Tree collage - for a challenge

 

This month the challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is called 'Papier hier!' translated to 'paper here!', the words that come from the large trash collectors in the famous theme parc 'De Efteling'. A fairy tale figure - always hungry - cries for the paper (and other trash) and answers with a 'thank you' if he is given something.

For the challenge we were asked to do something creative with paper - not an ordinary material, but in fact really versatile.

This was a bit of a challenge for me, I'm not much of a crafter anymore - especially since I started painting. So I had to think about what would be best to hand in.

For this work I tore up old printed matter (with a collection of watercolours of mine) and pasted it on a sheet of A3 paper. On the back I very roughly drew an indication of the annual rings of a tree stump and cut the rings out.

I traced the structure of wood - but as planks - on a sheet of watercolour paper and coloured it with watercolour markers.

I glued the cut-out collage on top and the rings that I did not use immediately were applied upside down at the top right. Because this turned out va bit too white I glued narrow edges of collage on top.

So I did some crafting, some drawing and I used trees as my inspiration again.

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

Walking! - collage and Conté drawing

 

The March challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is 'In our family...' the theme of the Books Week that is happening each month of March in The Netherlands.

In our family we like to go for a nice walk, preferably a forest walk.

For my contribution I have made a collage of walking maps, the legenda of these maps, some titles of the walks, a bit of a description and of course the icon for a restaurant (coffee cup) from old magazines on tinted cardboard and sprayed that with fixative for Conté Crayons. 

On that layer I started drawing a forest path with the Conté Sketching Crayons, but I had to use more layers of fixative before the crayons really did 'hold' on the magazine paper. For this I was prepared, I did read about it somewhere in the past.

After some layers I found that there was a difference in paper quality that could not be covered up with fixative so I let that be part of the experiment's results.

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

Moving house - for a challenge

 

The May challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about moving house. May traditionally was the month to move house (I did not know that and I think I rarely did move house in May) so that's why we have this theme.

That theme is a bit out of my comfort zone, so first I thought of boxes - but within days after the challenge was announced paintings and drawings with boxes were submitted, so I had to think of something else.

This is a bit 'the story of my life' as I used a print of the map of The Netherlands to point the places where I lived and made small drawings of what happened there. Of course I did not draw everything, things should still be visible.

1 is Venlo, I was born there, but did not live there very long. My father got a job far away so we moved to Zwijndrecht, where we lived in three different homes (2, 3 and 4). I grew up there, played and went to school. 5 is Spijkenisse, another change because of my father's work. I got my diplomas for the secondary school and my professional training there. 6 is Hilversum, 7 and 8 are Amsterdam. There I moved for my own job. I married my husband and the children were born in home no. 8 as well and after that in got too small we moved to our first bought home (the others were rental) in Zaandam, no. 9. Finally, 10 is Papendrecht where we moved for my husband's job and we still live here. I discovered my passion for watercolour painting and drawing here.

That was not really much about my submission for the challenge, but a bit of information about me. Of course there is much more to tell 'about me' but I am a painter, not a novelist. So for this time you will have to do with what I wrote about moving house in my life.

High Tea (mixed media with collage)

 

The July challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is 'Aan Tafel' or At the table. There are many ways to find inspiration with this theme, beginning with the call for lunch or dinner when we were young. Those who have seen a swarm of starlings coming to a feeding table can understand what my first thoughts were.

But a nice ending of a day out was what made me try this one: a collage with (parts of) tea bag packages, the sweet treats and the glasses with tea of a High Tea that was enjoyed after a nice walk in our beautiful nature (paintings of that will be made later).

Using my watercolour markers - and a brush with water - I made the illustrations of the sweet treats and the tea, drawing parts of the lines with a fine liner. Parts of the packages of the tea bags are cut out and  glued to the paper, completing my composition.

The result is not only a contribution to the challenge, but also a nice memory of a special day.

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

And there was light....

 

During the week of painting with teacher Ad van Aart there was a day with a lesson about a 'surprising turn' in a painting or drawing. While looking for inspiration for the work in my previous post I found printed pictures of pages taken from the King James Bible and I wanted to use these in a mixed media work. Of course I discussed my plans with Ad first and we came up with a nice composition.

After cutting out the parts I wanted to use, I glued them to a sheet of watercolour paper with a transparent paste for acrylics and waited for it to dry.

I was inspired by the way these pages were printed, dark below and more light at the top of the pages. 

The part below the pages had to be a dark and unforgiving landscape, the part above the pages was to be much more friendly. The acrylic paste did influence the way my watercolour paint was to be applied to the underground, but in this case it only enhanced the atmosphere I wanted to create.

I was surprised and happy that one of my fellow students wanted to buy this work.

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