Mushroom - a pencil drawing

 

The reference picture for this drawing was made last Autumn by my husband Peter who had the camera. I wanted to make a drawing or painting using this reference but never really found the right inspirational moment.

Now I have made this drawing, using my Graphitint pencils for the mushroom and some Graphic pencils for the surrounding grass.

Making this was nice and relaxing, not a very difficult subject and ready in a short time.

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.

Small mushroom in summer - a pencil drawing

 

During our latest walk in the forests near Rucphen (Netherlands) we noticed a small brown mushroom and of course I made some reference pictures. The little brown mushroom was standing on the dry forest floor, between pine needles, broken branches and old mosses. Some fallen leaves were there as well, they did give some colour to the forest floor at that spot.

The single mushroom was a bit too small for a watercolour painting, so I took my pencils and made a drawing on a small size sheet of paper.

For my birthday I was given a full box (a beautiful wooden box) with all 72 colours of the watercolour pencils I usually use for my drawings and I enjoyed the new colours I could use now. 

Again I have not used any water to bring out the watercolour qualities of my pencils because I love the way my paper still shows in the areas where I have not applied many layers of pencil. The hood and stem of the mushroom are saturated with colour, mixing my colours on the paper to get the result I am after.

Buying another set of pencils just for dry drawing seems to me a waste of money and materials, I know exactly what I can do with these pencils and I like the results I get. As an extra I can also use them wet if the drawing I am working on needs it.

The type of mushroom is unknown to me and determination is difficult (I tried and failed), so it's just a small mushroom this time.

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

The school mushroom

 

The name of this charcoal drawing comes from the place where my husband made the reference picture: the schoolyard of the primary school where he is a teacher.

The schoolyard has some areas with wood chips and in this time of the year there are lots of mushrooms growing there. Most of them are trampled by the playing children, but this one had a spot where it could grow a bit bigger. My husband spotted it and made a picture.

Of course I wanted to make a painting or drawing using that reference picture. As the mushroom is grey, I decided to make a charcoal drawing.

The wood chips and bamboo grass are only suggested, as the mushroom is my subject.

For this drawing I have chosen a small piece of paper, approximately size A4.

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

Birch bracket - another one for my mushroom collection

 

Last week we had a short vacation in one of our most beautiful Natural Reserves, the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' and we had the right weather for a signposted walk every day.

This time 'we' also included our children, children-in-law and grandchild so there were a lot of cameras active during the walks. We had a very safe arrangement, with every family in a separate vacation home and the walks were made with a maximum of four adults.

During that short vacation I also brought my 'mobile studio' so I have made some paintings and drawings. This is the first one, a watercolour painting of a beautiful mushroom, a birch bracket or Fomitopsis betulina. My husband made the reference picture. There are also lots of pictures of other mushrooms, but I wanted to do something different and chose this one, growing on a birch tree.

Because I had to find out what the conditions were in our vacation home (drying time, light etc.) I started with a small painting and I simplified the scene as much as possible. This part of the tree was very dark and rough with some moss growing on it and the bushes in the background were too far away to be painted with lots of details. I still have trouble with painting moss - this time it is a green spot on the bark of the tree. The dark colours of the tree were not so much of a problem, when the layers had dried I have added some structure to it, to make clear this is not a pine tree.

For a first painting in a new place (the vacation home) it is really not a bad one. But when I am at home again I will definitely make better paintings in my own, familiar studio.

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

In the woods

 

This year is a year for mushrooms, they appear everywhere and most of all in beautiful pictures on tv shows. So of course I am inspired to paint and draw mushrooms and this time I have been looking in my archives of reference pictures.

The picture for this mixed media drawing was made several years ago and I still did not paint from it, because the mushroom (I have been looking for its name, but I still have no idea what kind of mushroom it is) is grey, almost translucent. It reminds me a bit of a jellyfish with the lines going to the middle and the semi-transparent quality of the hood.

Then I remembered I could do a drawing with my Conté Sketching Crayons, as there is a grey one in my set. I have added some more colours from the set to this drawing and I tried to add some more colours with my Graphitint pencils and a Tinted Charcoal pencil. After spraying fixative, the colours of the pencils dominated the grey hood, so I added more Conté to it, fixative again and repeated these steps one more time. The Graphitint is more dominant than I expected,  I have learned a lesson for the next time. 

The forest floor, with branches, some feathers and pine needles is only suggested here by layering Conté Crayons (smudging them with my fingers) and pencils until I had the desired result. 

This time I worked on coloured cardboard, this is a heavy paper and I have chosen a small size, because I had only one mushroom as my subject. For a group of mushrooms I would have chosen a larger sheet of paper of course.

The information about the paper, pencils and crayons I worked with, and the availability of this drawing can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com