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.

Lough Corib - looking over the green fields

Last year in the springtime my son and his girlfriend went on a short trip to Ireland. They visited a lot of touristic sites and brought home a lot of pictures - of course.
They both made a series of pictures at a spot overlooking Lough Corib and I chose this view for a painting. The reference picture was made by Claudia, my son's girlfriend.

It was not really easy to give depth to a landscape that looks almost monochrome green but the walls in the fields helped a lot. 
The tree in the foreground was starting to get its foliage, but it was not complete yet. That gives a nice view of the shorelines and the islands of the lough.

What attracted me in the series of pictures I chose this one from was the feeling of continuity, those fields and walls are there from a long time ago and will still be there a long time from now.
I really hope I have conveyed this feeling in my painting.

More information about this watercolour and the others I made after the Ireland pictures my son and his girlfriend made can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

That one little red bush

Autumn colours do not come at all trees and bushes at the same time. 
So here all was still in shades of green exept that one little bush which had coloured to a fiery red and really stood out.
I decided it deserved to be painted, so my daughter Mariska made some reference pictures for me. The green foliage was still there, but it already had a lot of thin spots. 
So I decided to make a charcoal drawing, that material makes it easier to show that air through the branches. And a Cadmium Red pastel pencil for the brave little bush.

More information about this drawing (size etc.) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

Still standing - abandoned houses

This house really is abandoned and my daughter Mariska could not resist the impulse to make some pictures. With several buildings (house, shed, stable) in different stages of decay it was really hard to find out which was which so I decided to select some of it to make up my own composition.
The chimney was to be my subject, it really did catch my attention so I had to compose my painting around it.
The contrast between the chimney and the trees is stronger now and the decay of the buildings is exaggerated as well. The tree that comes out of the middle of the house is real, the other plants growing all over are my additions. But it will not take long before those are real too!

More information about this watercolour can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Abandoned courtyard

The inspiration for this landscape came from a sunset photo my daughter Mariska made for me. The sunset is nice, with lots of clouds and colours in the sky, but the courtyard is a little worn out so my imagination had to add in some interesting details before painting this scene. 
Again, I started to wonder what this would look like after people had abandoned the site.
I exaggerated the worn out look of the courtyard to a point where normal use is not possible anymore. I added a lot of green, overgrowing the buildings and helping their decay. The sunset had to remain of course, that's what started my creative process!

More information about this watercolour (colours used, size and more) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Rijnmond - Imagining the future

Rijnmond – Imagining the future

Last month I worked on the Maasvlakte, so I had to drive west along the industries of Botlek and Europoort every morning.  What I particularly noticed was the green look of it after coming in the Europoort section. Trees, grass, bushes everywhere – and industry of course. Somehow I see the nature parts first.

Taking that road every day, I started imagining: it’s already green, what will happen when there is no more oil to process and these industries will be abandoned?

Of course it helps that many chimneys already have a rusted look, and much of the other industry as well. So a bit more rust, a bit more decay and lots of extra green.

I wanted to paint that!

Things like this have been done before, but never my way.

That meant looking well at the oil plants – and still driving safely - remembering how it looks now and picking out the structures that I think interesting.

All that was combined to create an imaginary oil plant somewhere in the area. For my composition I did some thinking. I could have chosen between horizontal and vertical but that seemed a bit too obvious to me. There had to be a curve somewhere and that can be done with a thing called ‘cantilever composition’

The vertical elements are still there and the element of desertion too; that was to be my painting.

The buildings are decayed and rusty of course, so I needed to work with more details than I usually do. I still wanted to add some ‘haziness’ which is almost always present in the Rijnmond area, due to the influence of sea, sand and blowing wind.

I am really satisfied with the result of my imagination combined with my painting efforts. Maybe I will do some more paintings on this theme.

More information about this watercolour (size, colours and paper used) can be found on www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

This way! - more beautiful views in Rotterdam

This path presented itself as an invitation to explore the Island of Brienenoord in Rotterdam, but I made a sketch of those trees first. Their form is really intriguing, as if there are at least three trees at the same spot, all twisting around each other to catch the most sunlight. And some succeed, some fail. 
In the beginning of spring, the trunks of the trees are still visible through the foliage and that's really a nice moment to paint them.

More information about this watercolour can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr

Composition in green - unexpected views in Rotterdam

There is a tiny bit of 'real' nature in Rotterdam: the Island of Brienenoord. Of course it's in the river, a bit under the Brienenoord-bridge and it's green!
At that place the river is still in open connection with the sea, so there is tidal movement which makes the island a special little spot of nature in our country.
We went to discover it on a nice warm - not too hot - day and while the others were making photos I was sketching. This willow tree had not been able to remain standing up but it is not beaten yet! From the trunk new branches are growing and blocking the view towards the other side of the little pond.
Everything was green that day, the grass, the bushes, the foliage of the trees, even the water in the pond looked green. Only the sky was blue - ish.
From my sketches I made this composition. Because the fallen tree is my main subject I did not include details of all those trees in the background.
The little waterbird made its presence well known, so I honoured its efforts.

More about this watercolour (size, colours used) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr