The ladder

 

During my painting vacation our teacher and coach Ad van Aart gave me the challenge to add something unexpected to my landscapes. That started a lot of thinking, some crazy ideas and of course it resulted in some paintings.

The idea of adding a ladder to a landscape was suggested to me and after I accepted the idea, we went through my reference pictures to find a 'matching' landscape. This very empty looking landscape with a single sunlit (winter) tree at the side of a path was perfect. The original landscape is in The Netherlands, close to the town of Deventer and because of the emptiness I never really used the picture as a reference before.

First I made some thumbnail sketches to find the right ladder in the right position for the best result and after that I started painting. The colour of the ladder was decided after the landscape was finished, it had to stand out but not too much.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this work and - if you are interested in my original artworks - my contact information 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.

Church on the river - winter mood

 

The little church on the river Waal did inspire me to paint it in more than one composition, as I wrote in my previous post. In that post I also wrote about the church itself and why I decided to paint it more than once.

This time the reflections in the river are not important for my composition, instead I painted the church in a winter mood using the colours of the sky to get that particular atmosphere. Of course I could have painted a very dramatic skyscape, but our winters often have very calm days with only a few clouds in the sky that disappear within a few hours after sunrise. 

That was the calm winter mood I wanted to paint and I chose my colours carefully. The trees are bare now so there is a tangle of branches in different shades of brown. The bushes, both beside the church as well as in the foreground are more dense and I chose different shades for them. The riverside still has the dyke but most of its vegetation is resting in winter, only some bushes and shadows are visible. There is a reflection in the river, but that is not the most important part of this composition, so it is only suggested with a minimal amount of colour.

It is a winter morning and the lights in the church are on - maybe it's a Sunday, maybe the volunteers are cleaning up or decorating for a festivity, everything is possible.

Painting a winter scene from imagination while it's end of summer (all the trees I can see from my window are still green and the sky is mostly grey) is challenging but 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.

The gate between....

 

Yesterday we were in the Archeon, a museum site where houses from different ages in the past are rebuilt and filled with the materials the people used in these days. One of the big attractions of that museum is, that there are volunteers and professional historians dressed like the people of the era in question and giving lots of information about daily life in that time. Every year we meet other people, telling new tales about life in the past so revisiting is a great experience.

There is a place in the park where you can sit down in a modern playground - having lunch or waiting for playing children - and look through a gate into the scenes of the Iron Age.

While sketching the gate, I had a 'What if' moment and decided to paint that gate as if it really was a gate between the ages.

Everything behind the gate is misty and unknown, even the sky is grey, while the sky that can be seen above the gate is blue and the trees and bushes beside it are painted in shades of green. Because I wanted to suggest a distant, misty scene with bushes on the other side of the gate it may look like the fence on the left is continued in that landscape. These coincidences are only too common in a flat landscape like ours and only the grey and blurred shades that are behind the gate show the differences between the landscape that is behind the gate and the landscape that is on this side.

In the end I think that these 'happy accidents' add to the mystery of the gate. 

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

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 

Chapel - a summer storm

Another Chapel painting inspired by the season and the weather we are having now in The Netherlands. Over the last few weeks we have had a lot of thunderstorms, heavy rains with (temporarily) flooding  and the view I have from my little studio inspired me to paint.

The little Chapel we saw on the top of a hill in Germany during our short vacation last October is a 'willing subject' for paintings like this. 
The weather and the colours that will appear in the landscape are my starting point and I create an imaginary landscape according to the atmosphere I want to depict. 
There always are a hilltop, a path and the Chapel, but everything else can and will be changed according to the needs of the painting I want to make.

This time there is a hill with some trees and bushes behind it and another hill further away in the background. Summer has arrived, so there are a lot of greens in the grass, combined with some dry areas where the grass turned to straw and I have added some brighter yellows for the flowers that have to be there.
The dark clouds also darken the landscape, only the flash of lightning makes the details visible - for a short time.

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

The groceries!

The June challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' (the amateur art association of which I am a member) is Father(s day) and that meant some thinking for me.
Painting or drawing people is not what I really want to do so I had to think of something else. Animals are not my best subject either, but I am a bit more confident about my skills with that.

