Along the railroad (Mattemburgh, Netherlands)

 

A few months ago, at the end of Summer, we (my husband and me) made a walk starting at 'Landgoed Mattemburgh' which took us through the surrounding landscape with fields, mudflats, the view of Bergen op Zoom (a town in The Netherlands) and a railroad.

The walk was nice with all those differences and I made several reference pictures for later use. This one is along the railroad, very close to a point where we had to cross it again - very safe crossings of course - looking back to where we came from.

I thought this scene could be ideal to try the panorama-shaped paper I bought  last summer so I selected a nice part of the reference picture and started painting. In fact I did not find much difficulties painting this one, I only had to get used to the size of the paper.

The painting is what I hoped it would be and I really am looking forward to other paintings on this paper. The size of the paper does set some limits to the composition, but I really like these little challenges because they make me grow as a painter.

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

If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

Dead tree - pencil drawing (Kalmthoutse Heide)

 

Months ago, end of summer 2023, my husband and I were walking a nice signposted walk in 'Grenspark De Kalmthoutse Heide'  (Belgium) and at one point there was a very impressive dead tree beside the path. It was on the ground in pieces and it looked like it had been huge. Passing by the tree, I made reference pictures from different angles, each showing different views of the tree. This drawing is after the first picture I made.

The tree was lying on sand, beside the path and before a field of heath (which gives the Natural Reserve its name as heath is 'heide' in Dutch) but for the drawing I decided to concentrate on the tree.

Using my watercolour pencils and a small sheet of paper I made the drawing of the tree and used a brush with a little water to 'awaken' the colours. After that I added the sand the tree was lying on and a bit of the grasses and rubble on that sand. That part was not worked on with water, to make clear what my subject is without letting the tree 'float' on my paper.

Thes reference pictures I made of this dead tree will be used for other works, drawing or painting them or even a combination of both techniques.

This drawing is even better than what I hoped for, the use of the water to make the tree stand out in the drawing is giving me nice results, I intend to do that more often.

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

If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

A glimpse (underneath) - Kalmthoutse Heide

 

The end of summer is more sunny and warm than the 'real' summer was this year so we went for a walk over the Kalmthoutse Heide in September, enjoying a nice warm day and the last of the purple colours of the heather in bloom. We made a nice long walk, combining two signposted walks to see as much purple as possible. Of course we also passed by woodland areas, sand dunes and sand paths and some trees that were standing (almost) alone.

Under one of those trees was a nice bench for tired walkers so we sat in the shadow of the tree and my husband made a picture of this glimpse underneath the branches of the tree. He made the request for a watercolour painting and I decided to do this 'my way' with the tree in the lead role.

The roots of the tree were interesting in shape so I gave them extra attention by changing the clarity of the reference picture to see the shapes - compared to the dark mass they were in the original picture. As most of the tree is back lit, it is only natural that the roots are too dark in the picture. With some help from the photo programme I managed to get the reference image I needed, another lesson learned for the future.

For the painting I wanted the tree in the lead role, so the background, a path, bushes and some trees  is mostly suggested. The pine cones under the tree were added for structure as well as some fallen twigs.

The painting is what I hoped it would be, so I am really happy with the result.

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. If you are interested in my work (only original paintings are available) please contact me.

Fantasy in green - my chestnut tree (again)

 

Lucky me, to have a chestnut tree in the front garden, now I have an easy source of inspiration two steps from my front door. This watercolour is another one made after a reference picture of my chestnut tree.

This time I wanted to paint the foliage as it is still full and there are many patterns visible. The open spaces between the foliage can have interesting shapes - or not - depending on the standing point of the viewer.

The still growing chestnut has a very different shade of green and makes a nice focal point in front of a dark patch of shadows and leaves. The branches give structure to the image, without them you wouldn't know what you are looking at and I am not yet ready for that much abstraction.

For this watercolour painting I first made a charcoal study - which is not worth showing as it is really only a study in values and shapes, so it is not much more than patches of white, grey and black with some lines.  

If I had painted from my picture I could have been distracted by all the other things that are in our street like cars, other houses and other trees, a bit further away. Making the study first, I could 'lose' these distractions in a first step.

