Snow along the route

Two weeks ago my husband went to a congress in the South of France and he travelled there by high speed train. Along the route he saw lots of snow and made a lot of pictures from the train, for himself and for my paintings.
The pictures are of an unexpected good quality considered that the train travelled at a speed of 300 kilometres per hour.

The first snow scene, in my previous post, was completed before he was home again. Now I have seen all the pictures he made and I asked for some to be transferred to my laptop computer so I could use them as reference pictures. (very often my husband needs the desktop computer, both for his work and the charity work he does)


This snowy scene is a bit different, the trees are much closer to the railroad and the snow really needs all the shadows I painted to achieve the depth that was needed in this scene.

These scenes are a nice challenge to paint, snow is not completely white, certainly not when the landscape is uneven. 

I enjoyed painting this one and the details about paper and paint used, size etc, can be found on my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

In the Abbey garden

About two years ago I visited the Abbey of Postel (Belgium) with a group of people and I had some time alone which I used to walk in the area and sketch. 
The Abbey has a nice church and a garden around that church and both are inspiring. Because there is not much space and there were a lot of tourists as well, I did make only one sketch I was not really very happy about. So I have not painted the scene until now.

When I  made my sketch I was inspired by the trees and the backside of the church that was surrounded by them. 
To make the sketch I had to stand in the back of the herb garden and I did draw the path I was standing on in my initial sketch but I only suggested it in the painting.

When I was there, it was almost summer and the trees and bushes were full of leaves, hiding most of the church and the  other buildings of the Abbey were not visible from that standing point, most of them were hidden by the tall trees. 

For this watercolour painting I have mixed lots of greens for the trees, the bushes, the small hedgerow and of course all the shadows and I really am happy about how I manage to do that now. As I have written a long time ago, I do not use green paints any more, I mix my greens with blues and yellows and the results are really satisfying - for me.

More information about this painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

The Entrance

In  my two previous posts I have written about the estate we visited a few weeks ago and the different wrought iron fences that were to be seen from the road and the parking place. This fence must be (or may be) the main entrance to the estate of Singraven (Netherlands) as there is a road towards the building. It was closed like the others and my husband made some great reference pictures for me.

In my first post about these fences I have painted a side entry - or exit - where no road or path was blocked by the fence.
The second post was about a fence at the other side of the road, where we could enter a nice lane for a short walk.


For this painting I have made up my own composition again, so the building may be the same as in the first painting, I have changed its position again and I have also changed the amount of bushes and trees in the garden between the estate building end the fence.

The reference pictures were made when there was a lot of sunshine (for a few moments) and I have used the shadows of the small poles and the fence to create a different atmosphere for this watercolour painting.
I have used the same paper size and colour scheme as in my other paintings to connect them in more ways than only the subjects.

More information about this watercolour painting and the others I have made with the fences of this estate as sources of inspiration can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Invitation for a walk

During our short visit to the east of our country we did not explore our beautiful nature as often as we usually do. In my previous post I have already explained that this time there was a large group and we included everyone as much as possible in the plans.

This is one of the wrought iron fences we saw on the estate of Singraven. 
Compared to the one in my previous post, this one is on the other side of the road and there is an opening for those that want to make a short walk on the lanes and paths of the domain.
In fact we did enter here and made a short walk before we gathered for lunch and the drive to all our different homes.

The colour of the fence and the posts beside the gate is almost the same as the green and brown mixture of the bushes behind it and I had to look very carefully to find the shapes I had to draw.
I did take care to make the fence 'disappear' again when I painted it. 

The large trees did cast so much shadow that there are no significant 'light spots' on the grass and the lane. I have tried to show the light green of the springtime leaves on the large trees, they did manage to catch some sunlight.

More information about this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

(Behind) The fence

A short vacation of only two days in the east of our country is not enough to paint on the spot, but of course the camera was in our luggage and we used it very well again.
As we were with a group of eight, including three generations, we were a bit limited in the choice of walks, excursions and sightseeing tours but we did all have as much fun as possible and I have some great pictures to paint from.

One of the places we saw was the estate of Singraven, although we did not visit the main building as it was closed for public during the weekend. 
There was a nice path for all of us to walk and beside the water mill on the other side of the road is a nice restaurant where the food is great. 

The view towards the main building has some nice wrought iron fences and I have made some pictures of one of them. The fence does not stand in a road or path, it just marks the border of the estate. It ends in the bushes on one side and in a small pond on the other side. The road towards the main entrance of the building is different, with lantern posts and of course there is a road in that scene.
The absence of a road or path is what attracted my attention in this scene.