As it is springtime now, there are lots of father birds having to feed their young or a breeding mother bird so that was to be my subject for the challenge.
The scene is made up with a breeding mother bird and the father bird bringing in a nice fat caterpillar or something she would like to eat.

The whole scene is imaginary, I have used a photo reference for the silhouette of the father bird and I have given the birds the colours I like. The mother in brown shades to be camouflaged in her nest and the father has some violet, my favourite colour.
I emphasized the branches and green of the tree they chose for their home not as much as the birds, because they are my subject and I wanted them to stand out a bit.

Again I have used a challenge to get 'out of my comfort zone', and even though I did not 'get out' far, I did have some thinking to do here and I had to find a reference for the bird before I had the confidence to draw it. 

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

Starlings swarming

It has been a few years since I had seen them, but this year they are back: almost every evening I can see starlings swarming and looking for a good place to sleep.
They do this in the last half hour before sunset and some time after, while there is still some light. 
Maybe this is only seasonal so I am enjoying these swarming birds as often as possible. 

Of course I have also been watching them with the idea of a painting somewhere in the back of my mind. Making photographs of these swarms is not easy, the birds are too small to see in a picture made using a camera with average possibilities.
Looking and remembering does work and I have made up a swarm of my own, checking it for credibility with some of my family members.

The landscape is imaginary, but it's based on/inspired by the view from the window of my little studio. The colours used are the muted colours of the evening twilight, short after sunset.

At this time of the year we are in the last weeks of winter, some of the trees are starting to show some glimpses of green and some are still bare, waiting for warmer weather.
In the fading daylight the structures of the bark of the trees disappears, most trees are just dark shapes against the sky at that time of the evening, like they are back-lit.

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

Pathway of Dreams

This watercolour painting was made for a challenge in one of my Facebook groups. 
The January challenge in that group was "Mountains" and for a long time I thought I could not enter, because there are no mountains in my country and I do not visit mountainous landscapes during my vacations. This means that mountains are something I will have to study first, before being able to make a good painting, worthy of entering in a challenge.

But then I thought of the many 'views of Mt. Fuji' (by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai)  and decided to do something inspired by that theme, executed in my own way.
I made up a nice composition, with some trees and bushes, a road or path, a gate, some stone markers and of course the mountain.
This I painted in my own style, using a colour scheme that suggests the end of autumn or the beginning of winter.

The title of this painting refers to the gate which is a marker between the normal world and the spirit world and to the mountain itself because that is a holy mountain and an object of pilgrimage. 
Dreams or wishes are connected with the spirit world and I think that those who undertake a pilgrimage also have a dream or wish they want to be fulfilled.

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

Chapel - Conté sketching crayons on black

After having painted a lot of watercolour paintings I was looking for a change, a different technique and if possible, an experiment.
My Conté Sketching Crayons are relatively new to me (I bought them last summer and have not used them often) and I thought I could try these on my 'all black' heavy paper that I usually paint on with white gouache and some watercolour.

As the Chapel is a subject I can sketch by heart now I have done another imaginary landscape with it, now a night version. 
While I was drawing I could see the composition needed the clouds and moon for balance. 
These make the scene a bit more friendly - as I wanted this to be. 
I have tried to place the highlights in the right places and the light in the Chapel is also where it usually can be found.

The picture was more challenging than the drawing itself. I have tried to show the right colours and contrast but I fear I haven't got everything as it looks in reality.

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

Chapel, stormy weather

When I was thinking of the possibilities of placing the little chapel in imaginary landscapes, this stormy weather was one of the things that came to my mind.
As I have written in a previous post some construction work was going on in my home so I have not been able to paint as often as I like, and it has taken me a few weeks to make all the paintings that appeared 'on my list' for this project. There is even more inspiration coming up now, so I am not finished yet.

The landscape resembles the 'misty' version, and this is very much like the real landscape the chapel is standing in. It is almost alone on a hilltop, visible from afar.

