"But the birds that lived in the forest had eaten the breadcrumbs, so they couldn't find their way back."

This one is for a challenge - make a painting about a fairy tale. 

The title is a line from the fairy tale I chose, Hansel and Gretel. 

Being a landscape painter, I had to think of a scene in a forest, without people or buildings  in it to make this challenge work for me. This scene from the fairy tale is exactly what I needed.

In my forest scene are only the birds that are eating / had eaten the breadcrumbs and a hopeful owl waiting for the birds to be too full to fly away quickly. 

This was really fun, the forest is from my imagination, I used some books to help me get the shapes of the birds as believable as possible and I used my imagination again for the colours of the birds.

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.

A Winter's friendship - for a challenge

 

On the last day of the challenge of one of the Facebook groups I am in I found inspiration and time to make something for the challenge. We had to make a work in winter mood, including a snowman. 

So here is my contribution: a winter's friendship between a snowman and a scarecrow. 

They are in a field that has only some stubbles left after the harvest. A line of low bushes gives them some protection against the wind, but not as much as they would like. Even the crows are gone, so the scarecrow is happy with the company of his new friend - though the friendship will end after the arrival of spring.

For this work I have started to make the drawing of both friends, then I painted the background with watercolours. For the snowman and scarecrow I used my pencils. 

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

Nighttime conversations

 

When the end of October is near the challenges (mostly on Facebook) are about ghosts, spooky things and so on. It took a long time (and some conversations with relatives) before I had the inspiration to paint this watercolour painting.

My daughter suggested a misty forest, I thought about a spider and its web and my mother added the idea of a black cat. All that combined would make a nice scene for me to paint. Most of this is completely imaginary, only for the cat I have used one of my own reference pictures. 

For the spider's web I have used a small white wax crayon, so the lines would resist the watercolour. Not all the wax lines did resist the watercolour though so in the end I added some lines a bit with small amounts of black paint. The result is suggesting the white lines are shimmering in a beam of moonlight. 

The black cat I was painted using a mix of black and a greyish blue colour as animal fur always has variations in its shade because of the light. That suggested beam of moonlight will also have touched the cat so I had to include that in my depiction of the cat.

I have enjoyed painting this little scene and I was happy to have experimented with wax resist again - there is a lot to learn with that technique.

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

Sonic Screwdrivers, assorted

 

The last Weekly Challenge of this season is all about 'Britain' so I had to think of something original to inspire me. I do definitely not want to make the same kind of painting most other contestants will submit so I did not paint Stonehenge, Big Ben, the Monster of Loch Ness or any other obvious subject. 

Of course, there is no guarantee at all that I came up with an original idea for this painting, that will show in a week, when the results are published.

There are and have been lots of things British in my life and one of my childhood memories is the Fourth Doctor. When Doctor Who was reintroduced several years ago my children and me were watching every Sunday evening. We stopped that after my children moved out.

Searching for reference images on the internet I have chosen to paint the Sonic Screwdrivers of the Fourth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctor as they are the ones I remember the most.

This is a very simple still life, I started painting on the left side of my paper and added the other two screwdrivers one by one. I decided to stop there and the way they are distributed over the paper plane made me decide on the title which suggests an advertisement for sale the items.

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

Dreaming of... visiting a museum

 

What would I do first after our lockdown restrictions are over? I think I would love to visit a museum, there is a nice exposition about trees in the museum nearby and I want to see those paintings. 

The twelfth week of the Weekly Lockdown Challenge (Artists&Illustrators Magazine) with the theme 'Going Out' inspired me to think about the subject and paint this watercolour.

Because we still have a lockdown and the museums are closed, I chose to paint a dream-like scene about a visit to the museum. 

The visitors are not really there, they are only dreaming. Or are they ghost-visitors, and is the museum itself dreaming about better days? I don't know, I only painted it.

The visitors were added after I painted the museum wall with the paintings that are in the exposition using white watercolour paint. White watercolour paint is not very opaque, so the original painting is still visible - as I wanted it to be. The pencil lines of the sketch could not be erased completely, so these have become part of the 'ghost' images of the visitors.

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

What to choose...

 

The theme of this week's challenge (Travel) brought up the best - or worst - in me and this is the third work I have made inspired by this challenge and the description of its theme.

The announcement included the suggestion that we might travel again after this winter - and the lockdown - and we are challenged to draw or paint our favourite destinations.

That is where the stress begins!

For this drawing my husband helped me to print a photocopy of a map showing my hometown and a bit of the surrounding area. Rotterdam, a bit of the Port of Rotterdam, the old town of Dordrecht and our Natural Reserve 'De Biesbosch' are also visible on the map.

The options for a vacation are innumerable but my favourites are on the arrows on the directing post. I have guessed the direction of each destination and made the arrows so that the name should be legible. The direction post stands where my house is situated in our home town - this is approximately of course, the map is not that detailed.

The challenge is only for a week, if I had more time I would have put in much more effort than I could do now. It still was fun thinking about this one and making it - even in so little time.

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

Tulips from....

 

Last week was my birthday but we could not have any visitors, due to the lockdown regulations. My brother and sister-in-law sent me a beautiful bouquet of tulips, so there still was a bit of festivity in my home.

The tulips are gone now, but from memory I have painted a few of the beautiful flowers I have enjoyed for almost a week. There are a lot of flowers in the painting, but this is not even a third of the bouquet that was on my table.

The new challenge with 'Spring' as its theme is perfectly timed for this painting. I wanted to paint these flowers to keep their colours in my home a little longer. 

For this watercolour I have chosen not to use very strong shadows, to keep the scene light and friendly. The flowers in the bouquet all had very delicate colours and they were not placed in direct sunlight. In this time of the year the sunlight is not really strong, so the shadows are soft as well. 

Again I enjoyed painting this scene and I am happy with the result.

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

Home is....

 

For the weekly Lockdown Drawing Challenge (Artists & Illustrators Magazine) we had to draw (or paint) 'Home' - either our home or what makes us feel at home in a place.

They also explained that a drawing or a sketch are also accepted, not only completed paintings.

So this time I have been thinking about "what makes a place a 'home' for me?" and about how to put that on paper.

My home is where my kitchen is so I made a reference picture of a small part of my kitchen. I made a line drawing on a sheet of paper and added colour with my watercolour markers. This was washed out with a bit of water and the result could be called a line and wash drawing. 

To explain why I have made this drawing I added the banner with the text.

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

Family

 

This week the Lockdown Drawing Challenge is about Family. In the announcement they mentioned portraits of family members, at home or far away, but I do not paint people.

That means I had to think of something else or not participate at all. Inspiration was not far away - in a picture made by my son or my daughter-in-law. Of course I asked their permission to use the picture.

This little still life also depicts a family so I made a small painting inspired by the reference picture though it's not an exact copy of the socks on the line. I made up some details and omitted some other ones, still hoping to get an impression of the socks that can appear on a young family's washing line. 

This was the first time I have been painting a washing line, clothespins and laundry and I did enjoy the process. 

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

Our Christmas Cactus

 

The new challenge of Artists&Illustrators Magazine is 'Plants & Flowers' and we are challenged to paint the plants on our window sill, the flowers in our gardens and if there is a bouquet of flowers on the table, to paint that.

At this moment there is no bouquet of flowers in my home and in my garden there are only some small daffodils and a Hellebore left. All other flowers are still thinking about showing themselves. Last year I have already painted the daffodils and the hellebore, so I thought to paint the Christmas cactus that lives in our home on the window sill.

This plant is a very old one and it belonged to my husband before we met. It does not grow very much anymore but most years there are some flowers at Christmas.

For this watercolour I have made my pencil drawing directly on my watercolour paper, without stretching it. Later I taped it to my board, to keep it in place while I was painting. I expected to work with just a little bit of water so I thought stretching was not needed for this one. I was right about that, I did not use a lot of water and the paper did not buckle at all. 

For the green segments of the plant I have layered mixes of green, composed with more blues, yellows and sometimes even a shade of red. Each segment has at least three layers of different green mixtures, to get the colours in the painting resembling those of the real plant as good as possible.

