During our short vacation in Normandy (France) we visited the town of Bayeux, mostly because our vacation home was very close to that medieval town.
We did go to see the Tapestry and the Cathedral and walked back to our car by the river Aure that flows through the town. There are two watermills in Bayeux that are still working.
We did have many nice views during our walk in Bayeux, but this one inspired me to paint.
It is quite a change after what I painted before, to do a scene with all those roofs and buildings, but I wanted to paint the colours of the houses we saw in that part of Normandy.
The roofs of the buildings in Bayeux are grey, the colour of slate. The buildings are made with a yellow stone. Even the cathedral has these colours and in the villages we passed we also saw that this stone was used for houses and farms.
While I was painting this scene I thought I made a wrong choice more than once, because this was not easy. Mostly because the scene is not what I usually paint and also a bit because I was not having ideal painting conditions like I have in my little studio at home.
In short, this was a fight - with myself, the paper, the paint, the subject, etc.
When I was about to give up, my husband said the painting is nice and I should have a rest and a cup of coffee. That helped.
This watercolour painting is not about the architecture of Old Bayeux, but about how it feels to walk there between those yellow stone buildings by the river Aure and I think I managed to paint that - even though it was not easy to do so.
The details about paper and paint, size, availability etc. can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
According to the list of subjects suggested for this month (September 2018) by Doodlewash today is Skyscraper Day.
In The Netherlands we do not have real skyscrapers, due to the condition of our soil. For inspiration I had to go to the Internet, to find me some reference pictures of skyscrapers. Of course I have used a vanishing point and a lot of lines (and my eraser), for the perspective has to be right in a composition like this.
I had already decided that I would make a painting 'looking up'. The reason for this choice lies in the Dutch name for these buildings; 'wolkenkrabbers' which translates to 'cloud scrapers'. I wanted the buildings to disappear in the clouds and a 'looking up' view would make painting that just a bit more challenging.
As it all had to be imaginary I have not copied the glass buildings that can be found on the Internet, but decided to use the colours of bricks for my buildings. This way they look more like the buildings that can be found in The Netherlands.
For this painting I have used the cellulose paper I had bought recently and this time the 'fight' was just a little bit harder. This could be caused by the fact I had to do buildings with straight lines this time, combined with the vague shapes in the clouds.
My hairdryer has done a good job here, more than once.
Once again I have used the suggestion by Doodlewash to try something I do not usually do. This time I have painted imaginary buildings in an unusual perspective.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, materials used, availability, etc.) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
After a very little bit of thought I decided to make a watercolour painting after the Conté drawing I had made on the ramparts of Nieuwpoort.
I had not made a reference picture, so for this painting I have been using my memory to paint the right colours.
In summertime that means lots of shades of green for the foliage of trees and bushes and another green, sometimes mixed with a hint of blue for the different grasses.
The tree trunks are a very dark brown. Some trees have a dark brown colour while others are almost white. These are the dark ones.
The houses stand out a little more, as they do in reality. In fact it was the view of the roofs and the tops of the houses that made me choose this spot to make the first drawing.
Usually I do not select a spot with lots and lots of rooftops, but painting in a town and not having buildings in one of my drawings did not feel right. So I compromised and this is the result.
More information about this painting (size, materials used, availability) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The little fortified town of Nieuwpoort (Netherlands) has preserved its ramparts in a beautiful manner.
A signposted walk guided me over a part of the highest wall and I really appreciated the view I had of the town on one side and the moat on the other side. Of course there were modern houses, some fields and the river Lek to be seen besides the moat.
This view is towards the old town inside the ramparts. I had found a nice spot with a view on lots of trees, some roofs and a part of the structure of the ramparts.
I decided to make a sketch - like drawing using my Conté Sketching pencils. I have started with the Sepia pencil and have added Sanguine only for the roofs of the buildings and the foliage of the trees and bushes on the foreground.
Of course this is an experiment, as I did not explore the possibilities of the Conté pencils completely. In fact this drawing is part of that exploration.
I have not decided yet whether I will use this sketch/drawing to make a watercolour painting.
More information about this drawing (size, used materials, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The ruins of the monastery of Allerheiligen, Germany are situated very nicely besides the brook and the waterfalls. As it is a touristic site, it also is very well - kept, clean and accessible. I gave some information about the history of the site before.
I painted this scene before and used the colours of reality; green for the fir trees and yellow and orange for the other trees and the bushes below. I also tried to reproduce the foggy weather of the day we were visiting the site.
But I was not finished with this scene, I wanted to paint the scene again and this time I wanted to do a fantasy in autumn colours.
For this painting I also changed my crop a bit, now I did not want to draw attention to the contrast between the green and the yellow/orange trees but I wanted to accent the ruins themselves. This time I have been depicting the difference in the structures of the walls that are still standing. Some are in natural stones, others are made of nice rectangular blocks of limestone. And all of it is striped with moist and dirt.
The trees and bushes are bare this time, as if the foliage has already been shed and the leaves have been cleaned up by the caretakers of the site.
The background still suggests a forest in autumn colours - not all the trees shed their leaves at the same time.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, colours and paper used) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
In my previous posts I already explained I was on a painting trip, one week in the Ardennes. The trip was organised by the art teachers of Buitenatelier who always know how to find great painting locations not too far from our homes.
The Ardennes, in the eastern region of Belgium is one of those great places to paint.
We live for one week in a former hotel - now a vacation home - and go to different locations every day to sketch, take pictures and paint.
This view was from the 'living room' towards the small town of Bütgenbach. The towers of the church, some houses and other buildings and of course lots of trees and bushes.
I made my sketch with the thought that I could paint from it later, back in my own home, but it turned out differently. I was encouraged to make a frame on my paper - with some tape that can easily be removed after my painting is dry - and to paint my 'View on Bütgenbach' within that smaller space on my paper. I had to use all of the space I had framed, something I do not always do when painting on a larger piece of paper.
The result is really nice, new for me and really fun to do!
More information about this painting (size, colours used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
As I mentioned before, my children like to travel and they bring home lots of pictures and stories. Both the pictures and the stories are inspiring me to paint although sometimes the pictures have to wait a while before I am ready to use them.
This is a scene in Slovenia, the small town of Ptuj as can be seen across the river Drava. The reference picture was made by my son Martijn.
The reflections of the buildings and the trees in the water attracted my attention here and I have been wanting to paint it several times, but I kept hesitating about what paper size to use and how to crop the reference picture - or not at all.
Today I just started sketching and ended up approximately halfway the reference picture.
This way I could give more attention to the reflections and that is what I wanted to do here.
More information about this watercolour (size, colours used, etc) can be found on my website www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
