have tried to find the name of the mushrooms and failed.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability of this painting can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Autumn Leaves - mixed media drawing

During the last week - our short vacation in one of our Natural Reserves - the colours of the trees were changing from green to autumn. We passed by a lot of beautiful trees during our walks and the area where we had our vacation home also had lots of trees that were in autumn colours. The most beautiful ones were those of the northern red oak (Quercus rubra) that was introduced in Europe about two hundred years ago as a decorative species.

Of course I wanted to paint in these colours, but I did not bring all my paper with me, so I decided to make an orange underpainting with watercolour and make a nice drawing of some of the leaves with my water soluble pencils. 

The composition was made using more than one reference picture and I have used the watercolour quality of my pencils to make the leaves even more colourful. After the first layer of pencil, I used a bit of water to intensify the colours used. 

After that had dried, I added more layers of pencil until I was happy with the result.

The information about the paper, paints and pencils I have used for this mixed media work as well as the size and availability can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

In the woods

 

This year is a year for mushrooms, they appear everywhere and most of all in beautiful pictures on tv shows. So of course I am inspired to paint and draw mushrooms and this time I have been looking in my archives of reference pictures.

The picture for this mixed media drawing was made several years ago and I still did not paint from it, because the mushroom (I have been looking for its name, but I still have no idea what kind of mushroom it is) is grey, almost translucent. It reminds me a bit of a jellyfish with the lines going to the middle and the semi-transparent quality of the hood.

Then I remembered I could do a drawing with my Conté Sketching Crayons, as there is a grey one in my set. I have added some more colours from the set to this drawing and I tried to add some more colours with my Graphitint pencils and a Tinted Charcoal pencil. After spraying fixative, the colours of the pencils dominated the grey hood, so I added more Conté to it, fixative again and repeated these steps one more time. The Graphitint is more dominant than I expected,  I have learned a lesson for the next time. 

The forest floor, with branches, some feathers and pine needles is only suggested here by layering Conté Crayons (smudging them with my fingers) and pencils until I had the desired result. 

This time I worked on coloured cardboard, this is a heavy paper and I have chosen a small size, because I had only one mushroom as my subject. For a group of mushrooms I would have chosen a larger sheet of paper of course.

The information about the paper, pencils and crayons I worked with, and the availability of this drawing can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Autumn in mixed media

 

The October challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is 'Against the rules' and the Dutch word for rules can also be read as lines.

So I had a choice for my work, because against the rules (of anything) has already been done, so I could not do anything original at all. 

I discussed this with my mother and daughter for inspiration and I combined the ideas they gave me with some inspiration that grows in my garden.

Against or crossing the lines is a nice option so I made a drawing of chestnuts and dried grape leaves, both from my own garden but not in the same spot and added lines from Autumn - related songs.

The text lines are not complete, I made them 'fall of the paper' and of course they are not written on the lines that are made to write on. I copied the idea of an exercise book used in school to learn writing and made lines using blue and red pencils - just like there are blue and red lines in the school notebooks I am referring to.

Unfortunately it was not possible to make the perfect picture - the lines I made are straight, as I used a good ruler and the paper is white. There is some change in colour and deformation in the picture that I cannot correct without losing the colours of the drawing.

The information about the paper, ink and pencils I have used, the size of the work and its availability can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Autumn mood

 

Now it is really autumn, not only on the calendar but also outside, with rain, wind and dropping temperatures. The inspiration to paint flowers is far away now, I have been browsing my archive of mushroom pictures for  this watercolour painting.

The reference picture was made a few years ago and I have forgotten where this was. It was a forest - but we have been walking in many forest or woodland areas over the past years.

This is a large group of mushrooms and those in the foreground were already withering when the picture was made. They were growing on a piece of dead tree that was on the forest ground.

For the background I have chosen colours that are also seen or used in the mushrooms. The mushrooms are painted in way that is very close to reality.

The information about the paper and paint I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Rose hips

 

After the beautiful rose flowers have withered, there is another thing that inspires me to paint and that is the beauty of the rose hips. During a short walk close to our home I made some reference pictures of rose bushes with lots and lots of rose hips and I have made a mixed media work inspired by these pictures.

I have changed the colours to a yellow background, anticipating the autumn colours. The background is made using watercolour paint and a lot of water. Gravity did most of the work here. 

After the background had dried, I decided on my composition. When I make a watercolour background using this technique, there is a lot of 'chance' in the result so I place my subject on the best spot of the under painting.

Only one branch situated on the side of the bush, with some leaves and lots of rose hips is my subject, but I have added the suggestion of more branches and leaves for the sake of my composition. This is all made using my watercolour pencils.

For the branch and the berries I have layered the colours to achieve the results I wanted.

Because I have used textured paper, this will always be visible, but where I have used more layers of pencil the texture of the paper will be filled completely without leaving white parts in the shape of the berries, leaves or branches. I like to work with these contrasts.

The information about the paper, paints and pencils I have used, the size of the work and its availability can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Autumn in the Arboretum

First of all: the reference picture for this watercolour was made (for me) by Yvonne Koningen and I am really happy that she allowed me to use it.

In our country it's Autumn and the Von Gimborn Arboretum (Tree Museum) is beautiful now. I have seen some of the pictures that were made there last week and I envy those that go there often.

Most of the red leaves of this tree - I think a maple tree -  are still on the branches so it looks like there are large red clouds in the reference picture with some leaf ends pointing out. 
I was inspired by the colour of the leaves, almost a fiery red against a grayish background and the dark colour of the branches. 

I have tried to paint these 'red clouds' and to create a point of interest with some more detailed leaves. This was a bit of a struggle, because the colour values of the red 'clouds' and the blue background were very close. The groups of leaves really were almost clouds so I had to do something. The solution was easy, the darkness of the branches was strengthened a bit to create the darkest colour of the painting and to create a sense of movement from the bottom left  to the top corner right.

It has been a long time since I have painted on a half sheet (most of my paintings since summer were on 1/4 sheet or smaller) and maybe that explains a part of my struggle. The fact that I do not show most details of the leaves now - as I have done in almost every painting I made since last summer - was a change as well.
I write this short after I have finished my watercolour painting and I am still not completely happy with it, it's different from what I had in mind. But I am sure tomorrow it will look better, after I have been away from it for a while.

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