So I used my very sketchy study for my painting and the result is even better than I hoped for. Now I just have to remember this procedure for future paintings.

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.

Green!

 

The October challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken'  has the same theme as the Children's Books Week: Gi - Ga - Green!

So a green painting is what we have to make and fortunately it is only the beginning of Autumn, so a green spot can still be found. This spot is in my home town Papendrecht (Netherlands) close to a very busy roundabout and a school. There is a small field of grass, some trees and a line of bushes in front of the school building, all the green I could wish for, because even the sky is not very visible.

On a small sheet of paper I did start with a blue-grey for the bits of sky that were to be seen and after that I used some blues and yellows to make the shades of green I needed to paint grasses, bushes and the foliage of the trees.

This is not my usual way of painting a landscape scene, but the theme of the challenge caused this compositional choice. In fact I liked working on this painting, so perhaps in the future I will paint a forest scene like this again: mostly ground, bushes and trees, only small patches of sky. Just like I practiced during my painting vacation.

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.

In the forest - four different moods

 During my painting vacation our teacher and coach Ad van Aart invites us all to find a theme for the week and try to improve our skills in drawing or painting using that theme. My theme was painting the forest and I wanted to improve my skills in painting different moods. To achieve that a reference picture was selected with only a forest ground and trees in it. The trees are much taller than the paintings and the forest ground is not really that empty, but it is very close to the reference. The different moods are created using different colour schemes. 

The first painting was not the first made, but as there were more paintings, we started to create a sequence - without much success as there are many possibilities here.

So the seasonal sequence is used in this blog post and this one, with some dark greens where the branches might be and on the forest floor is the end of Summer.

This second painting, with shades of yellow where the branches might be and on the forest floor is Autumn. In fact, this one was painted without blue colours as I wanted to investigate that possibility. Brown and blue is a combination I have used before so I wanted to try something different. The result is a gentle Autumn mood.

The third painting of this blog post was to be a November mist day, as we have often in The Netherlands. This was quite a challenge as I painted trees, made them fade with water, dried this all and repeated this two more times before painting the big dark (wet trees are very dark) trees in the foreground. I noticed that I have lost the trees of the background, the first layer, in the process. Then I realised that during one of these misty days this is exactly what happens - the trees that are a bit further away ar not visible any more. So I think this is what had to happen in the painting too.

The fourth painting is Winter, the dark shade of blue that is chosen for the background does suggest that time of the year.

Painting this series of four moods was a nice challenge. It was great to see the difference a shade of blue or yellow could make and these four paintings are an important part of my learning process of the painting week.

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

Kalmthoutse Heide - August

 

Now is the time of the year that the heather is in bloom so we went for a walk on the 'Kalmthoutse Heide', a protected Natural Reserve that is mostly in Belgium but crosses the border with The Netherlands in the Western parts of the Reserve. Because of the various lockdowns we had over the last year and a half, we had not visited the Kalmthoutse Heide for a long time.

We made the signposted walk that was our first in that area and we could see some differences - nature did not really suffer during the lockdowns. Of course I made several (reference) pictures of the heather in full bloom and some other nice views.

One of these pictures is used for this watercolour. The clouds were really dark, we had rain twice during the walk and because of the grey sky the trees also looked like dark shapes without much contrast. Of course I did not paint every little flower on every patch of heather, I prefer to paint an impression of the landscape and the viewer is welcome to imagine the details. 

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.

They fell too early....

 

The chestnut tree in our garden had a lot of flowers this spring and there were many little chestnuts growing on the branches of the tree. Usually there are more little chestnuts than the tree can feed so over time some fall. That begins at the end of spring and it will end in a few weeks. The ones that are still in the tree by then will grow to be beautiful large chestnuts.  

What falls now is at least three to five centimetres in diameter and when they open, a very little chestnut is already inside.

For this watercolour painting I have dripped some paint on a stretched watercolour paper, like I did during my painting vacation,. This time the paint I used was not very concentrated so it would dry faster (I work indoors now) and it could also be painted over without disturbing the background layer. 