This painting is composed with the elements I have mentioned, the main building, the grass, bushes, a small pond close to the building, branches of a nearby tree hanging over  and the fence. 
The scene is almost imaginary and I have tried to paint the atmosphere of the evening of a nice day in springtime, when the light starts to fade away and the view grows a bit misty.

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

White world - 5

Although I keep naming the paintings 'White World', there is a lot of colour to be seen in the landscape I am painting. That is of course because the white colour in the landscape is frost, frozen fog that forms ice crystals on the branches, grasses and tops of the humps of clay in the fields. There has been no snow in this landscape.

All the reference pictures I have used so far were taken during one walk of five kilometres in the hills above Saarburg, as we walked from our vacation home to the village of Ayl and back. Down in the valley there was no white at all, the temperatures were just above freezing point there.
The views were great in spite of or maybe because of the light fog we had in the beginning of the day. Taking good pictures was not easy, the camera saw too little contrast between the foggy, grey sky and the white bushes. 
This contrast could be seen with the eye so I have added my memory to the pictures when I was painting the watercolours that I named 'White World'.

Once again I have chosen a small size paper and I have used a limited palette of three colours. When we were walking the world seemed to have only two colours, white and gray but closer observation revealed browns and greens as well. I have tried to reproduce the atmosphere of that lightly foggy, cold white landscape without losing the colours that were really there.

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

White world - 4

The many pictures we made last week, walking through a wonderfully white world are not to be wasted. Of course a selection of these pictures will appear in our albums, but they are also made to be my reference for painting.

This foggy landscape is made to be painted with watercolour. At this point of our walk we were having a bit of back light so the white branches are a bit darker than the sky. There was a bit more fog here, that did change according to our location as we were walking into the valley where the village of Ayl is situated.

Once again I have made a small size painting, mostly because it matches the first three I have painted in our vacation home. The scene is not very complicated and due to the fog there is not a broad view to be painted so a small size 'fits' the subject. 

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

White world - 1

This past weekend we were on a short vacation, to the German town Saarburg.
We were in a vacation home on a hill above the town, surrounded by vineyards and some cornfields that are now bare.
The weather was a bit foggy and as the temperatures were low, everything had a layer of frost. We really were in a white world, or almost white. The fact that the original colours of the trees and fields were still showing made this landscape extra beautiful.
We made lots of pictures while we were walking over the hills to the next village (Ayl) and back to our vacation home.

The afternoons were for painting, my husband Peter was enjoying the swimming pool so I could do as I pleased.

Because I never painted a landscape like this before I chose a small size paper and I decided that only a few colours would suffice to paint the atmosphere of that slightly foggy day.
Everything just seemed white, as I said before, the original colours of the fields and trees were visible. The fog made everything that was a bit further away into a gray mass. The pure white is only at the ends of the branches and the tops of the clay in the fields. This means I had to paint much more than just a few outlines. Of course i was prepared for that and I enjoyed painting this scene. 

This is just the first one, I have painted more of this white world in the next days.

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

The Signpost

As I wrote in my previous post, we made some signposted walks during our short vacation in Reifferscheid (Eiffel, Germany). Only the second (and last) walk was signposted not so very well. 
We were happy that my husband made a picture of the information board that had all the signposted walks drawn on the map so we could find our route with the help of that picture and a navigation app.
We came upon this signpost, showing lots of destinations, but our route was not indicated. 

Despite that little fault, the signpost itself was a perfectly placed element in the landscape, the white of the indicating signs contrasting with the dark bush behind it.
I made some reference pictures and painted this scene in the afternoon when we were back in our vacation home.

I do not use rough paper very often, grain fin (or cold pressed) is my usual choice.
For this small scene I decided to try something different and I had a bit of a struggle of course, but the result is nice. 
There are some unexpected qualities to the structure of this paper and I will have to explore that a bit further - and I guess I will enjoy doing so.

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

View on Burg Reifferscheid

 

We did stay in Reifferscheid long enough to make some signposted walks. We chose some short walks of five to seven kilometers and after those walks we would take time to rest and relax in our vacation home. That was also the time for me to paint, making the most of the daylight. The evenings were for reading.
The walks started on the parking place where our car was, not far from the vacation home. We just had to pack a lunch, close the door and start walking.

The first walk we chose went downhill from the hilltop and followed a little valley towards a neighbouring village and then back again through a small forest area and the village of Reifferscheid, which is more than just the hilltop with the remains of the old castle (where our vacation home was located).

There were lots of great views and my husband made the reference picture for this watercolour painting. 
The 'horizon' is high in the painting, a change compared to my usual compositional choices.
I made the ruins with the white tower my point of interest and chose to add some drama to the bushes in front of the hill that has the ruins on top.
The path uphill and the sloping fields are suggested, not detailed.

