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 

A fantasy inspired by Castle Fest

In one of the beautiful lanes on the estate surrounding Castle 'Keukenhof" I stopped to make a quick sketch with the idea to use that scene for a painting. Not all my sketches will become paintings but this one had all I needed to work from.

Of course I changed the colour scheme, in stead of all the green of summer I changed the mood to autumn with the nice golden brown shades a beech tree will have in that time of the year.

Castle Fest is all about Fantasy, Elves, Dragons but also Steampunk, Star Trek and almost everything else you can imagine.

The tents with the merchandise are still there - as if they were never taken down after the festival. 
The imaginary side of the festival is what I wanted to show here, that is why the people walking around and looking at the merchandise are only shadows - some of them wearing elaborate costumes, some of them more simply dressed - as if they too never left the estate.

This painting was great to work on. First of all I had to make a plan about how I was going to use my sketch and after that I had to paint of course. I really love this colour scheme for the warm atmosphere it gives and the colours are easy to work with.

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

A bit more about me

Some days ago I was asked by Patience Brewster to write a blogpost with a bit more information about myself as an artist. The questions asked were not that easy to answer, so I took some time to think them over and write the answers down in a nice, readable post. I hope you will enjoy this one!

I was asked to describe how I became an artist – although that was posed in several questions – and what inspires me.

As a child I was not very exposed to art like paintings and drawings. My father was an amateur photographer,  so photos and cameras were always a part of my life.

Another big part of my life is reading and that led me to watercolour. It all started with a series of lessons based on fairy tales and poetry. There I got acquainted with the wet-in-wet technique. 

More lessons were taken, now focusing on painting what I saw. Here I discovered that the landscape is my favourite subject.

I really want to show the beauty of this world in my paintings and sometimes I achieve that goal. The more I paint, the better I manage to express the feelings I have when I am in a certain landscape.

There are times in which I do not paint what I have seen personally, but what one of my children saw, photographed and told me during and after their travels. Those times I really need their words before I can paint. My son once told me that my painting expressed the atmosphere of a certain place better than his pictures did. That was really a special compliment to me!

The last few years I have also been trying to find out whose paintings I like the most.

From the past I like Rembrandt and the masters of the School of The Hague. Turner and some of the Impressionists are on my list of favourites as well. And you may think this a strange one, but I grew up with his art for it was always somewhere in school or public places: M.C. Escher. There are many contemporary watercolourists I admire so I will not bother you with that overly long list of names…

What the future will bring me I don’t know. I follow the path I started upon and I cannot really see where it will end. Along the way I hope to be surprised by fantastic landscapes, beautiful paintings and nice comments of the people who see my artwork.