Painting this familiar plant was nice and I am happy with the results.

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

These are mine now!

 

For the 'Animals' challenge I wanted to paint one of the cats in our family as well and I found inspiration in a picture I made very recently, at my daughter's birthday.

We had placed her presents on the table and one of her cats made himself comfortable on the one on top. He thinks everything in my daughter's house is to sit on (or in) including the visitors.

He had that 'This is mine now' - look on his face so that had to be the title of my watercolour painting. 

For this small scene I used a small size paper and I have changed the background to something less crowded (with books, furniture and my daughter) and the gift wrap is also less colourful in my painting. 

It is hard to get the colour of this cat's fur right, he is a tabby cat with a hint of grey in his hairs that is hard to get. Especially when the surrounding light is dim the hint of grey that is visible in broad daylight becomes mud-coloured. And then there is the influence of the camera that was used. This means that the results of my mixes are either too grey or not grey enough. This time I have started my mixture with some warm earth colours and greyed them a little bit with the light blue that I have used for the background.

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

Bear

 

This week the Lockdown Challenge is about animals, all kind of animals.

Of course I can find another cat picture in my albums - the pictures are mostly made by my daughter - but there are more possibilities.

Many years ago I made a sketch of one of the bears that live in the Bear Forest in Ouwehands Dierenpark (The Netherlands). Of course I asked politely for permission to draw a portrait. He or she stayed in one place, in one pose during the time I needed to make the sketch and after I had finished, the bear stood up and walked away. 

When I made that sketch, I was just beginning to draw from life and I was very insecure about drawing animals. The sketch turned out very well and I have been planning to turn it into a bigger work for years, but it stayed as it was.

So now I have looked for the sketch, used it as my reference and made a drawing with my Conté Sketching Crayons on white cardboard. I was a bit disappointed that some of the lines I made - and I thought I had blended the whole surface - appeared again when I used my spray fixative. But that may be a lesson learned for the next time.

I will submit this drawing for the challenge and there is another one I will add to this one (it is possible to enter up to three works each week) and maybe I will have time to make another cat drawing - or painting.

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

Lit by the moon

 

In one of the Facebook groups I am in the February challenge is Moon (light) and I have been waiting to see the moon this month, but it stays hidden at night.

This forced me to make an imaginary landscape in moonlight. Of course an imaginary landscape is not really a challenge for me, but the moonlight is something new.

For this watercolour painting I have chosen the imaginary landscape I have used for a snow scene with the little German chapel in it and made a snow scene lit by the moon.

The paper size is small and I have used mostly Indigo and added some colours for the details and some highlights where the moonlight touches the trees, chapel and bushes.

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

Time for coffee

 

In the weekly Lockdown Challenge there is room to submit three artworks and I usually have two works for my entry, a new one and an older one. The last challenge about hands was totally new for me, so I made two new drawings. 

This weeks 'Favourite things' is also a new subject for me, because the description made it clear, that I had to draw or paint things, a still life. Usually I have a relatively new landscape at hand but that is not what I have to submit now.

After my books I had to think of other favourite things and my coffee machine is a good one. I put it on the table - to have more room to make my drawing - and I started to draw, using only graphite pencils. I have added a touch of red, for the on-off button.

Of course this is not an easy subject, with all those round or oval shapes, black plastic reflecting almost everything and not showing the shadows correctly. To draw a perfect coffee machine, I will have to practise much more but this will have to do for now.

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

Books!

 

This week the theme of Artists&Illustrators Magazine's weekly Lockdown challenge is 'Favourite things' and of course I had to think about that. It should not be the walks in nature I enjoy so much, but things, so I had to draw or paint another still life.

There are many favourites in my home, but I like books the best. Real books, I do not use e-readers and my magazines arrive in my home when the postman brings them.

For this painting I have imagined a library room (I wish I had one) and on the table I have placed some art books about some of my favourite painters and some instructive books with favourite themes. I also added some watercolour brushes for the composition.

Painting this one took a long time, as I wanted variation in the books on the shelves and some more detail in the books on the table. It was fun to do and I am happy with the result.