Nowadays a lot of cityscapes are painted in a composition like this and I tried to adapt that style so I could use it 'my way' for this scene. Of course I had to think a little more while painting this one, but I am pleased with the result of my efforts.

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

In the Dunes

 

The reference picture for this painting was made by my husband Peter during a walk in the dunes with colleagues - so I was not there and only saw the pictures afterwards. 
The pictures stayed 'in stock' until inspiration would hit me. 
I am still trying to paint according to the advise I was given during my painting vacation - atmosphere first, details only when needed - and this scene is perfect for such a painting style.

A few days ago I have made a visit to my art supply store and I bought some Winsor&Newton Watercolour paper and of course I had to try that. Only after I had opened the plastic protecting the block I found out that this is a cellulose paper so I had to adapt a bit, as I usually paint on cotton paper. (W&N also has cotton paper)
This paper is different than my usual quality but I like the differences and they are not hard to deal with. 

These Dunes at the end of winter are showing only the dark branches of the bushes (that will be green in summer) and the sand in between. While working I changed the scene a bit to get a better painting and I am really happy with the result.

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

Still near Fauvillers - behind each bend in the road.....

The path we were following was curved around the hills of The Ardennes and we were expecting to descend into the Forest of Anlier very soon. But behind every bend in the path we had new views and I could not resist the temptation to make some more pictures. Especially because the light was changing fast - from misty to a clear sky with lots of sunshine. Once inside the forest that would not make so much of a difference, but now on the hillside the landscape looked much warmer.

To paint a landscape in warmer greens is not that much of a challenge when you mix your greens from blue and yellow colours. In this case I just used French Ultramarine (as I have used Payne's Grey in the previous painting and got a much colder landscape) with some shades of yellow to obtain the desired greens. Or some greens that are very close to what I had in mind.
For this painting I used a larger piece of paper to express the vastness of this particular part of our walking route. We really did have some nice views while walking this path.

Painting this scene was a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon and I am glad I finished painting before the daylight was fading away. These are the shortest days of the year and the hours of daylight seem even shorter when the sky is overcast like we had this last week.

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

View on Fauvillers

We have been walking the first day of our short vacation in The Ardennes. On the Internet we found a walk of 12 km that started in the village of Fauvillers and went downhill, passed along the river Sûre, crossed some more hills, the Forest of Anlier and returned to the village of Fauvillers again.
At this point we were still full of energy, as we had just left the village behind us. Looking back I decided to make a picture of the view we had on the village church and some of the houses. Most of the village is hidden behind the bushes and trees but what is visible is just nice for a painting.
Fauvillers is situated on top of the hill and we had to walk down to the valley of the Sûre.
This is very close to the village, so the hillside is filled with fields where at some points cows were grazing. 

The light was a bit strange that morning. By the sea the sky had been grey all day, due to Sahara sands and dust from forest fires in Portugal and Spain blowing over with an autumn storm. We just had a little bit of the dust and a grey sky in the morning, some of my pictures show a grey sky with a yellow shade, depending on the angle of the camera. Later that day the sun would be really warm and the sky was blue again.
The fields were still green, the bushes and trees are beginning to turn orange and brown.

For my painting I only used yellow and blue colours, with Burnt Sienna for the autumn colours and to mix the grey colours of the buildings. 
As the sky was overcast, there are no strong shadows, only under the bushes and in the uneven parts of the fields some dark areas can be found.

I am still experimenting with mixtures of blue and yellow colours, for this painting I have used a yellow paint I had just bought and had not used before. With every painting I make in this way I am learning and enjoying my decision to 'forget' the ready-made greens more and more.

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

View on Bütgenbach - evening mood

The first time I saw the church towers of Bütgenbach I already knew I wanted to paint them as they were at that moment: far away in the evening mist. 
I made some reference pictures to remember the atmosphere of that evening and I made a sketch of the scene in the brighter light of the following morning.
The colours were still very much related to the blues and greens of summer but after a week of shades of blue and green I needed a change. So I decided on a limited palette of french ultramarine, burnt sienna and violet to give the scene a different mood.

Because of the evening mist, there are not so many details visible on the towers and surrounding buildings, but this was the view that did draw my attention. 
Adding the 'highlights' to make the foreground stand out a bit more was a bit of an experiment as I did not know whether it would work in this colour scheme, but it turned out really nice!

More information about this watercolour painting can be found at my website: www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Ardennes - The bridge near Wirtzfeld

This vacation was used for experiments. Most people on a painting trip do that and I am no exception to that rule - at least this year I wasn't!
The team from Buitenatelier took us to a small bridge crossing a stream that will eventually flow into the reservoir of Bütgenbach. We were asked to work black and white here, with ink or charcoal.
That was to give us a change from all those fields, bushes and trees in all those shades of green. After two days we all could use that change!

Because I already had painted monochromatic yesterday, I decided to try an experiment today. When working at home, I had experimented with a watercolour under-painting for a charcoal drawing and I was not too happy with the result. Now I decided to try this on watercolour paper which is much more made to absorb water and colour than the paper I use for my charcoal drawings.
So first I have been pouring diluted watercolour paint on my paper and waited for that to dry completely before I started to draw my scene.
At this point it started to rain and the group decided to pack and return to the vacation home we were living for this week. There we all finished our work using pictures or sketches and our memories of course.

The poured watercolour had left some blank spaces, just as I wanted it to be and the drawing process was easy. The watercolour paper is much better for this mixed technique and as it is medium rough drawing on it with charcoal gives some nice surprises too.
I really like this result and will try this technique more often.

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

Ardennes - day 4

Today we are halfway our painting vacation. To give us a change from all those colours our teachers planned a black and white day - with charcoal or ink.
Because I worked monochromatic yesterday I decided to work on watercolour paper and make an 'under-painting' by pouring diluted paint and moving my paper a bit until I had a nice surprise for result.
After drying I started drawing with charcoal in my usual way. The underground was unfamiliar for charcoal, but it turned out really nice!

We had a different subject today, we drove to a nice little bridge surrounded by bushes and trees.
I really had no problem getting inspired here!

Walking around 'Naardermeer' - 8a; charcoal drawing

The last scene I painted inspired me to do a charcoal drawing as well.

I want the focus to be on the white bridge standing out against the dark chestnut tree and suggest some bushes, grasses, reeds and the small stream the bridge crosses.

That is not so difficult when I am using charcoal. In fact, almost all the effect happened by itself. Charcoal may have its limits, but it is a great material to work with.
Personally, I feel very pleased with the result of my work.

More information about this charcoal drawing and the watercolour painting I made can be found at my new website  www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Walking around 'Naardermeer' - 2a

This is a second version I made from a sketch I used earlier and this time I wanted to do a painting on a black background. Using white gouache and my watercolour paint I can create a painting that is very different from a watercolour on a white background. 
Until now I used this technique only for night scenes, with this painting I tried a daylight scene.
I am really pleased with the result. 
The technique is something I still am getting used to, but my experience is growing and problems are solved much more easily than in the first paintings I did this way.

These paintings are not so easy to picture for the purpose of showing them in this blog and other things. The light has to be good enough and my daughter has to be home to make the picture for me, my camera is not up to this task.

More information about this spot along the walk around the 'Naardermeer' is found in the blogpost with the watercolour painting I made earlier.

More information about this painting (paint and paper used, etc) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.tk 

Walking around the Naardermeer - 3a now as a charcoal drawing

Sometimes I use a working sketch more than once, I have been showing the results of those experiments before. This time I was inspired to do a charcoal drawing of the last painting I did. The bushes, trees and building are a perfect scene for such an experiment.
The wide, open landscapes with the view over the lakes of the Naardermeer area are not suitable for this approach as there are no great contrasts between dark and light due to the clouded sky.

A charcoal drawing  can give attention to other aspects of the scene compared to a watercolour painting. 
I used this idea to give more detail to the bushes and trees as the watercolour is focusing more on the white blossoms of the hawthorn bushes.
I am really happy with the result of my efforts: making a second version of a scene and having for result a work with a very different feeling to it - both versions are showing something of the way that spot really looked like.

More information about this drawing and the watercolour paintings I made after our walk around the Naardermeer can be found at  www.jannekesatelier.tk 

Walking around 'Naardermeer' - 2

The walk around our Natural Reserve Naardermeer is about 20 kms long and there is a nice variety in views, landscapes, vegetation and animals.

This time I found some information on the site of the owner of the Naardermeer: Natuurmonumenten (Natural Reserves) an organisation for the protection of our nature.

"The reserve of Naardermeer consists of several lakes, such as the Great Lake and the Wijde Blik. Around it lie swamps and marshy meadows with shallow ponds. Numerous animals and plants take advantage of these wet conditions."

The reference photo for this watercolour was taken (by myself) from a lookout point overlooking the lake called 'Naardermeer' (which the reserve is named for) where it is about to flow into the 'Grote Meer'. (The Dutch word 'meer' means lake.)

I was attracted by the clouds, the reeds, the water and the bushes nearby to show the depth in the scene.

More information about this watercolour and the other one I painted after our walk around the Naardermeer can be found at www.jannekesatelier.tk 

My website had to change address due to circumstances beyond our control.