On my background I have made a composition of chestnuts still inside their husks and some of the empty husks, that have opened after drying. Some are exactly the right size, but most of the chestnuts are painted larger than life. The fallen chestnut shells dry quickly and turn (dark) brown so I used the real colours of my subjects to paint them. Adding shadows to these dark brown colours was not easy, but I managed to suggest their round shapes and add some depth to the composition.

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

Timber

 

When we are walking in a woodland area, we always see stacks of timber waiting for transport. This time, walking in the 'Kralingse Bos' - a woodland area in Rotterdam - we saw a stack with some really old trunks that were already in decomposition in it. It had been raining, so part of the wood was almost black and there were a lot of herbs growing near this stack.

I felt inspired to make some reference pictures and climbed around this stack of timber to have pictures from all sides. 

The idea of working with charcoal on tinted cardboard came while I was making these pictures but when I was trying to find the right composition my husband suggested I should try to add watercolour pencils (these are the only coloured pencils I have).

Of course this was an experiment for me and a challenge. The chosen composition is almost abstract and that is not my usual style.

I selected a sheet of tinted cardboard  in a medium brown colour, so I could add some darkness with the charcoal where needed and the light green of the leaves would still be visible.

I started drawing the leaves and stems of the herbs with the pencils and added charcoal later. While I was working, I found that I could work with the pencils over a surface with a little charcoal on it, so I could add some depth in my drawing.  The patches of moss on the timber were not so easy, I have to practise a bit more on that.

The timber is done with charcoal and at first I despaired if it would ever be right, but halfway I got courage - things were looking good and I grew more and more confident about the way I had to draw these sawn off tree trunks.

This was an experiment for me and I am very happy with the result. 

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this drawing  can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Mushrooms - end of summer

 

My first mushroom painting of this year. 

There will be more mushroom paintings in the next months as I hope to make some nice reference pictures during our walks. The reference picture for this watercolour was made by my husband a few weeks ago.

The picture shows some large white mushrooms and dark green nettle leaves. 

As the mushrooms were pictures from above, it was not really easy to paint them as recognizable mushrooms. I have added some extra leaves, stalks and shadows to turn this scene into a better painting. Yes, there was a challenge here.

The contrast between the light mushrooms and the darkness of the soil and the nettle leaves was what made my husband make the reference picture in the first place so I have done my best to emphasize that contrast in my painting. 

I have used a small size paper and some dark colours that are relatively new for me.  The result is what I hoped it would be and I am inspired to use these colours more often.

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

Butterfly - end of summer

 

Several weeks ago I started painting the visitors to the flowers that inspire me to paint. That resulted in two paintings with bumble bees and a question to my daughter for reference pictures of butterflies (as these are not waiting for a picture to be made using my phone). She sent me some beautiful pictures to begin with and this one inspired me very much.

This beautiful butterfly (Vanessa atalanta) is not on a flower, but surrounded by dry, fallen leaves as happens in the end of summer, when the trees are already losing their foliage because of heat and drought.

Using the reference picture (thank you Mariska) I made a composition with the butterfly ant the leaf it was sitting on and surrounded them with leaves from the picture, but not exactly as was shown in the reference. 

I took great care to make the leaves look fallen and dry and keep the butterfly in the center of attention. Some of the leaves are not as detailed as possible but to my idea this improves the composition of my  painting.

The information about the paper and paint I used, the size and availability of this painting can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Hawthorn berries

After I have been painting flowers last week and one more after returning home I was looking for inspiration again while we were walking in a park. There were not many flowers left and the berries on the bushes were attracting my attention. That is why I made some reference pictures of the fruits of the hawthorn bushes we were passing.
I like the hawthorn bushes, in springtime they have wonderful flowers, the whole bush seems to turn white and their fruits are early as well, now is the end of summer in our country (Netherlands) and the bushes and trees of the hawthorn are already showing more red fruits than green leaves in some places.

Using my reference pictures I have been making a composition of the shapes of some of the leaves and some groups of berries. For my colour scheme I decided on a mixture of reds and browns to make it look like an autumn painting.

The background was painted first in a few layers and I already took care to leave a light spot where the group of berries would be painted.
The composition was drawn on my background - I really do draw this again, so mistakes and corrections are possible and I can adapt my composition to the size of my paper when that is necessary.
Using the colours of my background and one extra shade of red I painted all the leaves, berries, bits of branches and of course I added shadows and saved the highlights.