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

Hand and paw

 

For this week's 'Hands' challenge I asked my daughter for pictures of her hand and a forepaw of one of her cats. Or both, but one of the 'brothers' is not so very cuddly.

She made pictures of her hand holding a forepaw while the cat was sleeping on her lap and I think he did not even notice it.

From those pictures I have tried to draw two versions with my Conté Pencils, only one of them was acceptable. She was holding her hand in a curved position and that was hard to draw. It might have been easier with black pencils, that is a lesson for next time.

This drawing, with the cat's hand curved in my daughter's hand was the best and I think it's also better than the drawing in my previous post. Of course I have submitted this one as my first entry for the challenge.

This drawing and the one in my previous post are my very first attempts at drawing hands so I am really happy that I could make recognizable drawings of such a difficult subject.

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

Helping mom

 

For the new weekly challenge of Artists&Illustrators Magazine I had to draw (or paint) hands.

I have never before tried this so this really was a challenge. From a short video of a little baby girl helping her mother to clean out the dishwasher I made a screenshot with both hands visible and holding a plate. Both the mother and the daughter are related to me.

This screenshot was my example and I have made a drawing using Conté pencils on a large sheet of paper.

For a first try this is not as bad as I feared it would be and I have submitted this one for the challenge.

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

Stormy sky

 

A new month brings new challenges and one of the Facebook groups I am in had 'Stormy Sky' as its theme for the February challenge.

For this challenge I have to paint in watercolours only and I have chosen to paint an imaginary landscape, based on our own nature. Some fields, a path and some distant trees.

The stormy sky has dark clouds of course and for this occasion I have added lightning. I have studied some reference pictures for the shapes of lightning bolts and I have made an imaginary path for the one in my painting. For the stormy mood I have included some windswept leaves.

This time I have used rough paper and the fact that this paper holds the water longer was used to create the landscape with just a few details (but the suggestion of more) because it usually is very dark under clouds like these. Adding more and more darkness and depth to the clouds was also easier on this paper.

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

First snow

 

The weekly 'Lockdown challenge' continues and this week's theme is 'snow', inspired by the snow that had fallen in the United Kingdom last week.

We did not have any snow last week, but two weeks earlier there was a little bit of snow, only during the night and my husband quickly made some pictures of our cars covered with snow. The next morning it was already gone.

Other parts of The Netherlands did get more snow over the last weeks, but we live surrounded by large amounts of water and close to the North Sea, so the temperature does not drop so easily to freezing temperatures for the whole day. 

Because of this, I could not paint a nice snow-covered landscape from a recent picture and I decided to challenge myself by painting my car, covered with some snow.  

The children that live in our street had already been gathering snow from the hood for throwing snowballs but the window and the roof were yet untouched. It was a night picture, so there was not much to be seen of the parking place and the plants and fence behind my little car. As the snow and my car are my subjects, I have added an imaginary background, suggesting a fence.

My car is really new, I got it last December and I have added the characters and numbers of the plate to make clear that I have tried to paint my own little car. This is the first time that I have painted a car and I am not unhappy with the results, given the not-so-perfect reference picture (colours, shadows and perspective were not ideal).

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

Dinner time!

 

In this time with most of Europe in a (partial) lockdown, there are a lot of art challenges to lighten the burden of having to stay close to our homes. I am trying to enter in as many challenges as possible, if only for the reason that it's good to challenge myself to improve my skills in drawing and painting.

The second week of the Lockdown Drawing challenge by Artists&Illustrators magazine has 'Dinner time' as its theme and that inspired me to make this painting of two great tits feeding on our bird feeder. As I do not paint people, I chose to paint animals that were having something to eat.

The reference pictures were made last year (we have a new feeder now) by my husband Peter and they were waiting to be used.

I have combined two pictures and the feeder is situated in an imaginary setting, ours is hanging from a small hook that is fastened at our garden shed. 

This is a 'small' scene, so I took a small piece of paper for this watercolour.

Usually I paint wet-in-wet, but this time I have painted most of the painting wet-on-dry to keep the birds recognizable. 

This is the first time in years that I have painted birds and I am really happy with the result.

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