Maybe you have already noticed, there is always a light in my chapel, visible through the window and the open entrance. 
Of course the chapel must have been consecrated, so it is home to the presence of God and there is always a light inside to symbolise that. 
I have chosen to emphasise that in all the versions I have made - and will make.

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

Chapel, another winter fantasy

Another watercolour painting with the little chapel we saw close to Reifferscheid (Germany) in an imaginary landscape.
This time a snow scene with a warm feeling to it, like one of those days with sunshine and some clouds. The winter sun is low, so its light is really almost gold in these days.
The inspiration for the colours I have chosen comes from a step-by-step demonstration in one of the magazines I subscribed to. I decided to try this combination - as far as I have the colours that are used in the demonstration in my own palette. There is a small difference, but that does not matter for the result.

I have changed the location of the chapel, now it is a bit hidden behind a line of bushes and some snow. 
The winter trees are added and there is another hilltop behind the little chapel. 

The shadows on the snow, indicating uneven spots hidden underneath are a bit experimental, I still have to learn how to do this. We do not often have that much snow in The Netherlands so I cannot really work from observation. Once again I have looked at some tutorials for guidelines.

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

Chapel - monochromatic

The third painting with the little chapel is a monochromatic one, I used sepia because that is a very dark colour so I can have a good range of values in my painting.
This time I added a winter tree, maybe an oak as there were lots of oak trees in the area we visited.
I have tried to paint a winter scene without any snow in it.

This is again a small size painting, mostly because my bathroom is being renewed over the past weeks and I have hidden away most of my paper to shield it from the dust that comes with these building activities. 

Another reason is of course that I really am inspired to paint this little chapel in as many imaginary landscape settings as possible and it's nice to use the same paper and size for all of these watercolour paintings.

More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, availability, etc) and the other paintings I made with the chapel can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com  

Chapel - foggy weather

The little chapel I have painted in an imaginary winter scene now returns in a November mood. 
These days the sky is gray, the leaves have fallen and there is always a slightly foggy atmosphere. The colours of all things outside are darker than usual because of the moist air.  Influenced by all that I have made a November painting.

The chapel is standing on the top of the hill and this time I have not changed that.
The fog is thick enough to let the spire fade away a little. Everything is a bit out of focus.
To achieve that I have loaded a brush with clean water and used that to make the shapes I had already painted a little blurred. 

The little chapel will be starring in more of these imaginary landscapes when I will try to paint a special atmosphere. One day - later - I want to paint it as it really is and I hope that will not be too much of a disappointment.

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

October pumpkin

The month of October has a lot of autumnal themes in it and many of these are used for online challenges. To paint the theme in the challenge and publish the painting is a nice way to go out of your comfort zone and I have been doing that several times lately.

This time the pumpkin was twice in a challenge and I like the subject, so I gave it a try.
As pumpkins are not a familiar sight in my country I had to imagine a scene using some reference pictures for the leaves of the pumpkin plant and my memory of some pumpkins that are for sale in vegetable stores in this time of the year.
I made up a scene with a pumpkin, some leaves and stems and as I was painting, more leaves were added. 
While painting I decided to make a dark background in shades of green so the orange of the pumpkin would stand out.

This painting was evolving while it was being painted, that happened because I did not have much of a plan when I started painting. The result is maybe even better than I hoped for when I started drawing my pumpkin and some leaves.

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

Autumn leaves in the wind

Of course I have to paint autumn leaves because I like their colours. I have not gathered any fallen leaves for a nice reference, so I made this scene from my imagination.

I started with dropping three colours on wet paper and waiting for that to dry (with a little help of my hair dryer)
Then I took a watercolour pencil and started drawing a composition. I looked at my 'leaves and apples' painting for some help with the shapes and then I added fallen leaves.
After this all was painted, I added some more branches and leaves in places where they seemed to be right. 
I wanted to do it this way because at first I could not predict the results after all paint had dried. Adding some branches and leaves is better than being sorry to have painted them and the composition does not work.

For this painting I have used some of my study - quality paints, because I still have  some of these and letting them sit on a shelf is not the way to use your paints.

This was fun. I have been playing with paint and water and then for the composition of the branches and leaves I have tried to react to the results of this background painting.

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