These last few weeks I am exploring the colour combinations I can make with the paints that are in my collection. I like to paint using harmonious colour schemes and though these kind of paintings often need a contrasting colour for depth, shadows or defining shapes I am happy that most of the paintings I have made these last weeks are what I hoped them to be or sometimes even better.

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

Our chestnut tree - end of summer

It's about time for an update on the chestnut tree in my front garden.
The chestnuts are falling off early this year, probably due to the hot and dry summer we had here. They fall inside their shells this time, sometimes in small groups with a part of the branch they were growing on.
Most of these will end in school, as my husband is a (primary) school teacher. 
I have 'saved' some of them and used a chestnut in its shell and a bit of a branch for a drawing.

For this drawing I have not made a sketch, the model was on my drawing table and I have used it directly. 
I have chosen some colours from my Graphitint Pencils and my Watercolour Pencils and combined them, mixing colours like I do when I am painting, until I had the results I was looking for.

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

End of summer - the Viburnum has berries

The end of the long, hot summer is here and most of the days the weather is inviting for a walk. Very close to my home is the 'Alblasserbos' so we don't have to take the car to get to the beginning of our walk. The forest area itself has lots of oak trees, willows, beech trees and poplars, but the outer edges have bushes of all sorts. 
Amongst these bushes are some Viburnums and they are showing their berries now. The leaves are changing colour and are full of small holes, that may be due to the extremely dry summer we had this year.

I made some reference pictures with the idea to paint the berries and some of the leaves.
Of course I could have used a white background, but that was not what I wanted. The rest of the bush - and the other bushes standing next to this one - are suggested by the variety in green colours and some lines that suggest more leaves.
The background is done wet - in - wet and the suggested leaves are placed on a dry surface and faded with a little water.

I had applied masking fluid for the branches and it was not easy to fade the hard edges after removing the masking fluid. Maybe next time I will try to shape the branches by taking out the paint with a moist brush, so I can compare the results of both techniques.

The leaves and berries were left white and filled in later. Finding the right shade of green was the next 'problem' and I have added a bit more yellow and a brown to suggest the autumn colours that were visible in most parts of the bush. 
The berries had different colours, some very red, some a bit more orange. Finding the right colour mixes was not difficult. I added some suggestions of berries to the background.
The leaves were still not what I wanted, so I took one of my Line Markers and drew the leaf veins with it. The result was what I had hoped for and I decided to stop at this point.

The picture may not show the painting as it is, please tilt the screen a bit to see all the shades of green I have painted. 

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

Highland Cattle in the 'polder'

This year we have a very dry, very hot summer and now (halfway August) lots of trees and bushes have begun to change to their autumn colours. The colour change varies from subtle to very visible and even loss of foliage and an early shedding of fruits (acorns, chestnuts, etc.) is happening now.
Our walks in parks or nature reserves are colourful and inspiring me to make reference pictures so I can paint later.

We made a short walk in the area of the 'Broekpolder' near Vlaardingen (Netherlands) and a large part of that area is being grazed by Highland Cattle. They can be seen almost everywhere and they are not shy at all. This mother and child were in one of the lower fields, following the path that was made by some other members of the herd towards the water.
They are partly hidden by the high grasses and make a nice point of interest. 

Sketching them on smooth paper is easy, I had to do that to explore the forms of the cattle as I do not often draw or paint cattle. To copy that initial sketch to my watercolour paper is a bit of a challenge as the surface of my watercolour paper is textured. In fact this took me more time and use of the eraser than the initial drawing in my sketchbook.

Once again I have tried to focus on atmosphere in my painting, so the Highland Cattle  had to be recognisable but not very detailed. The field has many grasses and herbs and that gives a very colourful view. The bushes are very close to the water and have not started to change colour but the trees are further off and already changing to their autumn colours.

I am still exploring this 'new path' I have chosen for my paintings and I am looking for variation in my choice of subjects in order to find out what suits me best.
So my travelling along this 'new path' will be continued, but I do not really know where it will lead me.

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