My little oak tree - Autumn

 

Last year we had a surprise in our garden, we suddenly had an oak tree. A little one of course and probably the acorn was planted by a jay that did not have the opportunity to eat it before it turned into a plant. We re-planted our tree so it would not be killed during a lawn-mowing activity and it survived all this. 

So now the tree is in its second year and at this moment it shows nice autumn colours. Which means I have to paint my little oak tree.

For this painting I made several reference pictures and selected a nice group of leaves showing the autumnal colours of an oak tree. The background is lightly coloured and the leaves have the same colours - and some more.

This is the first time I paint oak leaves so very detailed and I really like the result of my work.

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 in the foreground

 

For this month's challenge I had to paint for the theme "My little sister can do that too" so there was a bit of thinking before I could even find any inspiration. The theme is the same as this year's School Art Project of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' and we have to try to paint like little children. Not an easy task...

Looking back to my painting vacation I decided to make an abstract background with poured watercolour, using two shades of blue. It took some time to dry, this time I made my background indoors and with lower temperatures. I have also chosen to use a different quality of paper, adding another uncertain factor to the experiment.

During a short walk I picked up two autumn leaves in different sizes and I drew their outlines with pencil on the dried background. Using some autumn colours I painted the leaves, letting the colours mix on the paper. The blues of the background also mixed with the colours of the leaves. On this paper that happened easier than on the cotton paper I used last summer. 

After this had dried (with a little help from my hair dryer) I added another layer of leaves, outlining them with a pencil and filling the shapes with two shades of Graphitint pencils.

If I had a little sister, she probably could do this too, but I am not certain if I have painted like a child. I did have fun though, maybe that counts as well.

The painting was not really planned in advance, I started with the blue poured paints and the leaf shapes, placing the leaves on the surface and creating the final composition happened while working. The pencil layer was added to cover the white of the paper without adding more colour that would have been 'too much' and ruining the nice composition of the painted leaves.

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 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.

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

Autumn leaves - pencil drawing

The composition sketch I made for my last watercolour painting was used again in a mixed media experiment.
For this work I have used a study-quality watercolour paper that I chose for its texture. I have used three colours to paint a watercolour underpainting, finding that this paper would make me move around the paint with each new brushstroke, leaving white paper if I was not careful. That is why I decided to leave the diagonally striped pattern as it was at that moment and start my pencil work. 
Now I have created a background that is exiting and new to me.

This time I did not draw the whole composition at once, I started with a few leaves, gave them colour and added more leaves. Some leaves turned out a bit bigger than the original sketch but I did not want to use my eraser too much, the background painting might get damaged. 
That is why I have not all the leaves of my original composition in this drawing, but I have balanced the composition as I continued.

The (rough) texture of watercolour paper always is a part of the result and when that happens to a pencil drawing I am really happy with the results. This paper has a texture that is even more distinct than my usual paper and I wanted to see what would happen.

Because the background also contains a brown colour, it was hard to get any contrast with my pencils and I had to use all my supplies for this result. The pencils do blend on the paper of course and I have mixed colours until I had the shades I wanted, using both Watercolour Pencils and Graphitint Pencils. Because of these last pencils I had to wait after I had used fixative to get the final result - the Graphitint Pencil work changes colour when it is wet.

I have learned a lot again this day and I will certainly make pencil drawings on watercolour underpaintings again, I like the result of this experiment and I feel encouraged to continue in this technique.

The details about the paper, paint and pencils I have used can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Autumn Leaves

These last weeks I have been painting leaves, branches, berries and acorns and I tried to make compositions that could be seen in nature. For those compositions I have looked at reference pictures and arranged my shapes in a way that suggest 'natural'.
When I am working like this for a while I keep doing the same thing - one painting with acorns, another might be about chestnuts and so on.
To break through this I decided to make a composition of autumn leaves as they might have fallen on the ground after a strong wind.

I have used the shapes of the leaves of the hawthorn, the oak leaves and the leaves of the sycamore tree that were in my last paintings. With these shapes I filled a page in my sketchbook, sometimes erasing, most of the times adding more until I was happy with the result.

For the watercolour painting I have made a single layer background with Raw Sienna and added the leaves, using a lot of different shades of yellow, brown and red.
This took me longer than usual, but it was worth the time I spent on this painting, I have enjoyed working on this composition and the result is better than I hoped it would be.

This month I have been working with red, orange and yellow because I wanted to explore these colours a bit more. A landscape painting often is in shades of blue and green with some brown added when there are trees and that became too much of a habit to me. Green and blue are 'calming' colour shades and I wanted a change. 
Red and orange are more 'uplifting' colours and yellow is like sunshine on my paper. I have started to work with these colours during my painting vacation and now I am still exploring the possibilities. My inspiration has not stopped, so there will be more red, orange or yellow paintings in the future.

The details about paper, paint, size and availability of this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Autumn - apples and leaves

Autumn is here now, outside in nature and mostly in the shops with great food ideas, warming spices and lots of apples and pears.
Doodlewash is in autumnal moods also this month and I have combined two prompts into one still life painting.

I have made my composition directly on the watercolour paper and started painting wet-on-dry. Of course after that first layer of paint the next were done wet-on-wet and the colours of the apples and leaves were mixing as I had hoped they would. Well, most of the time they were doing as I hoped, I had to work a bit harder on some areas.

The paintings and drawings I make inspired by the prompts on the Doodlewash site are always 'something different' compared to my usual work. Here I have used some colours I don't often use and drawing a composition directly on my watercolour paper is also a bit of an experiment. There was no example and I made it up while drawing, adding leaves, apples and in the end the little branches from above while I was listening to my intuition.

The result of all those experiments is what I hoped it would be. 
This painting was made for practise and improving my skills and I am always happy when a work like this turns out nice. 

More information about this painting (materials used, availability, size, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Our chestnut tree in autumn - a pencil drawing

The leaves of our chestnut tree are changing to their autumn colours now. 
During the long hot and dry summer there were already some leaves with brown spots, but now they are changing fast. Soon they will be completely brown and fall off.

I made a reference picture on a calm day, not so much wind that the branches and leaves were moving too much for a good picture.
The leaves with all the autumn colours were what I wanted to draw and here is the result.

There is still some green left, yellow, brown and dark brown are also in the same leaves.

I enjoyed drawing this scene, layering and mixing the colours of my pencils until I had the results I wanted.

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

Peonies in autumn

We have peonies in our garden, so in springtime we enjoy the wonderful flowers and when autumn comes the leaves start colouring beautifully. 
Last autumn my daughter made some photos for me to paint. But this time I wanted to do something with the watercolour pencils I have. 
I made a simple composition from one of the photos and started colouring. I layered different colours, mixing them on my paper and after doing that I did not want to risk losing all this by brushing water over my drawing. 
So the drawing was not touched with water, only the outlines a bit so I could add a background with watercolour paint and salt for texture.
  
More information about this drawing can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr